This is my second semester working on the MaRGAN project, «Mapping Religion in the Anglophone Novel 1890-1980», a project that aims to map literary representations of religion in approximately 400 anglophone novels.
This time around my two fellow students and I were told by our project leader, Jamie Christopher Callison, that we were free to choose between either analysing two novels, or to analyse one novel and do some administrative work related to the database that MaRGAN aims to develop. Eager to try something different, I went with the second option. For my reading I chose Philip K. Dick’s novel Ubik as I had wanted to read it for a while, and this project gave me just the excuse I needed to finally get around to it (and how glad I am that I did!). The process was the same as the last time. We took note of where the author(s) were from, what religions are depicted in the novel, etc.. We then read the novels, made note of themes that corresponded to a list of keywords we had been provided, and wrote short summaries based on these keywords. For Ubik, I chose the keywords «Afterlife», «Holy People», «Omens & Visions», «Psyche», and «Transcendence». The purpose of this data being that someone curious about representations of «Afterlife», for example, might consult the MaRGAN database and find Ubik listed there.
For the second part of the project I decided to work on administrative work, which entailed sorting the data from datasheets, such as the ones we had already produced on the project earlier, into a Google Sheet to compile all the data gathered. Working on this aspect of the project was interesting to me, as I got a glimpse into the process of not only gathering, but sorting through all the data. It really put the massive scope of the MaRGAN project into perspective, and cemented my belief that this will be an incredibly valuable tool.
Working on MaRGAN has been an interesting and fun experience for me, one that I feel has given me valuable insight into academic projects, while simultaneously enabling me to read engaging novels that I’d previously only thought about.