Tag: Popular Culture
Appreciating Space: “Minecraft” and Empowerment
For the last two summers, I’ve worked as an instructor for the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Kid College program, which is basically a mix between a summer camp and course series about technology for kids aged 9-14. Most of the classes I taught were about game design, and the most popular courses by far were
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
“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
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
Behind the doors of psychiatric treatment centers
Exterior of McLean Hospital, the institution referenced in Girl, Interrupted (photo by John Phelan) “Is it going to be like ‘Girl, Interrupted’?” I cautiously asked my husband before being taken to the psychiatric wing of our local hospital. He assured me it wouldn’t and, in unfortunate ways, he was right. I spent less than four
“Show me a good time”?: Madonna, Drake, and Police Brutality
If you’re fortunate enough to have the self-control to avoid at least moving your cursor over the “trending” links on Facebook: apparently, Madonna kissed Drake at Coachella, and to paraphrase Drake “it was it was [sic] not the best.” I base that reading on Drake’s body language: stunned immobility, a wide what is happening gesture,