Headsfull

Hello my 12 followers (plus secret readers-I know who some of you are),

My GRE is over! It went well! The end to that saga! Now on to grad school apps, statements of purpose, and....wait, the saga isn't over at all. Whoops. Moving on....

Tomorrow afternoon I meet with my adviser to discuss my thesis and fine tune my focus. I talked with a graduated senior from last year who told me I am right on track and should not be nervous. She did not have her thesis started at this point, so I feel like I might be ok. I have preliminary writings and research. I have a start.

Nonetheless, I am worried my advisers may want works written in Arabic-which were difficult to find. I suppose my other concerns would be the need for more documentation in general. I am excited/nervous to discover what else I should be doing. I definitely feel stagnated (everyone in my life who has heard/will hear me complain and fret, I love you more than you can know).

To work out some of those nerves, I decided to make a little entry and explain to you all how I have changed my focus for my thesis over this summer. You have all shared in the majority of the information I discovered over the past few months and have hopefully learned along with me.

As you know, I am discussing the book Honour Lost by Norma Khouri. This book is a false memoir that claims that Khouri witnessed an honour crime. My thesis hopes to discover the worth of this book.

What do I mean by worth? I mean academic worth. Is this a book that is useful in discourse? Can it show students/academics something in its style, POV, etc? Or is the damage the book did to the movement to stop honour killings cancel its possible benefits? I have discussed these damages in other areas of the blog (see The Lady Vanishes).

I will discover worth in several ways. I plan to compare it to other testimonies/biographies/dedications in terms of style, language, POV and public reaction. I also will assess if this book can function as a type of memorial for other witnesses. Memory is a key aspect in all these works of writing and it will be considered. I will delve further into memory studies to try to unearth more information.

My other goal in writing this thesis is to illustrate how this book displays colonial thought (the basic Us vs. Them). I want to discover more how colonial history may have influenced her writing and decision to create the book. I am insecure about how to incorporate this portion, but perhaps it can fit along with the "worth" section.

A great hope of mine in terms of this thesis is to show how both the "Western" and "Eastern" world had a common goal: eradicating gender violence. By freeing ourselves of this colonial dialogue, we can accomplish much more (I know this is a little stars and unicorns, but you get my drift).

I hope you all wish me luck in my endeavor. This blog will continue and I will provide updates on what I am reading and my various struggles.

Best,
Liz