In a post, The Little Professor briefly describes why someone interested in Dostoevsky (or in my case prison lit) as an undergrad may become a Pushkinist (or in my case an avant-gardist/romanticist) for the dissertation. I refashioned my dissertation topic to insure that I could have two specific people on my committee, while avoiding the one individual with whom everyone thought I should work. In her post The Little Professor also answers the question, "Why do I [TLP] study Victorian lit?" the answer of which sounds suspiciously like the answer to "Why I [Zh.] don't study Victorial lit?" Why I don't study English-language lit is another question altogether.

I still remember H. in American Lit I deciding that everyone who had somehow not read Little Women before would read it as his/her free choice book. I hadn't read it to the end. In fact, I found it difficult to make it past the first few pages. So, I lied. I said that I had read it. If I remember correctly, I wound up reading a twentieth-century French novel for my Am Lit free read. Some things are a foregone conclusion, I suppose. -Zh.

P.S. I do like some Victorian authors, such as Hawthorne, Dickens, and Hardy, but for some reason, I cannot stand Louisa May Alcott.