Path Two: Developing your unique specialization

Step 1

Review the specialization description and the outcomes of the different specializations above so you can get a feel of both what constitutes a specialization and specialization outcomes.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FS79GOCNa0PtuKIM31DxRnyJHowsLczICFBvXxMQU0o/edit?usp=sharing

Step 2

Brainstorm ideas about what you would like to learn. Look at other programs to get ideas. Write down your ideas. You create a bulleted list, use mind mapping, doodling, etc.

Topics

• Dolls and doll players Other than sexual and/or maternal (paternal?) feelings, how do adult doll players conceptualize their relationships with their dolls?
• Soubonders What is (was?) soulbonding? Placing soulbonding in historical context (spiritual/New Age-y, fiction-based religions, online/fandom (sub)cultures, etc.) I am interested in exploring this through autoethnography, participant-observation, and archival(?) research as a (former?) soulbonder.
• Otherkin, etc. What are otherkin? I’d like to focus especially on the idea of “exotrauma,” trauma from events that happened outside of the embodied human form - e.g., in past or parallel lives.
  • Fictionkin What does it mean to spiritually identify with someone else’s creation?
• Parasocial relationships with fictional characters Exactly what it says. This has connections to doll play and to soulbonding, depending on how literally/spiritually you take your connection with your “fictional other.” What is the desire to create/collect dolls and figures of our favorite characters? (Despite being a big fan of fictional characters and dolls, I have relatively little interest in having dolls of my favorite fictional characters.)
• Imaginary friends I want to explore this in connection with soulbonders and parasocial relationships with fictional characters, above. Again, I am interested in autoethnography because I am an adult with imaginary friends.
• Media and imagination Explore the tension between how media colonizes and/or enriches children’s (and adults’) imaginative lives. Connections with day job (PK-8 school librarian) and career aspirations (children’s literature author).
• Maladaptive daydreaming As a former mal/adaptive daydreamer, I want to approach this proposed diagnosis through a critical lens and argue that, maybe, sometimes “maladaptive” escapism is an understandable (healthy?) coping mechanism for life under late capitalism and that “maladaptive daydreaming” is only “maladaptive” in the sense that sufferers(?) resist/defy a capitalist definition of the purpose/meaning of life.

Step 3

Find two programs that are similar to what you would like to do. This will help with legitimizing your specialization.

Graduate programs

1. https://tus.ie/courses/ma-art-psyche-and-the-creative-imagination/
2. https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/education/masters-programs/childrens-literature-media-and-cultural-entrepreneurship
3. https://www.ciis.edu/academics/graduate-programs/anthropology-and-social-change/about-the-ma