The Beginning of the Long Haul

Welcome to my blog. I am a doctoral candidate in English literature at a large university in Canada, and I am about to tackle the "canon" of American literature in preparation for my field exam in approximately seven months' time. The practical purpose of this blog is to give me both space and impetus to concisely organize my thoughts on the many texts I have to read over the next seven months. I'm hoping more generally that I can engage in thought-provoking dialogues about my reading, about the reasons particular texts have continued to be influential, and about the potentially exclusionary nature of literary "canons."

I'd like to give you a more specific idea of what this "exam" consists of. The comprehensive area exam ("CAE" or "comp," for short) is a test that requires you to prove, at the graduate level, that you're well-versed enough in the influential texts of your chosen field to engage in academic criticism and to eventually teach it to undergraduate students. The test consists of both oral and written components, and generally, the exam requires you to discuss the significance of particular texts, theories, and literary movements within your chosen field. Though I love all kinds of literature, and choosing a specific field to specialize in forces me to rule out many things I love, I've decided to take my CAE in American literature.  In particular, as I prepare for the exam, I hope to investigate and create connections between the texts I read to develop an overall theory of what makes American literature distinctive from literatures of other countries.

So how does your institution prepare you for the intimidating process of becoming an "expert" in the canon of American literature? They give you a long list of stuff you need to read (the most influential/significant literary texts in American literature, in theory) and tell you to go it. My doctoral supervisor suggested to me that it's important to regularly write about your reading, as you prepare for the exam; the more you write about these texts and ideas, the more you'll remember about each text, and the more easily you'll make connections between the literary texts and the secondary (critical) texts. I immediately thought that blogging about my trek through the field of American literature would be a great way to encourage myself to write on a regular basis, and what makes the blog format particularly useful to process is its demand that you be concise. Is anyone going to devotedly read to the end of a 2500 word blog post on Moby-Dick? Most people probably wouldn't, and I can't say I blame them. By the time you get English lit at the graduate level, the hard part isn't writing a lot--you could probably write a book about any book you read, given infinite time and energy.

But I don't have infinity. I have seven months to read, understand, and (ideally) converse on the significance and value of almost 100 books. My goal with this blog is to distill the highlights and key ideas from each text. I also welcome comments and ideas about the books I'm discussing; I'm basically hoping to create a dynamic sounding board as I develop ideas and theories about the field of American literature. I plan to go through my primary text list chronologically. Here I'm making a distinction between primary (literary) texts such as Moby-Dick, The Scarlet Letter, the poems of Emily Dickinson, etc., and secondary texts (influential theoretical works that provide frameworks for studying and evaluating American literature). I'm also hoping, when I have the chance, to post on other things I'm reading aside from The List. I hope you're ready to take this journey with me! Even if you haven't read the book I'm discussing in a post, I'm interested in ideas! I hope to post on my first text very soon.