All posts by nasvidapoet

Student Blogs

One Step Closer!

Good news! Part I of my thesis is officially complete! Somewhere along the way, I also made the executive decision to remove Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy as one of my core readings. Why? Because, in plain words, I was doing entirely too much. Sometimes less really is more, and making that decision allowed me to tighten my focus and make the writing process much more manageable.

Now, I am shifting gears into my autoethnographic writing, which requires a completely different mindset from the analytical work I have been doing. Thankfully, my memoir writing independent study with Professor Giunta has been incredibly helpful in making that transition. It is exciting to move from examining other people’s experiences to reflecting more deeply on my own.

For now, I am right on track with where I wanted to be, and considering how ambitious this project has been, I am taking that as a win! One section down, two to go!

Student Blogs

Finally Getting to the Good Part

Part I of my thesis was supposed to be completed by the beginning of October, and although I am slightly behind where I originally hoped to be, I finally feel like I am moving into the part of this process that I have been most excited about. Getting through theory is always difficult for me. I understand how necessary it is, especially for grounding the arguments I want to make, but working through theoretical material takes a different kind of attention than analyzing the texts themselves. Now that I have made it through much of that foundation, I can finally turn more of my attention toward analyzing my readings and source material.

This is the part I have been looking forward to because I genuinely love these pieces in different ways and could probably speak about each of them endlessly. Ironically, that has also made the process more difficult. The challenge has not been figuring out what I want to say, but deciding what I should not say. I had to narrow my focus and choose specific sections of the episode and readings that will allow me to develop the argument without trying to analyze everything at once. I finally feel like I have made those decisions, which has made the writing feel much more manageable.

My goal is to have this section completed by the end of the week. Now that I have submitted all of my students’ grades, I have intentionally designated time and attention specifically for my thesis. I am realizing that this semester requires me to be much more deliberate about protecting that time.

For some reason, all of the semesters before this one seemed easier to manage. This school year has only just begun, and I already feel tired and somewhat burnt out. Part of that may be because I have more than forty additional students compared to last year, along with juniors who somehow already seem to have developed senioritis. Balancing teaching, grading, planning, and my own graduate work has definitely been more demanding than I anticipated.

Still, December is slowly approaching, and I can finally see the end of the tunnel. There is something motivating about knowing that I am getting closer not only to completing this section, but to completing the degree itself. For now, I am trying to focus less on how exhausted I feel and more on the fact that I have finally reached the part of the thesis that reminds me why I chose this project in the first place.

Student Blogs

Hold the Applause

Hello again! Please don’t clap. At this point, I think we all know who I am, so I will spare everyone another introduction. I’m Nas, I’m working on a thesis about care, labor, intimacy, and all the complicated things that happen when those ideas collide, and somehow I am getting dangerously close to actually finishing this thing.

Right now, I am almost finished with Part I of my thesis, which focuses on close readings and care studies. I have been working through my primary texts while thinking about care as labor, emotional investment, time, sacrifice, and something that can be both deeply intimate and deeply exhausting. I started it during our “rat summer,” and I’m still gong. My goal is to have Part I completed before the end of September. For once, that deadline actually feels realistic, which I am choosing not to question too much.

My independent study with Dr. Giunta is also giving me the space to be intentional about what comes next. Once Part I is finished, I want October to be dedicated primarily to my autoethnographic piece. This is the part I am both excited about and slightly terrified to write because it asks me to move from analyzing other people’s stories of care into examining my own. I know it will require a different kind of vulnerability than the analytical section, but I also think it may ultimately become one of the most meaningful parts of the project.

Then comes November and Part III. My goal is to spend that month developing the final portion of the thesis so that by the last few weeks of the semester, I am no longer trying to produce entirely new sections. Ideally, those final weeks will be reserved for revision, restructuring, making connections across the three parts, and probably staring at sentences I have read 47 times wondering if they are still written in English.

For now, though, I feel good about where I am. There is still a lot to write, rethink, cut, add, and inevitably overthink, but the thesis is beginning to feel less like this giant abstract project I have been talking about forever and more like an actual body of work that is taking shape. September is for finishing Part I. October belongs to autoethnography. November belongs to Part III. And then, hopefully, I revise my way across the finish line.

Student Blogs

Thesis Taking Shape

This week, I focused on clearly structuring my thesis by breaking my work into five central themes. Each theme is supported by a primary text that I will close read and a set of secondary sources that will guide and deepen my analysis. This organization is helping me move from broad ideas into a more focused and intentional argument about care as both labor and intimacy.

The first theme is care as survival and forced labor, which I will explore through Kindred. In this section, I will analyze how caregiving is not a choice but a condition of survival, shaped by power and coercion. To support this, I will use Rewriting Slavery through Time, Tithi Bhattacharya’s work on social reproduction theory, and Who Cares? by Nancy Folbre, which will help frame care as labor that sustains life while existing within exploitative systems.

The second theme is absence, displacement, and emotional replacement, which I will examine through Atlanta Season 3 Episode 7, “Trini to de Bone.” This section will focus on how caregivers take on emotional roles that parents cannot fulfill, often becoming invisible until they are gone. Supporting this analysis, I will use Raising Brooklyn by Tamara Mose Brown and Mary Romero’s Nanny Diaries and Other Stories, both of which explore immigrant caregiving, community, and the hidden labor that sustains families.

The third theme is racialized care and historical labor, which I will explore through The Help. In this section, I will look at how caregiving exists within systems of racial inequality, where emotional bonds are real but shaped by structural oppression. To ground this historically, I will use To ’Joy My Freedom by Tera Hunter and Seven Days a Week by David Katzman, along with Mothercoin, to connect past and present representations of Black women’s labor and care.

The fourth theme is modern caregiving, surveillance, and performance, which I will analyze through Such a Fun Age. This section will focus on how caregiving today is shaped by race, visibility, and the performance of both care and identity. To support this, I will use And Nanny Makes Three by Jessika Auerbach and Niall Hanlon’s work on emotional labor, which will help me examine how care is both expected and managed within professional and social contexts.

The fifth theme is emotional intimacy, motherhood, and resistance, which I will explore through Lucy. In this section, I will focus on how Lucy’s strained relationship with her mother shapes her understanding of care, intimacy, and independence. To support this, I will use Of Woman Born by Adrienne Rich, The Reproduction of Mothering by Nancy Chodorow, and a feminist-postcolonial reading of Lucy, all of which examine motherhood, identity, and the emotional complexities of caregiving relationships.

Across all five sections, I will use Joan Tronto’s theories of care as a unifying framework to connect these themes. This structure allows each text to contribute something specific while still building toward my larger argument about the politics of care.

Student Blogs

Breaking the Texts, Building the Argument

This week, I began narrowing down my primary texts and organizing how I will approach each one through specific themes. Instead of trying to make each text do everything, I decided that each will focus on one key aspect of caregiving that connects to my larger thesis. At this point, my primary texts are Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid, Kindred (series adaptation of Octavia Butler’s novel), Atlanta “Trini 2 De Bone,” The Help by Kathryn Stockett, and Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid.

From the feedback from my presentation last week, I have broken these texts into themes that allow me to explore different dimensions of care. With Lucy, I am focusing on emotional intimacy versus resentment, looking at how caregiving can exist alongside resistance and unresolved identity. With Kindred, I decided to use the series version so I can do a deeper visual and narrative analysis, focusing on care as survival and forced labor, especially within systems of power. I still have two more episodes to watch before fully selecting my scenes. For Atlanta, I will focus on absence and emotional displacement, particularly how the caregiver shapes the child in ways the parents cannot. In The Help, I will explore racialized care and conditional love, paying attention to how genuine emotional bonds exist within unequal systems. For Such a Fun Age, I plan to focus on surveillance, performance, and the tensions of modern caregiving, though I still need to select specific quotes and scenes. I am also still working on identifying the most effective passages in Lucy to close read.

Moving forward, my main task for this upcoming week is to begin connecting these primary texts to my supplemental readings on the politics of care, labor, and intimacy. The goal is to make sure that each close reading is grounded in theory and contributes to my overall argument rather than standing alone. As I continue watching, rereading, and selecting specific excerpts, I am working toward building a cohesive structure where each text supports a different part of my thesis.

Student Blogs

This is Just the Beginning

It’s been a while since I’ve updated you all, safe to say that life can be a little overwhelming at times; it is still important to show up. This week was focused on preparing for my thesis-in-progress presentation and taking a more intentional look at how my project has taken shape. I spent time organizing my central inquiry and refining my thesis statement so that it clearly reflects my focus on caregiving as both labor and intimacy, particularly within the experiences of Afro-Caribbean and immigrant women. I also worked on structuring my literature review into three distinct sections: primary texts, theories of care, and existing scholarship on domestic labor. Breaking it down this way helped me better understand what each group of sources is doing and where my work fits within those conversations. I revisited key texts like Atlanta, Mothercoin, and Raising Brooklyn through close reading, while also identifying how theorists like Tronto and Hanlon, and scholars like Hunter, Katzman, Auerbach, and Macdonald, contribute to my understanding of the politics of care.

In addition to my literature review, I began to more clearly define my methodology. I am now working with a combination of close reading and comparative analysis, alongside creative and autoethnographic writing. Thinking through these as connected approaches rather than separate ideas helped me see how my project can move between analysis and creation. I also began thinking more seriously about how my creative pieces, such as fictional retellings from the perspectives of caregivers or their families, will function as part of my argument rather than something separate from it.

At this point, I feel somewhat on track. There are still gaps in my research that I need to continue filling, and I am realizing that this stage requires ongoing reading and discovery. At the same time, I now have a clearer structure and direction than I did before preparing for this presentation. Moving forward, the next few weeks will be focused on constructing my research proposal. I plan to approach this week by week, dedicating time to strengthening each section, including expanding my literature review, refining my methodology, and continuing to develop my central argument. As we move into the final weeks of the thesis process, my goal is to stay consistent, deepen my analysis, and begin shaping all of these pieces into a cohesive and purposeful final project.

Student Blogs

Building my Lit Review

This week I focused on reading more intentionally for my thesis and paying attention to which sources actually support the argument I am trying to build. I am working toward framing the politics of care, especially the tension between care as labor and care as intimacy, and I am starting to see that not every strong source is the right source for this specific project.

One of the first readings, The Politics of Care by  Woodly, Brown, Marin, Threadcraft, Harris, Syedullah, Ticktin (2021), felt promising at first because it discussed care in broad, political terms. It spoke about the importance of centering care in society and rethinking how we value caregiving. While those ideas align with my interests, the source remained too general for the direction my thesis is taking. I am not only arguing that care matters. I am examining how care becomes complicated when it is paid for, outsourced, racialized, and embedded in systems of capital. I need sources that move beyond celebration and into structure. I need language that helps me analyze power, contracts, emotional labor, and the unequal recognition of intimacy.

In contrast, Professional caring in affective services: the ambivalence of emotional nurture in practice by Niall Hanlon directly support the framework I am building. Hanlon examines how emotional care is central to caregiving but often marginalized within professional systems that prioritize efficiency, measurement, and instrumental tasks. This distinction between instrumental care and relational care speaks directly to my project. It helps me articulate how caregiving can be treated as a service while still functioning as an intimate emotional relationship. That tension is at the heart of immigrant nannying and outsourced motherhood.

Hanlon’s discussion of emotional labor and the difference between care and love is especially useful. Care can be commodified; love cannot. Yet in many caregiving relationships, particularly with children, the boundaries blur. A nanny may be paid, but the child’s attachment is not transactional. This is where the politics of care becomes visible. The contract may end, but the emotional imprint does not. That distinction gives me analytical language to examine how care operates both as labor within capitalism and as intimacy within lived experience.

This week clarified something important for me, and something we spoke about collectively last week. Securing sources for this thesis is not about gathering as many readings as possible. It is about identifying scholarship that can hold the complexity of what I am studying. For my project, that means sources that address:

  • The feminization and racialization of care labor
  • The global and economic structures that produce outsourced caregiving
  • Emotional labor and professional boundaries
  • The tension between contractual obligation and emotional attachment

As I continue building my literature review, I am becoming more selective. I am looking for sources that allow me to examine care not just as a moral good, but as a political, economic, and emotional structure. The more I refine what I need, the clearer my thesis direction becomes.