MRP

Come September my schedule is going to be the most flexible it has ever been while still in school. It is almost official that I will be writing an MRP (Major Research Project) to complete my degree--in other words, a mini-thesis of about 50 pages.

The professor who is supervising me is Carol Poster, who taught the Victorian Faith and Doubt class that I unfortunately had to drop last fall. I've talked to some people in that class and the consensus is that she is very nice and very knowledgable. She's been very good in the emails we've sent back and forth so far. Interestingly, Carol Poster was recommended to me as someone I should do a paper with by my favourite Milton prof, Margo Swiss; Margo met her at church. Carol Poster, apparently, attends Anglican church and has vast knowledge about the history of said church and the religious history of England in general. (She may be biased.)

This all works out very nicely because my topic will be on George Eliot's "religion of humanity" (which I personally interpret as, basically, Christianity as it should be, which is a very different entity from Christianity under the Anglican church and British society). It is a topic that has been written about before, quite thoroughly; but I am hoping that I have a new hook. My job for the next few months or so will be to read as much as I can to make sure that I do, in fact, have an original thought. We shall see.

I also get to spend my time for the next couple of months filling my brain with things like the history of religion in England and 19th century philosophy. I am very excited. And no, I am not being sarcastic.