Books – Yuka Polovina

My Five Book Rule

Now that I’m officially out of the coursework and exam prep phase, I get to read for (academic) interest and dare I say, fun! I don’t buy or have a lot of stuff—an economic reality of being a grad student and hating clutter—but I do like having a lot of physical books. Over the yearsContinue reading “My Five Book Rule”

Passing the Qualifying Exams

If we analogize the PhD journey to climbing an Everest-like mountain, I’m heaving to catch my breath right now. I just passed my qualifying exam. After reviewing two hundred (plus) books—divided into three reading lists (“Gendering American Studies,” “Body Politics,” and “Contemporary Life Narratives”) that culminated in a week long examination where I wrote threeContinue reading “Passing the Qualifying Exams”

Breast Cancer and Its Metaphors

After reading Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphor I’m left wondering whether the stories we tell others and ourselves about our bodies are truly ours—especially stories about diseases. Sontag’s work has me reconsidering my mother’s experience with breast cancer and how she carried herself as a woman with this disease. MyContinue reading “Breast Cancer and Its Metaphors”

PhD Exam Prep: It Begins

It’s time. Since day one of my PhD program I had spent too many moments fretting over the qualifying exams and doubting how I could ever read, discuss, and write about ~200 books in time. We didn’t read this copiously in the social sciences and I wondered if switching to the humanities was too loftyContinue reading “PhD Exam Prep: It Begins”