Literary Research Project (LRP)

2021 - 22 Raf es Academy for English Literature | Raf es Institution

Name: ___________________________ Date: ___________ Class: _______

Assessment Objectives
1. Demonstrate an understanding of fundamental disciplinary issues and concerns
Such an understanding includes knowledge of the range and variety of critical and theoretical approaches to literary
study, the linguistic, literary, cultural and socio-historical contexts in which literature is written and read, and the
distinctive character of texts written in the principal literary genres, and of other kinds of writing and
communication. Students should also be aware of the role of critical traditions in shaping literary history and literary
interpretation.

2. Apply skills related to literary research

This includes aspects of literature review and academic writing. It also focuses on the construction of a well-founded
argument in support of an independent critical judgement. Students are also expected to re ect upon the process of
research and analysis.

3. Explore the interdisciplinary connections between literature and other disciplines

Students should recognise the multi-faceted nature of the discipline, and of its complex relationship to other
disciplines and forms of knowledge. This includes an awareness of the relationship between literature and other
media, e.g. lm.

Focus of Research
1. This will consist of a research paper of around 3000 – 3500 words.

2. This is an eight-month research project where you are to base your research on two primary texts:
• These texts should not have been any of the Year 1-3 set texts you have studied, or any of the texts you have
attempted as part of your CRP.
• These texts need not be originally written in English.
• At least one of the texts should be a literary text. The other text can be in a different medium (e.g. lm, artwork).
• In the case of poetry, a text should consist of a particular published selection, or an equally substantial selection made
by yourself.

3. The focus of research should be on an area of legitimate study that will allow for enough scope of study such that you
read widely in the course of the research process. The research area should also allow for depth and rigour of literary
analysis, such that you can demonstrate some degree of sophistication and insight, and extend your exposure and
appreciation of literature.

4. Secondary sources should be consulted, to ensure that there is enough breadth of reading and research. In their nal
report, you are expected to have at least ve secondary / critical readings as part of your bibliography / reference.

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 Developing a Research Topic
1. Deciding on a Topic
One of the points to stress at the outset is that the range of possible research topics in literature is very wide indeed.
Despite this, or perhaps because of this, you may nd it dif cult to make up your mind what it is you want to
investigate. There are two ways to go about doing this:

A. Start from the text

Focus on a couple of texts that you are interested in and think about why you nd these texts interesting or
engaging. You may use the ve different categories of literary research found in the Annex to help structure and
develop these ideas.

B. Start from a literary area

Focus on a literary area that you’re interested in and read around the area. This doesn’t mean reading aimlessly, or in
a half-hearted fashion. On the contrary, you should be reading quickly and purposively, with questions in your mind,
scanning material that seems potentially relevant to your areas of interest and getting an overview of it. In the
process identify texts that are related to this area and read the texts. In the process, you may start to narrow the
focus of this particular literary area.

2. Identifying the Category of Literary Research

Once you have identi ed the texts and/or the literary area that you’re interested to base your research on, identify
the category of literary research your texts / literary area is in, bearing in mind the expectations and standards of each
category. Refer to the Annex for the ve different categories.

A. Theme
B. Period
C. Genre
D. Literary Theory
E. Cross-Media
F. Multi-pronged Approach

While using the different categories to structure your ideas, bear in mind the following questions:
• What are some of the key studies in this eld?
• What kinds of approaches have been taken to the subject?
• What are the key issues and questions in this eld?
• Are there any possible gaps, or approaches yet to be explored?

3. Turning the Topic into a Meaningful Research Area

In order to turn a broad area of interest into a viable research topic, you need to consider two factors:

A. Signi cance of Work (or Why should anyone read your work?)
i. Charting New Territory
One reason why someone would read your work is because no one has written a scholarly article on your proposed
research topic. Your paper explains the signi cance of this research topic and sheds light on it. (Do note that this
generally pertains to new literary works, genres, writers.)

ii. Bridging the Gap of Existing Scholarship

• Some experts have written on this topic but there are signi cant gaps and de ciencies in the existing
scholarship. Your paper offers new or different evidence to bridge the gaps or correct these misconceptions
(e.g. unravelling innovations in writer's craft, making new inferences about writer's philosophy & vision, re-
examining writer's contribution to the eld).
• Many scholars have written about my topic. Despite this attention, your paper calls for a reassessment of the
existing literature based on recent ndings, new methodologies or original questions that you are surfacing in
my paper. (e.g. re-de ning "what is literature", use of contemporary theoretical lens on canonical works)

B. Scope of Work
The topics must be focused on a particular, manageable body of material. Nothing is more fatal than to attempt
blanket coverage of a large eld - let's say a topic such as 'Narrative Technique in the Twentieth-Century Novel', or
'The Representation of Women in Nineteenth-Century Poetry'. The objection to such a topic is not merely that you
could not hope to cover it effectively in the time and space at your disposal, but also that it would be dif cult to
achieve much that would be of interest (either in terms of original ideas or of factual discovery) in such a broad
eld.

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 A good general tip is: choose a relatively narrow and sharply de ned topic which nevertheless opens out into
large and important issues. Thus, for example, ‘The Use of Parallel Narrations as a Narrative Technique in the
Novels of Julian Barnes’ would be more suitable topic than the larger ones just cited. Remember, too, that there
are many lesser-known authors whose works would repay study. Indeed an out-of-the-way topic, provided it offers
serious interest and the materials are available to carry it through, has certain advantages over a well-worn or
middle-of-the-road one.

4. Thinking About the Argument

Having decided on your topic and limited its scope, the next step is to give it a direction. The way to do this is to
develop out of your topic a set of questions (or a key research question) you want to answer.

Virtually every good literary research project will start from a question you want to address. From this question(s),
you will then be able to outline your thesis and key arguments.

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SAMPLE 1
Project Type Critical Theory

Key Question How effective is dandyism - as portrayed in Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Importance of Being
Earnest - at subverting the ideological con nes of Victorian morality?

Title Subversion and Conformity in the Plays of Oscar Wilde – The Importance of Being Earnest and
Lady Windermere’s Fan

a. Aim and Scope of Research

This research project examines two plays by Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere’s Fan, by
focusing on the portrayal of ideological con ict between dandyism and Victorian morality with the objective of
determining the extent to which Wilde’s plays were subversive of the conventions of Victorian society.

b. Thesis Statement & Key Arguments

Many critics have hypothesised that Wilde’s plays are intended as a direct subversion of Victorian social conventions,
through the privileging of dandyism and aesthetic judgements over the social responsibility of Victorian society (Beckson
85), or the use of the epigrammatic wit and ironic behaviour of his characters that Wilde is known for to “[dramatise] the
limits of moral language and hence moral judgement” (Mackie 146). Common to most critics’ arguments about the
subversive value of Wilde’s plays is the gure of the dandy, who undermines the strict moral and behavioural codes of
Victorian society through his display of hedonism, triviality and “style over sincerity”.
This research project argues, however, that Wilde was much closer to what critic Norbert Kohl (1989) described as a
“conformist rebel” – while his plays are subversive to the extent that they expose aws and hypocrisy in Victorian
morality, the seemingly amoral and aesthetic ideology that they endorse, that of dandyism, fails to provide a truly
subversive alternative on several levels: not only does dandyism present no escape from the social responsibility that
characterises Victorian morality, it ironically possesses the very same hypocrisy and rigidity as the Victorian conventions it
supposedly subverts. Even dandyism’s amoral nature is undermined by the fact that any apparent acts of transgression in
the plays take place only within the discourse of Victorian morality, underscoring dandyism’s inability to effect political
change in Victorian society. Underlying all of this is the fact that dandyism as an ideology is not fundamentally
oppositional to Victorian morality, but one that co-exists with, is derived from, and ultimately remains dependent on the
conventions of Victorian society to express itself.

1. Dandyism is unable to escape the system of social responsibility that is essential to Victorian morality. Characters play
around with their social obligations but never cast them off, while the narcissistic witticisms they make about the
formations of marriage and courtship are completely undermined by their own sentimental behaviour, offering at best
temporary and super cial freedom.

2. While Wilde does effectively expose the moral failings of Victorian morality, highlighting the illusory nature of its
attempt to suppress personal desire, dandyism in his plays is shown to be just as hypocritical and internally inconsistent
as the Victorian conventions it allegedly replaces. The ineffectual nature of dandyism is underscored by the exposure
of its fundamental ideological limitations – the very act of endorsing dandyism as an ideological alternative to
Victorian convention already prescribes dandyism with a serious political purpose, a purpose which is then ful lled
only by participation in Victorian moral discourse, and which possesses a seriousness that itself undermines dandyism’s
core value of triviality.

3. Undergirding dandyism’s inability to provide a truly subversive alternative to Victorian morality is an intrinsic
ambivalence in dandyism: the dandy appears to stretch and challenge Victorian conventions, but never fully overturns
them because he too is ultimately a performative public gure who aims to gain the favour and admiration of his
audience, de ned by an ironic acknowledgement of the performativity of Victorian convention in his own concern
with appearances but never a desire to overturn it. . Dandyism, then, is not an instrument of political subversion nor
indeed an ideology necessarily distinct from the performativity of Victorian convention - its performativity and concern
with appearances is not oppositional to but re ective of the hypocrisy of the Victorian convention it is derived from
and the Victorian audiences the dandy strives to please. The dandy is thus the conformist rebel who is de ned by both
his transgressive acts and his eventual return to Victorian convention, very much reinforcing the ideology of the latter.

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SAMPLE 2
Project Type Thematic

Key Question How is hypermasculinity portrayed in the two novels by Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers
and Money, and how does this reveal the key paradox behind this concept?

Title The Paradox of Hypermasculinity: Masculine Power and Insecurity in Martin Amis’ The Rachel
Papers and Money

a. Aim and Scope of Research

The project looks at two novels by Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers and Money, focusing on the portrayal of
hypermasculinity and its associated characteristics (arrogance, aggression, etc.). The project examines how
hypermasculinity is exhibited in the texts, and the consequences that arise from this display of masculinity. It also attempts
to unpack the paradox of hypermasculinity: how it can be so overwhelming and so aggressive, yet also so fragile, once its
performative nature is revealed under close examination.

Hypermasculinity is masculinity in excess: it is a gross exaggeration of masculine stereotypes. Focusing on physical strength
and prowess, violent aggression and equally dominant sexuality, hypermasculinity demands the suppression of outward
emotion and the creation of a projected indifference. If masculinity represents the desire of the male sex to retain its
power and privileged position, then hypermasculinity would be the overzealous hoarding of this power, in the hope that
its fragility goes unnoticed.

Although the concept of hypermasculinity originated in the 1980s, much like all else, it has developed over time. Given
that hypermasculinity was rst identi ed as a response to feminism, if feminism has changed, hypermasculinity must
adapt as well. If masculinity is anti-feminine, hypermasculinity goes further, becoming hyper anti-feminine. It is necessary
to examine its development as the existence of hypermasculinity is a threat to both women (in how they are regarded) as
well as the male psyche.

However, it is unclear how the performance and exhibition of hypermasculine traits shapes behaviour, and how in doing
so, it undermines its own attempts to consolidate male power and assuage the male ego. This is where an examination of
the two novels by Martin Amis will lend insight to the causation, process and eventual s of hypermasculinity, as portrayed
by the dual male protagonists, who, despite their obvious differences, share common hypermasculine impulses and
actions that are re ective of the concept as a whole.

b. Thesis Statement & Key Arguments

Arguably, hypermasculinity is portrayed as deeply pervasive, shaping behaviour, acting as a driving force and a
motivation. However, even as hypermasculinity grants a eeting sense of power and control to the protagonists,
assuaging the male ego and dispelling masculine fears, it is portrayed as awed and paradoxical, as ultimately the
performance of hypermasculinity is undermined by itself.
1. Hypermasculinity acts as a form of wish-ful lment for the characters portrayed in the two novels: Charles Highway and
John Self. The actions and outward displays of the characters, while serving their purpose, also reveal their inner
desires. Their actions, as projections of their masculinity, are not just unconscious attempts at resolving con icts, but
also means to satisfy their inadequacies, through which we can identify the weaknesses of their hypermasculinity, as
well as masculinity as a whole. The development of the two characters allows us to understand their motivations and
thus reveal their masculinity for the performance that it is.

2. Hypermasculinity also reinforces gender roles and stereotypes. Namely, the advent of hypermasculinity has and
continues to disempower women, reducing them to marginal, submissive bodies under the male gaze, through which
men can demonstrate their own manliness and machismo. However, this binary divide also crumbles as the aws in
hypermasculinity are exposed, and their masculinity is revealed to be fragile, false.

3. Hypermasculinity, thus, is a paradox; it is simultaneously overwhelming, pervasive, exaggerating the already aggressive
and emotionless masculinity; yet once it is closely examined, it becomes nothing more than a performance, and a
fragile one at that. As it helps men work towards their aims of power and dominance, it also reveals their self-
consciousness and weakness. As it reinforces gender roles and stereotypes of dominant masculinity and passive
femininity, it also undermines them, proving them to be false.

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 SAMPLE 3
Project Type Critical Theory

Key Question How do Justin Ker’s The Space Between the Raindrops and Amanda Lee Koe’s Ministry of Moral
Panic portray the problems and possibilities of love and desire in Singapore’s neoliberal
condition?
Title Loved and Lost: An Examination of Love and Desire in the Neoliberal World of Justin Ker’s The
Space Between the Raindrops and Amanda Lee Koe’s Ministry of Moral Panic

a. Aim and Scope of Research

The rise of neoliberalism — de ned succinctly by Gane (2012) to be the injection of “market dynamics, and in
particular principles of competition, into the basic fabric of social life and culture” (p. 72) — has precipitated the
emergence of a distinct neoliberal zeitgeist characterised by competitive individualism, widespread consumption and
increasing evanescence, with individuals caught in a “culture of urgency” (Sugarman & Thrift, 2017, p. 12). This has
ostensibly eroded love and human connection given how the economic logic of the market percolates into eeting
human relations: a major critique of neoliberalism mounted by academics and literary texts (Bloom, 2017; Cummings,
2020; Day, 2016).

In an attempt to resist this alienating neoliberal condition, writers have demonstrated a newfound commitment to
affect, angst and sincere storytelling in a marked post-postmodern turn. While post-postmodern works such as
Wallace’s In nite Jest and Danielewski’s House of Leaves continue to mount ironic postmodern critiques of the
totalising neoliberal metanarrative, they nonetheless tell sincere stories of love in a quest for genuine human
connection in a transactional world (Holland, 2013; Timmer, 2010). However, this central predilection for metaxy —
an ambivalent oscillation “between irony and enthusiasm” (Akker & Vermeulen, 2017, p. 32) — has been criticised as
a tightrope impossible to walk (Lethem, 2007; Wallace, 1997). Thus, the critical capacity of the nascent post-
postmodernism has been contested by scholars.

This project rst identi es two assumptions about neoliberalism and post-postmodern resistance held by critics,
before examining how both works challenge these axioms. The rst assumption is that most critics believe
neoliberalism is solely and purely detrimental to human connection; the second is that scholars also cling to a
narrow, binary conception of the post- postmodern pursuit, with its poles of “irony and enthusiasm” thought, rather
simplistically, to respectively correspond to subversive critique and complicit sincerity. This project’s primary aim,
therefore, is to question these aforementioned assumptions by demonstrating an undiscussed capacity of post-
postmodern storytelling and neoliberalism itself to augment the experience of intimacy.
Additionally, there exists an acute paucity of scholarship on works like Justin Ker’s The Space Between the Raindrops
and Amanda Lee Koe’s Ministry of Moral Panic (Singaporean post- postmodern short story collections), with existing
research constituting either sociological papers on neoliberalism in Singapore (Naruse, 2014) or probes into its
speci c segments of Singaporean neoliberal ction, e.g. self-portrayals of graphic novelists (Silvio, 2018). Hence, this
project further aims to supplement this lack of literature by analysing these underdiscussed texts.

b. Thesis Statement & Key Arguments

While the inextricability of love and consumption renders genuine human connection elusive, both texts ultimately
dispel this doubt about the possibility of love in neoliberal Singapore. The Ministry of Moral Panic (Ministry)
highlights the unique potential of neoliberalism to paradoxically amplify desire by holding it in abeyance, while The
Space Between the Raindrops (Space) reveals the potential of material objects — as vessels for stories of love — to
mediate human connection in a neoliberal world replete with commodities.

1. At some level, both texts problematise neoliberal love by elucidating how the economic logic of neoliberalism
in ltrates the non-transactional intimacy that love demands, rendering love as not only produced by consumption
but also a form of consumption per se. Not only is love in the neoliberal age founded on and made super cial by
the consumption of commodities (e.g. gifts and dates) and performances, it is an act of consumption in itself,
where each individual is instrumentalised as a means to the sel sh ends of the other in a preclusion of genuine
intimacy.

2. However, the fugacity and unattainability of genuine and unconditional love in the neoliberal condition is
precisely what sustains the pursuit of (and hence the ful lment derived from) love. Ministry shows that it is the
very knowledge of love’s ephemeral or forbidden quality that makes love all the more intense when one
experiences love, and the loss of love to neoliberal forces paradoxically makes love atemporal when it is
experienced acutely as the memory of lost love. In this way, desire needs to be held in abeyance: it matters not
that genuine love is not attained, but merely that it is pursued and lost.

This logic is mirrored in the distinctly neoliberal short story form: not only are readers (like consumers) given the
agency to choose what stories to read in what order, the form’s brevity necessitates a focus on singular moments
of a protagonist’s life in a manner reminiscent of neoliberal transience. However, this withholding of a complete
denouement ampli es the reader’s desire to continue experiencing the story.
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3. Commodities augment rather than supplant love as critics suggest, because the post- postmodern potential
of material objects to be vessels for stories of love and intimacy effectively counters the alienating isolation
of the neoliberal zeitgeist. In particular, the material objects of the texts themselves, as stories of love,
restore the vicarious but potent experience of intimacy and desire to the reader, their reach further ampli ed
by neoliberalism’s clarion call to consume. In this manner, neoliberalism and post-postmodern storytelling
work hand in hand to intensify the experience of love, defying the dominant scholarly conception of sincere
storytelling as complicit in the perpetuation of the pernicious neoliberal condition.

In fact, Space shows that there is no need for critical irony to equilibrise sincere storytelling in post-
postmodern ction because storytelling is the criticism: it not only makes readers experience love, it also
teaches them how to see it in the otherwise cold materiality of the neoliberal world.

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SAMPLE 4
Project Type Critical Theory / Cross-media

Key Question How effective is the Wild Rice production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being
Earnest in subverting the seemingly natural link between sex and gender?
Title The Liberation of Gender in Theatre: The Wild Rice Production of The Importance of Being
Earnest

a. Aim and Scope of Research

Since the 20th century, there has been an emerging notion that gender is not natural. Simone de Beauvoir undermines
the seemingly stable relationship between sex and gender by arguing that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a
woman” (330). Similarly, Judith Butler posits that gender is performative and created by repetitive performances of acts
that discourse has prescribed as masculine or feminine (191).

There have also been arguments questioning the naturalness of heteronormativity, the system that normalises behaviour
tied to the presumption of heterosexuality. Adrienne Rich argues that heterosexuality is not natural in humans but is an
institution imposed on cultures (209-228). By imposing heterosexuality on men and women who act masculine and
feminine respectively through the policing of behaviour that does not conform to this ideal, heteronormativity informs us
of what the “ideal” man and woman is (in terms of the behaviour and values exhibited). Heteronormative discourse thus
reinforces the notion that men and women have natural gender roles. By showing how heteronormative discourse is not
natural, one can thus question the underlying assumption that gender is natural.

In fact, critics have argued that even before the emergence of these theories, the theatre has served as a liberating space
for the exploration of the mutability of gender identity through cross-dressing. In the theatre, clothing dictates one’s
gender identity – Ferris posits that in the Greek theatre, where male actors cross-dressed as females, females were
passively de ned by their clothing (166). Because of this, the theatre reveals how gender identity is not solely de ned by
biology, and is hence arguably unnatural.

This research project examines the notion of gender as performance in relation to staged productions of Oscar Wilde’s
The Importance of Being Earnest, and through this, highlights how theatre is a key liberating space for gender.

Critics have hypothesised that female characters in Earnest possess qualities that make them unable to usurp a gender
identity traditionally occupied by males. Bose argues that the play is brought to the “brink of disaster” because the
women are irrational and unreliable (205), while Gillespie argues that “the women create even more... aberrance than do
the men” (64). The ways in which females are portrayed as problematic gures is contingent on the assumption that there
are natural differences between men and women, and that females are inherently more disruptive. The dramatic text
thus arguably reinforces the naturalness of the gender binary, the classi cation of sex and gender into two disconnected
categories of masculine and feminine.

One production of Earnest was performed by Wild Rice in 2013 in Singapore. Wild Rice’s production utilises an all-male
cast. However, unlike several previous productions that have male actors wear female costumes, the “female” characters
in Wild Rice’s production wear male clothing. These characters thus appear to be a “hybrid” of male and female gender
identities. This research project argues that the Wild Rice production is successful in challenging the naturalness of
gender, suggesting that the liberating nature of theatre is achievable not only through cross-dressing, as previous critics
have suggested.

b. Thesis Statement & Key Arguments

The Wild Rice production is successful in exposing the unnatural link between sex and gender through its “female”
characters, who perform and act in a manner stereotypically re ective of femininity, allowing them to transgress the
gender binary. At the same time, the male actors reveal the presence of heteronormative practices that circulate through
romantic acts in the play, undermining the naturalness of heteronormativity as a mode of thought, and in so doing,
undermines the naturalness of gender.

1. The Wild Rice production suggests that it is possible to transgress the gender binary by being “ungendered”, even if
only momentarily, and in so doing, displace the notion of gender as immutable and xed (and therefore “natural”). In
Wilde’s Earnest, Miss Prism is seen repeatedly to internalise the ideal standard of a woman. However, the portrayal of
Miss Prism in Wild Rice’s production forces the audience to accept the incongruity between the male actor (in male
costume) playing the female role to the extent that the character eventually appears “genderless”.

2. The Wild Rice production undermines the naturalness of heteronormativity, and since the belief that heteronormativity
is natural reinforces the naturalness of the link between sex and gender, the production similarly questions the
naturalness of gender. In Wilde’s Earnest, characters believe that the act of marriage is natural and necessary,
reinforcing the naturalness of marriage (and hence heteronormativity). However, in the Wild Rice production, the
audience regards their romantic behaviour as abnormal, given the incongruity between the female characters’ sex and
gender. This reaction forces the audience to acknowledge how romantic acts are policed by discursive practices that
regulate the gender identity of those who participate in such acts. In this way, the production calls into question the
“naturalness” of heteronormativity.

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