My Two Lips: Introduction Part II

So, the formulation of my independent study has been a work in progress. All through my graduate school applications and the fall semester, I've been reworking my ideas and they've finally started to crystallize. Partially this clarity comes because it is the beginning of the semester now and I'm counting the things I've done, said and read over the past few weeks as part of my research.

I started out largely with a dream and a dream advisor. I knew I was interested in women's studies and women's expression and I knew that I wanted to try something on my own. I had been dwelling on the ideas from a couple of classes, namely Nancy Gray's Modern Women Writers and The Politics of Storytelling by Women and Christy Burns' Theories of Visual Culture which was later revised into Film, Feminism and the Body. The themes of these courses culminated in my mind and I was thinking seriously about women's bodies and sexualities and the way in which these topics are explored--remapped and redefined--through contemporary literary and artistic media.

I wanted to engage in a study that would let me explore these topics--sometimes vulgarly and unscientifically--and write about it. The title "My Two Lips" developed from my ideas about the intertwining relationship between women's literature and expression and female sexuality. To speak--to desire. These ideas wrap themselves tightly around each other in my mind. When I read about women writers--from Virginia Woolf to Ann Lamott-- the idea of a woman writer is inherently tied to her motherhood which is inherently tied to her expression or repression of of her sexuality and sexual desire.

So, I started thinking, applying and reading. I thought a lot about what I wanted to learn and targeted some specific materials, a list of which will soon be included, but in reading some other books that I picked up along the way, I've realized that the topic can be found everywhere. I want to mention these resources now so that you all can participate in the formative process of this project, not just the finished product.