My Marathon

Remember when I was training to run a marathon and then got tendinitis? I’ve often thought about training again. My best friend has run a marathon. So many of my blog friends have ran halfs and fulls. And there’s something about training for something so seemingly insurmountable. There’s something about the anticipation – the not knowing if you will cave or flourish. Then there’s the camaraderie — the circle of support you build with similarly crazy people who are addicted to the adrenaline rush, the push and the unknown.

Well, I’ve got my own marathon date. It’s May 6th. I’ve got the circle of crazy like-minded friends who are doing this with me. And I’ve got that fear–that pit in my stomach that’s both nerve-wracking and exciting.

The only thing is…it’s not the kind of marathon you think it is.

American Literature of the 20th Century

1. How have one or more recent developments in gender studies (e.g., performativity, queer theory, post-feminist theory, among others) influenced the criticism of American literature since 1900? In your answer, refer to four primary texts as well as significant critical studies employing recent gender theory.
2. Critics and literary historians have commonly noted an “apocalyptic” strain in American writing—a longstanding fascination with cataclysms and “last things” characteristic of a millenarian vision dating back to the colonial New England Puritan ethos. Analyze the development and intensification of this national taste for apocalypse in the work of four writers.
3. The distinction between modernism and postmodernism is made in many different ways. Some critics see it as a period distinction, marking a shift in national culture; others see it as a matter of aesthetics, reacting to or extending modernism; and others see it as a difference in attitude or worldview of the writers themselves. Drawing on these or other distinctions, define modernism and postmodernism by examining two “modernist” and two “postmodernist” literary works, while referring to key theorists and critics in making your argument. What is modernist and what is postmodernist about the works you have selected, and what is the relationship between them?
4. Since the 1990s, ecocriticism has expanded its field of inquiry beyond nature writing, taking into consideration such issues as environmental justice, ecofeminism, environments, toxicity, and globalization, as well as revising literary and cultural concepts such as pastoral, wilderness, environment, apocalypse, and the nature/culture distinction. Focusing on one or two such terms and concepts, demonstrate how ecocriticism can be applied to American literature. Select four works, including at least one from before 1950, to develop your argument.
5. How have writers in the U.S. drawn on America popular music both to create innovative literary forms and to represent American experience? Consider how jazz, blues, rock and roll, country, hip hop, or other kinds of popular music are represented in American literature since 1900, and how writers respond to such music by imitating it or incorporating its techniques and traditions into their work. Develop your argument by discussing four texts, at least one that is pre-1950 and at least one poem.

I have two and a half months to prepare answers to three of these questions (and I already know which three I’m choosing! Hello, my love for gender theory, ecocrit & music!!).

On May 6th, I will have to sit at a computer for three hours and type out a brilliant and cohesive argument without books, notes, or anything but what’s been implanted in my cranky ol’ brain.

At risk at the finish line? My master’s degree.

So, for the next couple of months, I’ll be lifting weights. and books.

Running at the beach. And running on “oh shit, I’m mental” mode.

I’m certainly in a crunch and it’s got nothing to do with my abs.

Bored with my word play yet? I am!

Sending love and luck to all my comrades who are also preparing for their relative marathons this semester and year.

And, to all my quiet and scholastic readers (I know you’re out there), share your knowledge with us, please! Have you taken a similar comprehensive exam? Happen to know 20th c. American lit like the back of your hand and have primary and secondary sources to recommend (now that would be brilliant!).

And to all my friends who really have prepared and are preparing for physical marathons, I send you love, too, of course!

We’ve all got to test our limits sometimes just to remember how fast and fly we really are

<3,

The Cranky One