Outline of Awesomeness...

I have to admit, as did Tara, that I still feel hopelessly lost in trying to define awe in any meaningful way. I feel like I have my own idea of what awe is, but I'm fairly certain at this point that it is entirely different from how others view awe, each of our own experiences having been shaped by our own experiences with awe. I think that is to say that I am experiencing an existentialist crisis rooted in German Romantic notions of subjectivity. There's a mouthful for you. So, in short, I feel less and less confident in my paper topic as I research more and more, and that's not the most comfortable position.

In any case, I think that my final paper will have a substantial portion attempting to address that which has been said before in terms of defining awe. I feel like just about every major literary critic has had something to say of awe, whether they called it the sublime, geist, the aura, or something else, and I want to focus on each of those notions in building a foundation for the notion of awe that I present in my paper.

Another complication is that my paper topic, at least in part, is very negative, and I'm looking for ways to expand it in a direction that is more positive without it coming off as an infantile call to create. That being said...

Outline of Awesomeness...

Please feel free to add information or insert questions or comments or whatever. GoogleDocs has a new "track changes" add-on, so I'd love to see how it works (and I have a back-up saved just in case someone goes crazy on my outline).

I'm excited about my project, but it's definitely taking a lot

of time, and I'm wondering if I should simplify it rather than

botching the wonder. I think a lot will depend on time.

In terms of publication venues, I feel like I am still on track for at least the latter four venues that I listed in this post. I'm still planning on using Buzzfeed as an outlet for the creative portion of my project as well.

And finally, in terms of what's next, I think the biggest part is just getting my paper and project nailed dow
n a bit more. I feel like I'm putting them both off a little bit, as I'm still not really sure about my overall premise or my definition of awe, but I think some of that will work itself out as I put together a more complete draft of my paper and finish up my project. I may need to simplify my project a bit, as it's taken a ton of time and still isn't really in a presentable form. Anyway, I'd love to hear your feedback!