>Anyway those are some things your post makes me consider. I think you >have a great topic and don't need lots of secondary sources to write it, >as long as you are situating your own ideas within established ideas >about the picaresque...and/or within tensions between European and >American values systems...that seems like enough secondary material to >lay the foundation for your own reading... Thanks a lot for the encouragement. Back here in Germany students are pretty much 'left alone'. (My professor told me not to conatact him until after my thesis has been officially handed in on the due date.) I sometimes feel very insecure and my thoughts are spinning round and round, as you can probably imagine. Greetings, Ines ---------------------------------------------------------------- [log in to unmask] Ines Koessl-Timm Wallbergstr. 3 85655 Grosshelfendorf Germany