The next two months

Someday when I am a bit more distanced from it, I would like to write a bit about the graduate school application process. Maybe I have learned something that others might find useful. But I think I would be getting ahead of myself by assuming that there is currently anyone reading this who would benefit from that.

In the meantime, I thought I would include some information about the project I will be engaged in for the remainder of my time at Elmira. For term three, I am going to be working on an independent study of how suicide is portrayed in literature and film. As these media perceptions are likely the preconceptions people will have of those who are suicidal, I think it is important that I get a better grasp of them. Also, while literature and scientific research are fundamentally different, I believe that they can and should inform each other. Perhaps my readings and viewings will inspire some research topics. Above all, this will give me a chance to catch up on some reading and movie watching that I have been wanting to do for quite some time--nothing like an academic excuse to get it done.

I will be reading: The Sorrows of Young Werther, The Awakening, The Pact, The Bell Jar, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, and Moby Dick (the namesake of this blog).

I will be watching: Girl, Interrupted, Shawshank Redemption, Wristcutters: A Love Story, Leaving Las Vegas, Taste of Cherry, Dead Man on Campus, The Bridge, Stay, Heathers, Last Days, The Virgin Suicides, The Choice of a Lifetime, 2:37, Ghost World, Suicide Club, and Desperate Housewives.

As part of the course, I will be writing about how suicide is portrayed in the above texts and films, and comparing this to scientific literature on suicide. I am sure as the project progresses I will share portions of that writing here.