The final essay assignment is now posted. You should start thinking about potential topics, and post two different ideas you have for a topic to this thread by Monday Oct 25. Read other people’s ideas & offer feedback as well!
30 thoughts on “Research paper topics”
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The idea I’m currently developing would examine chain-story narratives in relation to Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel project The Narrative Corpse. I am interested in examining how chain-story narratives, due to the evolving group-nature of the medium, change and develop and how certain narrative elements maintain the same in spite of the multi-author system. I have yet to read the novel, which has just arrived in my mailbox, but would like to ground my paper in a detailed analysis of its text and images, basing my thesis on the idea of narrative consistencies: i.e., even in such an abstract narrative, what narrative devices (character, perspective, style…) must remain consistent to give the narrative shape and coherence?
Very basic background info: If you have taken a creative writing class or gone to summer camp and told stories at a camp fire, you might be familiar with chain-story narrative. The way it works is so: one person starts the story, either writing on a piece of paper or speaking out loud, and then a second person continues the tale. The switch to the new storyteller can be timed (speak for a minute) or quantity-based (write ten words, no more). Other restrictions can be put in place; sometimes the new storyteller only knows the part of the story that precedes his, or must follow certain word-play rules. Those are the very basics.
Basic background on The Narrative Corpse: In 1990 Spiegelman, the creator of the renowned graphic novel Maus, created a graphic literary magazine. He decided to start a chain-story for the magazine and made a three-panel strip starring a stick character aptly named Sticky. The strip was then sent to another graphic novelist who created the next three panels of the story. This pattern continued and, by the end of the story, 69 artists contributed to the novel. The means of creating the novel will factor into my analysis. Authorship, in relation to the novel’s interesting creation story, could prove to be one of the key elements of my argument.
Lastly, as to other resources, I have found one extremely relevant article: Art and Evolution: Spiegelman’s The Narrative Corpse by Brian Boyd and will hopefully find more sources related to chain-stories in general. Let me know what you guys think.
that’s interesting. i have always thought of chain stories as kind of ‘gimmicky’–something you do with people at a party, read, laugh about, and then crumple up and throw away. But as you said chain stories bring up issues of authorship and narrative consistency that are worth looking at. it would be interesting to look at the chain narrative in terms of randomization, or whim. A lot of the fun of the exquisite corpse type activities is the randomness of it. are there any other narratives with this random element? You might also look at the way the narrative was contrived. how many other kinds of narratives have rules governing the actual creation of the narrative…?
…i thought i had more constructive comments, but i don’t. i like the topic though
Very interesting topic. One thing I wonder about: how much are readers aware of the mechanics of creation in a project like this vs. a more standard work? And how does that awareness shape our consumption? Are we looking more for the process of the “hand-off” than actually expecting to be engaged in a compelling narrative?
For an interesting parallel in the world of fan remix video, you might also consider Star Wars Uncut.
So…i wrote pretty extensively on another thread about my interest in the ‘operational aesthetic’ or the meta-viewing of a narrative. I’m interested in the interplay between total immersion in a narrative and reflection on the act of viewing/constructing the narrative, because i think they both occur while consuming narrative, and they both must be considered as legitimate modes–not just the immersion viewing. I don’t really have an argument or thesis yet, but i know i want to write about this aesthetic. Some people i’ve been looking at are Melies, an early French filmmaker who considered film tricks as a kind of visual magic, P.T. Barnum (mentioned in the Mittell article), Ernie Kovacs, an old TV guy who i’m kind of obsessed with and who did a lot of work with trick angles, camera gags, things like that…and others. I was also thinking about ‘rube goldberg’ machines (also, i think, mentioned in the Mittell article). The most recent one i can think of is the Ok Go video for This Too Shall Pass. I was curious as to your thoughts about whether or not you think that kind of video can be considered narrative at all…
My other idea, slightly less thought out, came out of one of our first readings. I took a linguistics class here and i was really interested in Chompsky’s Universal Grammar. Our first reading in this class mentioned several theorists who have tried to apply ideas from linguistics to construct a sort of visual and narrative ‘grammar.’ I’m not sure if such a thing could ever be constructed, but i think it would be interesting to chart out the various attempts that have been made to systematize narratives with the same kind of rigor that language has been systematized…
James – I obviously share your interest in the operational aesthetic! I think looking at one of such case studies makes sense, but be sure to tie it directly into the dimension of storytelling – how do such overt displays of craft impact the immersion into a narrative? The examples you mention seem more consistent with Gunning’s cinema of attractions, where technical astonishment trumps story. How do they work in longer-form narratives? An example that comes to mind is the show-off long take, like in Boogie Nights or Goodfellas, where the story is still ongoing, but the form offers another layer of pleasure. Let’s chat more about this idea!
(And I think the Chomsky grammar concept is interesting, but ultimately a huge research project to try to master & understand, and might end up being too mired in the theoretical.)
Only one idea so far, and it’s not very developed:
As an English major, I’d love to compare and contrast a film adaptation of a book (or multiple adaptations) to get an in-depth understanding of how filmmakers choose to adapt a written work to the screen, what techniques and tricks they employ to garner the same feelings of a book (especially in terms of character and point of view) and where changes must be made due to the two different mediums. The book I had in mind was fight club, one of my favorites as well as a very interesting films. Many of our readings, especially the Chatman book, touch upon the similarities and differences between film and literature. My only concern with this choice is that too much of my research will have to be dedicated to research in literature to get points across.
Dang…I was definitely considering this. My experience this past summer as an intern reading books and discussing how such books can work as possible films for this production company was very interesting. The way stories are translated to the screen, why certain qualities of literature narratives are highlighted over others on the screen, etc. are fascinating to investigate. I’m curious about the current trends regarding this.
I’m also interested in remakes and how certain elements are added to films to enhance the story or make them more convoluted, especially these days.
Any ideas??
Dustin,
Your posting here is too vague to really get a sense of what you’re thinking of. Can you provide some specific examples that might be a case study for your analysis?
I’ll add even plays to the switch in narrative. Play adaptations are something I should definitely be familiar with and investigate…
Questions of adaptation have certainly been written about at length. Fight Club is an interesting case, as it needs to convey a “trick” narration using very different forms of media presentation – it’s been written about a fair amount, but there’s probably more to be said. Be sure to explore the scholarship both on this film and adaptation.
I’m also interested in this idea and was considering doing a project along these lines. What I was struggling with. and the reason why I leaned away from it, is that there are so many adaptations out there. How do you choose? Why one adaptation and not another? What I concluded was that I would have needed another means to focus down my idea. It think it’s very difficult to write a good paper when the central idea is to examine a source text with its later adaptation. You need to choose an additional element, be it narration, the use of temporality or POV as you mention above, and then find a source text that exemplifies the problems one might assume would exist in adapting it. Then you could analyze how one particular example did a good or a poorer job of emulating the text’s use of POV.
One issue that would interest me around POV is the idea of first person narration. How do you take a text heavily first-person narrated and make it a film with a similar feel? Or another venture would be to do something similar with a text that has a lot of free indirect discourse. How do you translate that unspoken character influence over the narration?
I don’t know. Really cool area of analysis and I’d be interested in hearing what you and other people doing adaptations come up with.
So idea #1 I’d use the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” which is billed as a retelling of the classic myth of the Odyssey. A couple fun things about this: I’d like to write about how schema for different cultural myths changes how a story is told and how it is perceived. “O Brother” plays not only with the story of the Odyssey, but also American myths of nature and the south, and American history. If you are not familiar with these schemas, your viewing experience is very different from someone who recognizes that the basic structure of the movie comes from the Odyssey. Also, I’d like to argue that the story of the Odyssey, and by extension “O Brother,” is an episodic serial. There are individual episodes where Ulysses faces various ‘monsters,’ and there is the overarching journey home to his wife.
and #2, inspired by the genius that is Trapped in the Closet, I looked at the narrative in some other music videos. Some videos give the viewer a different take on what the story of the song is about (Joe Nichols “Tequila makes her clothes fall off” ), or provide some clarity (I don’t think Beyonce’s “If I were a Boy” makes sense without the video). And then there’s Lady Gaga, who has 2 serialized music videos (“Paparazzi” and “Telephone”), where the video has almost nothing to do with the lyrics. And with Gaga, the music video time versus actual song time is very different. Also, with youtube, searching a video for (sorry for this example, I really hate this song) Katy Perry’s “California Gurls,” you’ll also get this which looks really strange unless you’ve seen the real video, which is just as weird. So, I thought those were interesting, but I don’t have as clear of an idea where I’d want to go.
and it seems like none of the links I included showed up. the Katy Perry parody is done by Key of Awesome
Both of these are interesting topics. A key question about O Brother is how much the “based on the Odyssey” frame is there to really cite the film’s homage, or as a bit of a red herring – the Coens like to play like that, as with Fargo’s opening disclaimer that it’s based on a true story (it’s not). And then there’s the other key source for O Brother – the Preston Sturges film Sullivan’s Travels. If you write on this, definitely watch that film too!
The narrative in music video topic is also quite interesting – one question to consider is how much music fans look to videos for coherent stories, vs. more playful opportunities to play characters, reference other narratives, etc. If you choose this, you should probably narrow down by story type or a specific artist/director. Good luck!
These are all great ideas. I’m especially interested in Josh’s chain narrative idea. One, because I LOVE Art Spiegelman. Graphic novels alone are a wonderful collision of text and images that I think could relate to some of the themes we’ve discussed in class. Two, chain narratives sound exciting in a sociological way. What way do people feel like taking a story? And why?
This sort of reminds me of Japanese novels that are written from phones to websites and you read them as you go. There was a great New Yorker piece about them as well. However, I’m not sure if this is enough of a “media” narrative? The connection between Japanese film and American film is also interesting to me, or even more broadly Eastern vs. Western forms of storytelling. Totoro and Spirited Away are two of my favorites.
Another interest I have is in non-fiction storytelling, everything from documentary films to podcasts to creative non-fiction writing. There are some good texts on creating radio stories, like Ira Glass’ book Radio and pieces on http://www.transom.org. However, I worry that this class is too focused on fiction storytelling for the themes to relate enough to non-fiction. Perhaps the television version of “This American Life” would also be interesting to analyze. The way they take the basic elements of radio and add pretty visuals is unique.
I LOVE Miyazaki movies. Maybe an analysis of the different themes or devices in american animated movies would be interesting especially disney movies seeing as Miyazaki is known as the Disney of East.
I think that your idea about nonfiction storytelling could focus on how editing constructs a narrative, similar to what we’ll be doing in the video remix project. I would say that the cinema verite documentaries by the Maysles brothers would be a good place to look. I haven’t seen it but Grey Gardens is supposed to paint quite the portrait behind the two Edith Beales.
I’ll check those out thanks!
Bianca, I was also thinking about comparing Japanese and American animated films (Spirited Away is my favorite film, and my family has this long-running joke that my dad is literally the dad from Totoro).
Then I got worried that writing about a film in which my experience of it was mediated through translated subtitles or even dubbing is slightly problematic. Especially in regard to the schemata a “Western” viewer will bring to bear when watching an “Eastern” film. But maybe that in itself would be an interesting relation to look at. It’s just so difficult to be reductive like Bordwell is in this situation.
Definitely check out Akira Kurosawa’s films and his influence on Western narrative.
Bianca,
These ideas are still a bit broad – what exactly might you consider between Eastern/Western norms? There are definitely papers to be written on the topic, but you need to refine the questions and issues you’d address, as well as the specific objects of analysis. Likewise, doing non-fiction storytelling – whether TAL or otherwise – is a fine topic, looking to see how some of the principles & concepts we’ve explored apply to the form. But what specifically will you look at? If you want to bounce some more specific topics off of me, let me know.
Idea number one: I’d like to do a little bit of analysis in the current trends in the horror genre. For the most part, the horror field is saturated with torture porn flicks. Movies where the sole purpose is to watch someone cut in half or some other gruesome decapitation, which is all well and good but only up to a certain point. I briefly brought up the film Funny Games in class (although I can’t remember in what context) and how it is a commentary on the horror genre and viewers of horror films. I would like to study Funny Games and The House of the Devil as two different responses to the torture porn trend in modern horror films. I would look at what specific narrative devices torture porn films use and how they may differ with those in Funny Games and The House of the Devil. It would also be useful to look at what narrative devices are a hallmark of classic horror movies of the 70s and 80s.
My second idea is less fleshed out and maybe i’ll post another idea, but it involves films where the narrator is an actual character in the story and has control over the fabula and the syuzhet. For example, in The Princess Bride the Grandfather is narrating the story of Buttercup and Wesley to the Grandson. He is able to stop and start the story, leaving bits out and altering sections of the fabula. This idea stemmed from Stranger Than Fiction where Will Ferrell’s character is having his life narrated to him as he performs actions. For example, as he brushes his teeth, he can hear a voice in his head saying “Harold counted brushstrokes as he…” I’m not really sure where i would go with this idea but, I find the syuzhet and fabula of both movies highly entertaining and would love to study how the narrative of Stranger than Fiction works. Any thoughts?
I think it would be interesting to look at not only what has changed in the horror film genre but why it has changed also. I read a really interesting article connecting the rise of “torture porn” to the American public’s interest in the torture of suspected terrorists.
These are both interesting options. If you go with torture porn, I think it would be interesting to consider how these set pieces function as “cinema of attractions” and their relationship to the narrative – to what degree is the story motivated to string along gruesome set pieces vs. incorporating the story into the torture (perhaps as in the original Saw)? And then how the two other films comment on the narrative conventions differently would be an interesting analysis.
As for the diegetic narrator, I think it’s an interesting question, but there are so many examples – you definitely need to focus on a specific example & approach. Stranger than Fiction is a good choice, but you need a firmer sense of what you’ll be investigating. Good luck!
First idea is similar to Bianca’s, though I’ve become more interested in applying the comparison to role playing game narratives. Often I’ve found that the U.S. emphasizes world building and free choice (perhaps rooted in the pre-video game D&D framework), whereas Japan is more insistent on linear narrative and authorial storytelling. I’m interested in how storytelling operates in these sort of game experiences: MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, roleplaying action games like GTA or Mass Effect, even those lacking any real narrative structure: The Sims and, most recently, Minecraft. I think it may have something to do with Walter Fisher’s theory of the Narrative paradigm: We are provided this space in which we can simulate living; the narrative distance between player and avatar allows us to more consciously (and artfully) conceive of this “second life” as a narrative. I’d like to try to pinpoint the cultural origins of Western and Asian narrative strategies, and perhaps compare several video games to illustrate this. This could also be tied to a discussion about transcultural flows of games, and how audience reception abroad may produce a different game experience; but again, as I noted above the danger is I could end up being reductive about cultural norms, etc.
Second idea focuses on the genre of post-apocalyptic fiction. Here, I’m again interested in the idea of world-building (or rather, world-destroying) and how the narrative strategies shift across media: from literature (A Canticle for Leibowitz, The Road), to film (Mad Max, Children of Men, WALL-E, the adaptation of The Road), and video games (the Fallout series, Final Fantasy VI, Half-Life 2). I’m still developing this idea, but I think the notion of constructing a destroyed world is fascinating.
I really like the idea both of these ideas. On the videogame front, I was recently talking to a friend about Final Fantasy XII that his girlfriend was playing at the time. It has a feature that allows you to simulate all the battles and random encounters so you can just watch the narrative play out and not do anything else. I think that’s pretty interesting that it gives you an option to only see the story.
Michael,
Both of these are fine options. I think the first is quite broad, as there are so many game genres and narrative norms might differ across the forms. Focusing on a particular game or franchise would be much more guided and avoid too much generalizing. The second seems like a strong option as a test-drive for your thesis – I’d recommend focusing on 1 or 2 case studies to explore the details of world-building strategies.
The thing that I am interested in writing about is how many films nowadays–those are very successful–are then given prequels, sequels, Part III’s, IV’s, and so forth. It is interesting to see how the narrative in follow-up films is elongated, changed, and often times butchered for a profit. This is not relevant to such films like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings because they are films about pre-existing books; however, films like Pirates of the Caribbean 2, 3, and upcoming 4 is a different story altogether. The way that many narratives are left “open-ended” or rather, without a finite end, always allows for continuation. This is especially true of films that are predicted to be blockbusters.
The idea of looking at how franchises are narratively constructed is an interesting one, especially when they emerge less from an established narrative framework (like HP or LotR) but from a theme park ride like Pirates! I’m not sure exactly what you’ll be analyzing – will you look more at the narrative structure of the films or the paratexts that work to establish the broader storyworld?
I was just at comic-con and I don’t know if you’ve seen The Thing but they’re making a prequel to it entitled The Thing. This could just be another example to use in your paper, but at the panel I was attending for the prequel they talked extensively about how they used the details present in the original movie to construct the narrative of the prequel.
Also something to think about is how in some cases, sequels are made just in order to hold on to the property rights. For example, film sequels in the Ghost Rider series and the Hellraiser series are currently in production mostly for the purpose of retaining property rights.