Research Methods in Literary Studies

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Research Methods in Literary Studies
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Some possible topics/Issues
Internal Dynamics of the Asian family Young
Adult Preoccupations and their reflections in
literature Social Problems and their reflections
in literature Various types of Feminist Agency
Conflicts between cultures/cultural
values Oppression Race/Gender (or both)
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Some possible topics/issues

• The Shadow of Imperialism
• Aspects of Nationhood in various Countries as
  expressed through literature
• Diasporic Communities and Memories of Space and
  Place
• Archetypal Echoes (Myth and Archetypes)
• Cultural Variations of the various topic/issues
  above

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TYPES OF TEXTS

• LITERARY TEXTS (SHORT STORIES, POEMS, NOVELS,
  PLAYS, MEMOIRS ETC.)
• Magazines
• Comics
• Advertisements
• Movies
• Mini Series
• Computer Games

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Identifying your theoretical Method

• Identify the Framework that you will use when
  discussing the chosen topic/issue.
• If you have chosen a text that is not
  conventional literary fiction, i.e Film, Mini
  Series, Computer Games, Advertisements etc., you
  must clearly show that it contains/depicts
  topic/issues that can be analysed via an approach
  that you can similarly use to analyse a literary
  text.

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Identifying your theoretical Method

• Identify certain key concepts/aspects that you
  will be using to aid in your discussion of the
  topic/issue chosen.
• Explain how these will help you identify relevant
  scenes/ episodes/ items that are connected to the
  topic/issue.
• These would generally be found in a particular
  READING APPROACH/ THEORY or a combination of
  them
• (Formalism/Marxism/Feminism/Psychoanalysis/
  Postcolonialism etc.)

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK SAMPLE 1

• Topic Shadows of Imperialism
• Theoretical Framework key aspects of colonial
  discourse analysis and postcolonial theory in
  general
• ORIENTALISM - (definition of orientalism,
  sub-categories of orientalism
• OCCIDENTALISM, OTHERING, MANICHEAN DIVIDE,
  EXOTICISM, IMPERIAL HEGEMONY
• Dominance of a particular ideology (linked to
  imperialism)
• ADVERTISEMENTS British India,East India,
  Housing Projects (Marrakesh), Ads that convey an
  imperialistic nostalgia

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK SAMPLE 2

• Topic Archetypal Echoes (Myth and Archetypes)/
  Revisionings
• Identify the archetypes and the source (cultural
  texts Ramayana, Mahabaratha, Sejarah Melayu,
  Egyptian Myths, Persian Myths)
• Establish key aspects linked to archetypal theory
  
• Archetypal women maiden, mother, crone
• Archetypal personas Wizards/ Sorcerers/Witches/H
  igh Priestesses/Kings/Queens/Biblical Parables
  and Parallells etc
• The ways in which these are projected via modern
  revisionings (in literary texts/adverts/computer
  games etc

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK SAMPLE 3

• Topic Young Adult Preoccupations and their
  reflections in literature
• Aspects from Psychoanalysis, Marxism, Gender etc
• Repression
• Conflicts with Parental authority
• Oedipus/Electra Complex
• The Return of the Repressed
• Ways in which the above are presented in ways
  that appeal to young adult readers (types of
  characters/ characterisation)

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK SAMPLE 4

• Topic Diasporic Communities and Memories of
  Space and Place
• Hybridity
• UnHomeliness
• In Between Spaces
• Alienation
• Adaptations
• Syncretism
• Xenophobia
• Friction (Conflicts) between first generation and
  subsequent diasporic generations in a particular
  country
• Dialogism (internal within diasporic community
  and between a diasporic community and the Other
  within the nation)

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK SAMPLE 4

• EDUCATION AND LITERATURE
• Examination texts, methods, curriculum, teacher
  competence, teacher/student attitude or
  motivation, mode of assessment, development of
  critical/creative thinking, cultural awareness,
  etc.
• May be qualitative or quantitative

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Comparative Framework

• Establish a comparative paradigm theme, genre,
  influence, form, etc.
• Establish a validity for comparison between text
  and text or text and other areas of choice
• Establish the issue for comparison thematic,
  stylistic, archetypal, etc.
• Develop a critical/literary theory-based
  framework to make comparison
• Discuss points of convergence and divergence as
  part of findings

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Elaborating on Framework (Methodology)

• Introduce the key aspects that you have selected
  to help frame your discussion of the topic.
• Explain in detail how each aspect is extremely
  relevant to your analysis of the text selected.
• Explain in detail how you will show the link
  between the aspect and specific
  scenes/episodes/items of the text chosen.

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Elaborating on Framework (Methodology)

• Choose key theoretical Aspects that are relevant
  to the specific topic/issue that you have chosen
  for your research project.
• Do your Research on the various explanations of
  the aspects (Begin with actual theorists before
  moving on to supplementary explanations)
• Discuss the quotations that you find relevant in
  explaining the meaning of the various key
  aspects. Do not merely quote.
• Do not let the quotations speak for you .
  Elaborate on their specific details as far as
  possible.

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Elaborating on Framework (Methodology)

• Develop your framework by showing the evidence of
  the key aspects discussed earlier in specific
  scenes/episodes/items in the chosen text. These
  need to be briefly introduced as you will discuss
  the details in your analysis.
• This is necessary as you must show that you are
  able to link the theoretical aspects to the text.
• If you merely talk about the aspects without
  showing the link, it does not reflect critical
  awareness of identification and explication.

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Explaining your Theoretical Framework

• You must show that you understand each aspect by
  discussing it fully.
• Do not merely let the external reference
  materials that you select as evidence of
  theoretical issues speak for you.
• Explain what you understand of the external
  reference, show your understanding of it and
  comment on relevance to thesis/text.

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Explanation of Theoretical Framework

• otherness includes doubleness, both identity
  and difference, so that every other , every
  different than and excluded by is dialectically
  created and includes the values and meaning of
  the colonizing culture even as it rejects its
  power to define
• the western concept of the oriental is based,
  as Abdul JanMohamed argues, on the Manichean
  allegory (seeing the world as divided into
  mutually excluding opposites) if the west is
  ordered, rational, masculine, good, then the
  orient is chaotic, irrational, feminine, evil.
  Simply to reverse this polarizing is to be
  complicit in its totalizing and
  identity-destroying power (all is reduced to a
  set of dichotomies, black or white, etc.)
• Lye, John. 1998. Some Issues in Postcolonial
  Theory (1997 ). Accessed Friday, February 01,
  2008. Available online from http//www.brocku.ca/
  english/courses/4F70/postcol.html

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Explanation of Theoretical Framework

• The term 'hybrid' refers to the concept of
  hybridity, an important concept in post-colonial
  theory, referring to the integration (or,
  mingling) of cultural signs and practices from
  the colonizing and the colonized cultures
  ("integration" may be too orderly a word to
  represent the variety of stratagems, desperate or
  cunning or good-willed, by which people adapt
  themselves to the necessities and the
  opportunities of more or less oppressive or
  invasive cultural impositions, live into alien
  cultural patterns through their own structures of
  understanding, thus producing something familiar
  but new). The assimilation and adaptation of
  cultural practices, the cross-fertilization of
  cultures, can be seen as positive, enriching, and
  dynamic, as well as as oppressive. "Hybridity" is
  also a useful concept for helping to break down
  the false sense that colonized cultures -- or
  colonizing cultures for that matter -- are
  monolithic, or have essential, unchanging
  features.
• Lye, John. 1998. Some Issues in Postcolonial
  Theory (1997 ). Accessed Friday, February 01,
  2008. Available online from http//www.brocku.ca/
  english/courses/4F70/postcol.html

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Explanation of Theoretical Framework

• The term subaltern was first used out of its
  military context of inferior ranking soldiers by
  Antonio Gramsci as he adopted it to refer to the
  subordinate classes that made up the Italian
  peasantry in his Notes on Italian History. The
  constitution of that subordinate class depended
  on there being always a party that dominated the
  space within which they were situated, a
  domination that extended also to the
  configuration of the identity of the represented
  and the representative (55). The power of
  representation was almost always in the hands of
  the dominant.
• Pillai, Shanthini. (2007) Colonial Visions,
  Postcolonial Re-visions Images of the Indian
  Diaspora in Malaysia. Newcastle Upon Tyne
  Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p.xii

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Linking Theoretical Framework to Thesis Focus

• This is notably best viewed against the backdrop
  of JanMohameds concept of the economy of
  Manichean allegory that he sees as
  characteristic of most colonialist narratives in
  articulating the opposition between the putative
  superiority of the European and the supposed
  inferiority of the native (2000 1059).
• Pillai, Shanthini. (2007) Colonial Visions,
  Postcolonial Re-visions Images of the Indian
  Diaspora in Malaysia. Newcastle Upon Tyne
  Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p.19

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Linking Theoretical Framework to Analysis

• The issues raised in the passage above are
  doubly executed in the colonial narratives that I
  investigate in this chapter. They emphasise the
  nature of colonial writing as similar and
  interrelated with the economic manipulation of
  the colonial capitalist venture.
• Pillai, Shanthini. (2007) Colonial Visions,
  Postcolonial Re-visions Images of the Indian
  Diaspora in Malaysia. Newcastle Upon Tyne
  Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p.19

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Literature Review

• Identify past work done on the text that you have
  chosen.
• Do not merely look at past project papers.
• Do not use mere book reviews as literature
  review.
• You need to look at works by critics on the text,
  on the subject and on the socio-cultural backdrop
  of text.

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Literature Review

• Literature review must be specific to the area
  chosen. Avoid quoting articles that have no
  relevance to your research project.
• Articles should be from literary scholars or
  theorists as much as possible.

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Literature Review

• Discuss whether the articles you have reviewed
  deal with the specific issue that you have chosen
  for your research project.
• Identify the points in which you think you can
  offer a fresh perspective if possible.
• Discuss the works. Do not merely quote.
• Do not let the quotations speak for you either.
  Elaborate on their specific details as far as
  possible.

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Format

• Different kinds of formats depending on the kind
  of research carried out.
• Qualitative type research is written differently
  from quantitative type research
• The type of research you conduct will determine
  the way in which you write it

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Format

• Format A (in the style of a scientific research)
• Chapter 1
• Background / Context of research
• Provide information on text/author, the
  historical/socio-cultural context to the study
• Statement of the Problem
• What you will be analysing in the form of an
  ARGUMENT, where you describe the problem using
  the theory/concepts that will be utilised in the
  analysis.
• You input/stand on the issue should be clear
• Research Aims
• Research Questions
• 3-5 research questions
• Significance of Research
• Limitations of Research
• Conclusion
• Chapter 2 Literature review
• Chapter 3 Conceptual Framework methodology
• Chapter 4 Analysis
• Chapter 5 Conclusion

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Format

• Format B
• Chapter 1 Background and Aims of Research
• Summary of Chapters
• Chapter 2 Setting the Context (Literary History/
  Historical Background)
• Chapter 3 Literature Review
• Chapter 4 Conceptual Framework and methodology
• Chapter 5 Analysis
• Chapter 6 Conclusion

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Example Women in Malay Court Narratives

• I used format B
• Introduction (why I am writing the thesis and
  what to expect in the following chapters)
• Chapter 1 Setting the Context what are court
  narratives/ their characteristics
• Chapter 2 review of literature
• Chapter 3 feminist dialogics
• Chapter 4 Social Exchange
• Chapter 5 Islamic Lens
• Chapter 6 Women of Silence
• Chapter 7 Consenting Women
• Chapter 8 Dissenting Women
• Chapter 9 Conclusion

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Comparative Literature

• Comparing literature of two nations
• You need to show the literary histories of both
  nations
• Eg nationhood in Scorpion Orchid vs nationhood in
  Petals of Blood
• The historical settings of both texts
• Format
• Introduction
• Contexts (literary traditions and Historical
  backgrounds) of both Novels
• Literature review
• Conceptual framework and methodology (theories of
  nationhood how you are going to analyse)
• Analysis 1 chapter per book or issues? (colonial
  experience, independence, development)
• Conclusion

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Action Research

• The basic steps of an action research process
  constitute an action plan
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• We review our current practice,
• identify an aspect that we want to investigate,
• imagine a way forward,
• try it out, and
• take stock of what happens.
• We modify what we are doing in the light of what
  we have found, and continue working in this new
  way (try another option if the new way of working
  is not right)
• monitor what we do,
• review and evaluate the modified action
• http//www.jeanmcniff.com/booklet1.html2

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Action Research

• What issue am I interested in researching?
• Why do I want to research this issue?
• What kind of evidence can I gather to show why I
  am interested in this issue?
• What can I do? What will I do?
• What kind of evidence can I gather to show that I
  am having an influence?
• How can I explain that influence?
• How can I ensure that any judgements I might make
  are reasonably fair and accurate?
• How will I change my practice in the light of my
  evaluation?

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Abstract

• This thesis is the narrative account of my
  research programme that has enabled me to make my
  original claim to have developed a living
  epistemology of practice that is grounded in
  dialogical, holistic and creative ways of
  knowing. From my belief that each individual is
  capable of developing their potential for
  learning and knowledge creation, I have come to
  see the interconnectedness of people and their
  environments as a locus of learning which may be
  embraced through technology.
• Through my research I have developed my capacity
  for critical engagement, especially in relation
  to critiquing many normative practices in
  dominant forms of education specifically in
  terms of their underpinning technical rational
  ontologies and epistemologies of fragmentation.
  My original contributions to knowledge are to do
  with how I show that I can account for how I have
  transformed my own erstwhile fragmented
  epistemologies into holistic and inclusional
  forms of knowing and practice. From the grounds
  of my research-based practice, I am able to make
  my original claim that I have developed my living
  theory of a holistic educational practice,
  through collaborative multimedia projects, and I
  ground my evidence in the multimedia narrative of
  my research account.
• A distinctive feature of my research account is
  my articulation of how my ontological values of
  love and care have transformed into my living
  critical epistemological standards of judgement,
  as I produce my multimedia evidence-based living
  theory of a holistic educational practice.
  Through working with collaborative multimedia
  projects, I explain how I have developed an
  epistemology of practice that enables me to
  account for my educational influence in learning.
  
• Working with collaborative projects my living
  theory of a holistic educational practice -
  Máirín Glenn

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Format

• Introduction
• Chapter One What were my concerns? Examining the
  background and contexts of the research
• Chapter Two Why was I concerned? Examining my
  understanding of my practice as I clarifies my
  ontological values
• Chapter Three What could I do about my concerns?
  Examining issues around methodology
• Chapter Four What did I do about my concerns?
  Developing key insights around my research in
  terms of am emergent understanding of my practice
• Chapter Five How do I use technology to enhance a
  dialogical and inclusional epistemology?
  Examining how technology and holistic approaches
  to education can merge
• Chapter Six Developing epistemological
  justification - demonstrating validity
• Chapter Seven How do I contribute to new
  practices and theory and to the education of
  social formations? Examining how I show the
  significance and potentials of my work
• Bibliography
• Appendices
• http//www.jeanmcniff.com/glennabstract.html