Serialisation in Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend

For your

first

essay assignment for this semester, Id like you to think about

how we

can think about the work of either Elena Ferrante or Karl Ove Knausgaard in terms

of the logic of serialisation

.

Your assignment is to write a structured essay of around 1,500 words

that responds to the following prompt:

Think either about the extracts provided from Elena

Ferrantes My Brilliant

Friend

or Karl Ove Knausgaards

A Death in the Family

(feel free to read further

into these novels

,

or indeed the

Neapolitan Novels

or My Struggle series

,

if it

helps and

/

or interests you

, the library can help you out here

). How do the

tropes and conventions of serialised forms weve been thinking about

so far

this semester help us elucidate the Ferrante or Knausgaard writing project?

I am open to alternative but similar essay titles (Id be delighted to read something

about

Madame Bovary

or

The Mysteries of Paris

, for example), but please discuss any

such radical departures with me first).

Id suggest that your starting point should be thinking about how you might articulate

some of the tropes and conventions

of serialised novels

(research will

be essential

here)

.

In terms of structuring your essay, I’d like you to think about clearly articulated

arguments, backed up with appropriate (and

correctly cited

) primary and secondary

source material. If you are unsure about the conventions of academic writing, and

how these conventions are interpreted at the American University of Paris, please

make an appointment either with your professor or the AUP Writing La

b (who are

still

existing,

virtually).

The

following

link

might

be

helpful:

https://www.aup.edu/academics/academic

–

career

–

resources/academic

–

resource

–

center/writing

–

lab/writing

–

resources

. If youd like to discuss your initial ideas for the

essay, please feel free to make

an appointment with me

.

I do not want you to use generative AI in the writing of this project. I suggest that

AI tools will not provide the most perti

nent, thoughtful or fruitful research for

secondary source materials for you

. If you do make use of AI, please attach a short

report of how you have used it

to your submission.

Submission