hmmmm

Well I think I'm probably going to go along with that 'make-believe' dissertation, though it will be my undergrad thesis. I have to start getting a hold of the autobiographical literature soon - I'd say I have a good start on this already - then building contacts for interviews, then getting a hold of the historical and theoretical literature (this will be a pain, and quite expensive...), getting funding. There's a $2,500 grant my school gives that I'm pretty sure I can get, and then there's also funding from Korean organizations I've seen. Eleana Kim and Eun Kyung Min had it listed in articles, if I remember correctly. I was also thinking of asking Eleana Kim to be a thesis reader, that is, if my uni allows 'outsiders' to be on reading committees.

I'd have to formulate everything next semester, start reading, do most of the interviews this summer, and write it next year.

It sounds like this a book-length endeavor. It will be challenging - I don't know if I have to do "everything" per se, just for the thesis part, but I'd be looking towards publication. The larger issue is whether or not it's too early to write something like this. I'd basically be analyzing the history of a subfield of autobiographical literature, trying to make sense out of where it came from, why, how, and where it's going. I have no idea how long the editing process takes (for a book), so I guess a not so far-fetched speculative publishing date would be between winter 2011 and spring 2012. From what I've experienced though, I think the literature will start to shift from Koreans to Chinese girls. Some of the memoirs I've heard of are from adoptive parents, so we will hear from their children within 15 years perhaps...