Carolyn Kuchera
Doctoral student
Literature
Daily Lobo: What topic are you thinking of dissertating?
Carolyn Kuchera: I'm interested in American realism.
DL: Why does that interest you?
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CK: Because of the socialist undercurrent to all of it - the anti-capitalist states.
DL: Why do you like it?
CK: It's interesting because advertisements and catalogs were kind of starting to be big things, and I like to read about writers' reactions to that.
DL: What do you mean?
CK: Culture was kind of changing to more like of a mass print medium, and the literature is kind of recording the first social shocks against that.
DL: What did people have to say about it?
CK: Two things. Sometimes, they say that American realist authors were making consumers more at home in a world of goods, and then, some other people see it as a kind of frightened reaction against it.
DL: How do you feel about technology changing the world?
CK: I fear technology.
DL: Why?
CK: Because it seems to make people less thoughtful and interested in their neighbors.
DL: What do you want to do when you graduate?
CK: Teach literature at a small state college.
DL: How would you act as a teacher?
CK: I would hopefully act in a way that would make people interested in reading.
DL: What is the most interesting class you've taken?
CK: Oh gosh. American literature as critical theory.
DL: What was that about?
CK: It's built on the premise that America and literature are two terms that might not mean anything at all.
DL: What do you mean by that?
CK: That America the place or the society is something that's been constructed and means different things to different people.
DL: What does it mean to you?
CK: I don't know. It was an exercise in questioning commonly held beliefs, I suppose.
~ Jeremy Hunt
