Your research paper will explore a theme, question, or problem raised by a single text. You can choose your text from this list of memoirs and novels. The first step in your project is to read the work you select.

In addition to your main text, you will also identify and read two articles and one book that will help you understand your main text. The articles will come from approved encyclopedias, and we will choose them together in class. The book must come from the reference section of one of these articles, and you will use it to help illuminate the novel or memoir that you are writing about. It can be a general history of the country or part of the world that you are interested in, or its colonial history.

Albert Camus, The Stranger. Existentialist philosophy in novel form, addressing the murder of an Arab by a French settler. Camus was himself French-Algerian.

How do we know the world of The Stranger is irrational? Write an essay answering the question. Support your ideas with relevant arguments and examples. List 2-3 sources in the references.