Replacing ARCs with Research: 04/26/15

Sometime later this year you will start seeing reviews of research books I've read. After an encouraging chat with a Twitter friend, I decided to restart a research project I abandoned in 1997. It was going to be my PhD thesis when I was still thinking of working towards a PhD in film theory but those plans didn't work out.

Now I'm just doing the research for fun, meaning I can take the project at my own pace and in as many directions as I see fit. It also means the research doesn't have to be as film and TV centered as originally planned.

The central theme of my research is the interplay between the English language (and more specifically U.S. English) and the road. In the middle of all of this is the road trip story, or even the experience of the road trip as a form of vacation.

Before I can jump into the analysis of road trip stories, I'm building an understanding of the history of the American road, its highways, turnpikes, motels, road signs, etc. From this history I'm building a lexicon which will then feed into the story telling process.

While I'm posting my research, thoughts, quotes, etc., on Tumblr, I'll be reviewing individual books I've read here. The time spent on reading for research is time once spent on ARCs. It seems only fitting that the books themselves take up the space cleared out by the ARCs.

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