Okay, so I think I am finally ready to get things started here. This whole project has changed radically since I first entertained the idea of a field study over a year and a half ago. I don't have the official dates yet, well, I haven't bought my tickets yet, since I set the dates, but this summer I will be living in (most likely) New Delhi, India conducting research for my own project. That is actually kind of terrifying. Not the India part, the doing my own project part.
I have collected a small library of books and I have started going through them to orient myself on my topic. I have not finalized what that topic will be, but the ideas I have floating around right now are a study of readership and authorship in India or a study of the writings, especially personal writings, of female authors (probably British) in India between 1750 and 1850. I am not quite sure on these, as I am not exactly sure about how to start them. I have also been throwing around the idea of looking at the origin and/or evolution of Indian literature in English. I am just concerned that because of the field study timeline, I will basically be on my own. All the universities will be on holiday basically the entire time I am there. I think they will be in session for the first week or two and then not back in session until the last week or two. To study contemporary literature I would be at the mercy of the regular people in Delhi and whatever I can get from whatever publishing companies are there (I know Penguin India is there at least). If I study history, well, I don't exactly know what the national archive has or if a lot of it is locked away in university libraries, or if the documents are just lost, which is unfortunately often the case.
Anyhow, I will be developing these ideas and solidifying them. Hopefully this will happen in the next few weeks as I really need to begin solid planning on what I am going to do. So for the next little while I am just going to power through all the books I have and see if I can't figure everything out that way.
This time this blog will be updated regularly. Since it has to be. I think I am not going to bother with any of the others like I had planned to half a year ago. I think it will work much better if I just focus on this one. My only concern is I have no idea what internet access I will have in India. That is a problem for another day though, I guess.
I have collected a small library of books and I have started going through them to orient myself on my topic. I have not finalized what that topic will be, but the ideas I have floating around right now are a study of readership and authorship in India or a study of the writings, especially personal writings, of female authors (probably British) in India between 1750 and 1850. I am not quite sure on these, as I am not exactly sure about how to start them. I have also been throwing around the idea of looking at the origin and/or evolution of Indian literature in English. I am just concerned that because of the field study timeline, I will basically be on my own. All the universities will be on holiday basically the entire time I am there. I think they will be in session for the first week or two and then not back in session until the last week or two. To study contemporary literature I would be at the mercy of the regular people in Delhi and whatever I can get from whatever publishing companies are there (I know Penguin India is there at least). If I study history, well, I don't exactly know what the national archive has or if a lot of it is locked away in university libraries, or if the documents are just lost, which is unfortunately often the case.
Anyhow, I will be developing these ideas and solidifying them. Hopefully this will happen in the next few weeks as I really need to begin solid planning on what I am going to do. So for the next little while I am just going to power through all the books I have and see if I can't figure everything out that way.
This time this blog will be updated regularly. Since it has to be. I think I am not going to bother with any of the others like I had planned to half a year ago. I think it will work much better if I just focus on this one. My only concern is I have no idea what internet access I will have in India. That is a problem for another day though, I guess.
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