Literature Review

Week 9: Literature Review

Due: (Nov. 29-Dec. 1)

Once you have started your collection of literary short forms, as well as brief annotations, you should offer a particular method for your selection. This requires a thoughtful engagement with other approaches to your particular form. Thus, the literature review. A literature review shows how your particular anthology (or field guide) interacts with other critical approaches to the same form. How is your categorization similar or different to current academic research? What is unique to your approach to the anthology or field guide? You should have already begun this process informally as you collect your examples, but this literature review is a clear and lucid explanation of what it is you are doing in relation to other writers who are also engaging your particular form.

A literature review is itself a strange activity: you are imagining a conversation with many experts in the field (the books and articles you read) and synthesizing this information into a coherent narrative that a reader can follow. The categories we are working on in this class are very broadly defined as “media studies,” “literature,” and “short,” though you may add or subtract fields depending on your topic (material, translation, gender, etc.). You want to be sure that you adequately address these fields in your oral and written presentations. If you find you have too many or too few fields to adequately address, come see me for help.

Assignment:

Choose 3-4 academic anthologies, articles, or works to evaluate that are based on your short form. You should write a two-page review (No more than two!) that clearly states the ways editors, writers, academics, or artists have attempted to categorize your particular form. You can use part of your proposal to frame the texts and your own categories in relation to both positive evaluations of the works you choose. Be aware of your contrasting method of categorization, its benefits, as well as limitations.

Format:

Two pages, Double Spaced, TNR font (not including bibliography of secondary sources)