Literature

Consider the hallmark characteristics of each of the races described in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and explore the epistemic basis for racial characterization in modern fantasy novels and film. To what degree of accuracy does Tolkien's distinction between good and bad races (i.e. elves and orcs, men and haradrim, dwarves and goblins) describe racial conflicts in the western world? How does Tolkien's attempt to moralize race? What are the implications of attaching an inherent evil to a race?

When analyzing literature from the early half of the 20th century, there are clear changes in writers before and after the World Wars. The biggest shift came after the Great War, as this was the first war of this scale, with such a large body count, and with new technologies and conventions.

Now that we are coming up on 15 years after 9/11, I suspect we can see a shift in pop culture following the attack on the Twin Towers, and analyze what the shift was, how it affected each medium, and how long the shit remained.

There were works created specifically in response to the attack, including Bruce Springsteen's The Rising as well as Frank Miller's controversial follow-up to the Dark Knight Returns: The Dark Knight Strikes Again (at least in part as stated in Miller's forward to the Dark Knight Saga hardcover).Other works that were written before the attacks were deeply patriotic were brought back into the pop culture, notably Proud to be an American.

Examine pop culture before the attacks (late 90's-mid 2001), immediately after the attacks (late 2001-2002), a couple years after *2003-2005), 5-10 years after (2006-2011), and contemporary works.

The best 'good stories' have a meaning/symbolism to them, most people agree; however, some stories out there impress that too hard, some stories don't 'require' you to search for any subtext, and some stories' meanings/symbolism you only realize later. How far should one go to impress meaning/symbolism, how much should be impressed, and can/should a story be…just a story?

Since the time that the Epic genre has passed along some of the greatest works in literature, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, there is a noticeable gap in the attention it has received in spite of its influential past. The genre continues to enjoy periodical bursts of success that extends beyond the 13th century, and various works have maintained a status of exceptional etiquette among scholars of the literary discipline. The question is, why has there been fewer Epics written, and what has become of this style of literature?
It is encouraged to research the background of the Epic genre, and the examples that represent it. A suggestion is to analyze the style of these pieces over the course of time, and how they portray the period in which they are written. And finally, it may be of great importance to see how certain Epics have continued or have been remodeled in the recent years (a brilliant example is the television adaption of War and Peace), and what that may mean about the modern approach to this ancient genre.

There are many times in novels where betrayal has occurred in certain friendships for example like Macbeth and Banquo. Can we really let go and forgive others? How do you show your justification for this? If your best friend betrays you, would you be okay?

The novel World War Z is structured as an oral history, in which dozens of survivors of a zombie apocalypse are interviewed on their experiences. The interview format is one of the most striking things about the novel, and what sets it apart from other zombie apocalypse stories.
How does this structure change the readers' perception of events? What role does the unnamed and uncharacterized narrator play? If the novel were kept the same but followed a single character, possibly with flashbacks to other events, would our perception of the world change? What does this wide range of stories bring to the novel, and how do the separate interviews still form an overarching story arc?

Analyse different characters in novels who's race/ethnicity were left open for reader's interpretation. For example, in wake of the new casting of a black Hermione Granger, many people are going back to the Harry Potter books to find evidence of "whiteness" to discredit having a black Hermione. Although, never stated in the books she was black or white, many people, by default, believed that Hermione was white. Talk about why people automatically assume a default description of a character's appearance and if it hurts or helps a book series to keep a character's physical appearance open for other's to interpret.

Around three-quarters of the way through RPW's masterpiece, Jack Burden observes Adam Stanton perform a lobotomy on one of his patients. Some have argued that the lobotomy represents Jack's disassociation with the present, yet some will go further and say that Jack is watching himself undergo a lobotomy, as a sort of 'out of body' experience. Talk about the possible reasons for Jack's fascination with the surgery…what is the relationship between "The Great Twitch" and the lobotomy? Are Jack's "Great Sleeps" just the same as a lobotomy? Analyze the implications of a lobotomy in terms of Jack's existential crisis, and perhaps suggest an explanation for Jack's eventual disgust with the surgery.