Tag: Humanities
Machiavelli’s “Small Volume”: The Legacy of the Stage Machiavel
“Bearing in mind all the matters previously discussed, I ask myself whether the present time is appropriate for welcoming a new ruler in Italy, and whether there is matter that provides an opportunity for a few-seeing and able man to mold it into a form that will bring honour to him and its inhabitants.” -Machiavelli
Privileged Positions: House of Cards and Frank Underwood’s Machiavellian Monologues
“Since a ruler, then, must know how to act like a beast, he should imitate both the fox and the lion, for the lion is liable to be trapped, whereas the fox cannot ward off wolves…[b]ut foxiness should be well concealed: one must be a great feigner and dissembler. And men are so naïve…that a
“You win or You Die”: Game of Thrones and Machiavellian Amorality
“However, how men live is so different from how they should live that a ruler who does not do what is generally done, but persists in doing what ought to be done, will undermine his power rather than maintain it.” -Machiavelli Note: Spoilers for the first four seasons of Game of Thrones and for Richard
Hated, Feared and Loved: Popular Representations of Nicollò Machiavelli
“A controversy has risen about this: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or vice versa. My view is that it is desirable to be both loved and feared; but it is difficult to achieve both and, if one of them has to be lacking, it is much safer to be feared than
Part II: Wicked Women and the Negotiation of Female (Dis)empowerment
“Not only did she dupe me into believing she still loved me, she actually forced me to implicate myself. Wicked, wicked girl. I almost laughed. Good Lord, I hated her, but you had to admire the bitch.” – Nick Dunne Gone Girl, (Flynn 345) [1] The majority of Gone Girl’s masterful storytelling depends on Flynn’s
Part I: Wicked Women, Active Deception, and Narrative Opportunity
Recently, my thoughts have been preoccupied with wicked women. As a student of the humanities – namely, English literature, and even more specifically, Victorian literature, in all its verbosity – whose field of study recognizes the pivotal inextricability of words from complex networks of cultural meaning, contemporary and historical connotations, and critical scrutiny, I
Part II: Female Identity, Subjectivity, and Knowing the Self
“There’s been an Awakening in the Force” – but what kind? Warning: This post includes potentially triggering discussions of nonconsensual physical and mental assault. Last week’s post opened an exploration into the narrative obfuscation of Rey’s identity, and considered the advantages of such inscrutability, both to the character’s further development in Episodes VIII and IX,
Part I: Female Identity, Representation, and the Inscrutable Self
“There’s been an Awakening in the Force” – but what kind? Feeling the franchise fatigue? It’s understandable. Whether through filmic expansions on original texts – Parts 1 & 2, for your viewing pleasure and box office sales – recalling nostalgia for a past childhood – I’m looking at you, Finding Dory (June 2016!) – or
Adaptation Nation: Popular U.S. Film Originality 2010-2015
Walking into a movie theater last week I noticed that nearly all of the films being advertised were for sequels or adaptions of already existing franchises. As I settled down with my popcorn to watch the film I had come to see (itself the 7th episode in a series called Star Wars—you might have heard
Zen and the Art of the Course Description
Course descriptions bridge the gap between the university’s corporate model and the classroom’s pedagogical space, aiding in achieving satisfactory enrollment “numbers.” In this way, the description of a class has to do the work of both an advertisement and an infomercial, appealing to students as well as cuing them about the course’s content. Despite our