By golly! I think I may have a title I like! And I came up with it all by myself:

The Essence of Literature: A Case Study in Oral History

What do we think?

The Essence of Literature: A Case Study in Oral History

What do we think?

I have not commented on this before, but some of the others, I was not really sure what they meant exactly. This clearly tells me that you are examining the literary nature of oral history (as opposed to its historiographical value), by examining one set of oral history. Not knowing precisely what your thesis is, from this title, I sort of expect it to evaluate oral history as literature in a similar fashion to high school students being exposed to, say, great diarists like Pepys and Boswell - in other words, exposing it as a subset of Capital-L Literature to an audience that was naive about it its place in Literature.

If that is what you meant to say, then the title gets the job done in a way that some of the less straightforward, but more superficially exciting titles will not.

Wow. I just used up my brain power reserve. IOW, gronk.

but some of the others, I was not really sure what they meant exactly.

Yeah, that was one of my parents' issues.

This clearly tells me that you are examining the literary nature of oral history (as opposed to its historiographical value), by examining one set of oral history.

This is *exactly* what I am doing.

in other words, exposing it as a subset of Capital-L Literature to an audience that was naive about it its place in Literature.

Pretty much it! Though, at a much higher level than high school :).

If that is what you meant to say, then the title gets the job done in a way that some of the less straightforward, but more superficially exciting titles will not.

Oh, good! Waiting to hear back from my parents and thesis adviser on it, but I'm feeling good about this title. If anyone has small tweak suggestions, I'm still quite open to them.

The Essence of Literature: A Case Study in Oral History

vw, I like this one the best out of all the titles you've posted.

And ION completely, PMS sucks like a giant sucking thing. I want to curl up and go back to bed. Unfortunately, I'm already at work.

I'm suddenly seized with the wish that I'd named my thesis "Quotation Marks Around the Title" rather than It's All a Big Lie. Neither one would tell you what it was about, but the first is a better meta commentary.

While I agree with what WindSparrow's saying, I find myself wondering, "What about the essence of literature?" How would you feel about being more sentence-y than noun-phrase-y?

Always keeping in mind, of course, that your thesis will end up shelved with a bunch of things entitled, Ethnohistory of the Hagiography of Warsaw's converts to Christianity in the late 1840s: One Muslim's Perspective and Expression of T-3578321 in One-Celled Prokaryotes Living on Mudfish in the Hollow Behind a Dallas Subdivision. Yours will make more sense no matter what!

How would you feel about being more sentence-y than noun-phrase-y?

Do you have a suggestion? :)

Always keeping in mind, of course, that your thesis will end up shelved with a bunch of things entitled, Ethnohistory of the Hagiography of Warsaw's converts to Christianity in the late 1840s: One Muslim's Perspective and Expression of T-3578321 in One-Celled Prokaryotes Living on Mudfish in the Hollow Behind a Dallas Subdivision. Yours will make more sense no matter what!

So true! Though, from what I can tell, it will not be shelved. It's going to be stuffed in some files (in the English department and honors department). The only way this will get out there is if I push to have it published, which I probably will be working on this summer. I've gotten great encouragement to do so from people on both sides of the argument (Lit and Oral History).

Em, do you mean something like, "Literary Essence as it Relates to Oral History"?

No, I guess I was thinking more like, "This is the Essence of Literature," but now that I think of it that doesn't convey any more information than yours. Never mind. I'm not very good at the title game.

Thanks anyways, you!

Titles are usually what comes to me first, so trying to do this last is really throwing me off.