Chief Editor's Note: Falling in Love With Your Niche
I’ve discovered a lot of new stuff in the process of writing my bachelor’s thesis. You’d think that after over three years of studying, I would’ve come to some kind of a conclusion as to what my interests are, but I feel like I’m discovering more and more as time goes on. The academic world is full of incredible options and each field comes with its own varieties. The deeper you go the more you find. Though in my experience finding a broad topic is much easier than finding your personal interest, or niche. I knew pretty much from the get-go when I started my studies, that even though both fields are very dear to me, I’d always prefer literature to linguistics. Any time I gave it any thought or just kind of vibed with some ideas, I kept going back to books, texts and their worlds. That being said, I had no idea what my personal take on any of it would be. Like many of my peers, I didn’t have a niche. Many of us were just kind of stumbling in the dark.
That’s how I started writing my thesis last autumn. I had no idea what to do or where to start. I knew that I’d be writing something on a novel of the Victorian era, but I had no idea how to approach it. I thought about all that I’ve learned in my studies about literary criticism and threw around some ideas for my approach — would I take a formalist approach? Maybe Marxist? Ethnic? While many of them were interesting, none of them really stuck until little by little I could feel my mind lean towards a feminist approach. Do I have any idea why? No. I don’t personally believe in fate or any other predeterminate theories of life, but it kind of felt like that. Like it was meant to be that way, which is why none of the other options felt right.
Anyway, I brushed up my knowledge on feminist theories, which then led to me think about characters and their gender on a broad level, and how a character can be… well, characterised as being of a certain demographic in the first place. Like, how can a man be characterised as masculine? Throughout my studies, I had stumbled again and again into the phenomenon of male characters being seen as metaphors and symbols of society or of historical events, while female characters were more often analysed as living, thinking people. That felt odd, but I had brushed it aside. I rediscovered these ideas and thoughts I’d had years earlier and got hooked instantly. What makes a man… a man, and how can that be portrayed in literature, if the definition of a man and especially a masculine man is so different now than the idea of a masculine man of the Victorian era. Or is it?
I went on a deep dive. Much deeper of a deep dive than I would have needed for my thesis. While I was originally intimidated by the 15 to 20 pages we have to write, I would soon realise how much more I had to say on the topic. It felt wonderful. Astonishing. It was like I had been living in a castle for years, but only now discovered the passageway to a secret library. Had it been there the entire time? Absolutely, but I had not stumbled upon it, because I was busy skimming through all the other libraries I had access to. But now the others fell by the wayside, and the new library was all I could think of. I discovered a new way of reading. And like sure, I had always personally read male and female characters both as human beings and as metaphorical beings, but now I had a new theoretical background for my studies. I fell in love with it. I joke about it now, but maybe I’ll continue on the same topic once I start my master’s program. I have so many ideas and I simply cannot fit all of them into my bachelor’s thesis, no matter what I do. Time can only tell where this goes, but I’ll enjoy my newfound love as long as it lasts.
Life can be unpredictable in so many ways, but unexpectedly falling in love with a topic is absolutely one of the best kinds of unpredictability. You, too, may stumble upon a niche without even trying. Maybe you just click on a research article because it looks interesting, or perhaps you hear someone mention a book and you think ‘huh, I had no idea that was a thing’ and check it out later, or something of the sort. Maybe in whatever you look into, you find something so utterly interesting that you just delve deeper and deeper into it. You have a sudden hunger to keep going, to broaden your knowledge of the topic, its history and its research. You see everything so differently. It’s a new way of thinking, being and writing. Just like the love you feel towards other people, falling in love with a topic can happen in many ways. Slowly, then all at once. Quickly at first, then little by little over time. Maybe you see it coming from a mile away. Or maybe you don’t. But no matter how it happens, remember to appreciate the love you feel for something. That love might stay with you for the rest of your life, or it might be a fleeting sensation, but either way… it’s true.
To celebrate love in its many forms, as well as express our love for writing, we here at BTSB have compiled a nice little chocolate box full of sweet surprises for our readers! Emilia took a stroll around Helsinki to highlight the beauty in the little things around Punavuori. Anceliga wrote a gorgeous poem about trauma and self-doubt, as well as a rosy introduction to the sweet world of lovecore. Noa’s illustration takes a more visual approach to the themes of love and tragedy, while Annika writes about things yet to come and explores fortune telling, and I wrote a short story about platonic love and memories.
