“Don’t Panic.”
If you are at all familiar with Douglas Adams novel, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” you know that those two words are written in large, friendly letters on the book’s cover. It’s fitting, then, that I chose to do my senior research paper—a 30-35 page endeavor—on a book that is so encouraging.
At Concordia, most of the majors offered culminate in a Capstone class. This year, the English Capstone class is called “From Page to Stage to Screen,” and as you might have guessed, our focus is to look at books that have been adapted to both film and stage productions. Essentially, our goal is to take all of the knowledge that we have acquired over four years on literary theory and apply it in our papers, exploring why and how the book was adapted.
Pretty cool, right? I mean, we get to watch movies! But wait: it gets better…
Everyone in the class gets to pick their book/play/movie to research. Most people went for the classics: “Pride and Prejudice,” “Hamlet,” “A Raisin in the Sun.” I, on the other hand, wanted to write about a science fiction comedy. “Hitchhiker’s” is a fantastic read and its humor is nothing less than brilliant. I have never laughed out loud so much while reading. But many literary scholars wouldn’t give this book a second look. Some critics, in fact, put Adams work somewhere between the Sunday funnies and “real literature.” To some professors, this wouldn’t have been considered an acceptable choice for a serious, scholarly paper. But I had a meeting with my professor, Dr. Dawn Duncan, and she was flexible enough with me to hear my ideas for the paper, to let me explain that there was depth to the storyline and real genius in the writing style.
So now I’m knee-deep in research books, swimming in articles about adaptation theory and the postmodern lens. I’m looking ahead to all the writing I’ll have to do: the bibliographies, the annotations, the outlines, the late nights and the who-knows-how-many drafts. And, oh, did I mention? It has to be 30-35 pages. And because my professor was flexible, because she respected my scholarly opinion, I’m not just looking ahead at all the work I’ll have to do–I’m looking forward to it. I’m pursuing a topic that really interests me.
And even though I’ll have a lot on my plate for the rest of the semester, I’m not going to panic.