I recently spent two hours in a "dissertation planning forum", in which my course convenor gave helpful painful advice on writing the dissertation I have not yet begun to consider.

Up till this point, my only dissertation ideas hadn't gotten much further than "Faulkner is pretty good, might like to read him" when I realized that I'll never make my academic mark re-hashing established canonical authors. No, getting a distinction will require something extra-special: hip and timely, yet well-reasoned and provocative. Thankfully, though I am doing an MA in English, my course leaves me a wide spectrum of subject matter. After a little "out-the-box" thinking, I present you with several possible dissertation titles:

Not Guilty, Y'all Got To Feel Me: Representations of the Justice System in Contemporary Hip-Hop

A Rock (of Love) and a Hard Place: Reality TV's Unrealistic Expectations for America's Skanks.

Another Evil Axis: How Soup and the Bank of America are Destroying our Country

On a Beach at High Noon: Metaphor and Simile in the Work of Heather Hunter

Not Watching 'The Watchmen': How Bad Film Adaptations Demoralize Society


Academic Success is mine, right?