Summary

In Part I, “Fall Quarter,” Chapter 1, “The Curious Note,” 29-year-old Barnes University doctoral candidate Ingrid Yang worked tirelessly on her dissertation. The project focused on Chinese American poet Xiao-Wen Chou’s work. Overtired and overworked, Ingrid hoped she would fall ill. She had already developed “an addiction to antacids” because of her anxiety (4).

Ingrid often felt she could not “come up with ideas” for the paper (4). She was beginning to realize “she had never wanted to research Chou” (5). Indecisive about what she had wanted to do, Ingrid had fallen into East Asian studies. It had been her advisor, Michael Bartholomew, who encouraged her to study Chou.

Ingrid spent most of her time in the Chou archive. One of her least favorite things about working there was running into her arch-rival Vivian Vo, a Postcolonial Studies student.

While reviewing her papers, Ingrid discovered a...