In the development of this project, two primary values have guided my work:
Ease of Access
One of the core values guiding my work on this project has been the importance of ease of access. To me, this means making my project easy to understand for non-academic audiences and easy to navigate. As such, I have tried to generally avoid what might be considered “scholarly language,” or jargon, that necessitates the reading of already-existing scholarly literature to fully understand. Rather, I have done my best to use language that anyone can understand, no matter their standing in academia (or outside of academia).
I have also attempted to make everything offered by my project available in one location: this website. Although I did use some other platforms, such as SoundCloud, I have attempted to keep everything on a single site by embedding content and providing links to single pieces of content when other platforms were used. By keeping everything in a central location, it is my hope that users are able to easily find and navigate to the content they are interested in.
A New Perspective
It is my belief that a project such as this should do more than repeat information that is already available online. Rather, it should offer something new, information that has previously been difficult to access or a fresh perspective. This project focuses on offering a fresh perspective not only for the study of Sui Sin Far, but for literary studies in general.
The new perspective I offer here concerns the place sound holds in literary studies and related fields. Outside of scholarship regarding mediums such as audiobooks, I have not encountered much scholarship regarding the influence or importance of sound in literature. Literary studies naturally tend to focus on the content or the historical context of the text or its author—after all, literary studies are generally based upon text as a medium.
However, as brought to my attention by Sound Never Tasted So Good (link opens in new tab), sound can have a great influence on anyone interacting with a medium. In terms of the importance of sound in the context of literary studies, it may be important to think about what a particular author was trying to reference, how that thought was communicated in a text, how it was interpreted by contemporary audiences, and how it is interpreted by audiences today. Thinking about questions such as these has the potential to lead to new discoveries and avenues of thought. As such, I wanted to bring attention to the influence of sound in a text: a task I approached by focusing on specific music referenced in Mrs. Spring Fragrance.
It is my hope that by valuing the offering of a new perspective, I inspire others to think more about the perspective I have offered here and to interrogate fresh perspectives of their own.
Please use the contact form on the home page to provide feedback on how well I have followed my values and how I can improve in the implementation of my values in this project.
Sui Sin Far 