[Trigger Warning: brief discussions of sexual assault.] It’s been nearly ten years since Bryan Fuller’s TV show Hannibal (2013-2015) debuted. Since then, it has garnered a cult viewership and a devoted online fanbase, often referred to as “fannibals.” However, to their (and my) chagrin, the show was preemptively cancelled after Season 3. As a late-comer to Hannibal (in that I’ve only just started...
This week, we return to the archive for a post by Molly Cavanaugh, where she discusses the non-traditional erotics of the relationship between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. In the same vein as Mark’s posts, which have considered representations of gay relationships in film and television, Molly’s post contemplates the homoerotic tension created between predator and investigator within the...
Unlike My Beautiful Launderette, whose narrative refused our identification with Omar and Johnny’s romantic life, the 2013 Australian TV show Please Like Me is structured almost solely around relationships. Queer love and intimacy are a complete spectacle, where most of the narrative (and much of the comedy) comes from Josh’s (Josh Thomas) sometimes awkward —and other times heartedly tepid —...
Recently, there has been an uptick in the amount of “gay-centric” media created by the mainstream film and television industry. Movies like Call Me by Your Name (2017), Moonlight (2016), Carol (2015), Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), etc. mark a notable shift in LGBT narratives to being not only more mainstream—more desired—but actively produced for recognition among the Hollywood award circuit. In the...
“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 As we’ve been considering the seemingly timeless quality of the figure of the...
“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 skillful deceiver always finds plenty of people who will let themselves be deceived.” -Machiavelli...
I experience a fleeting feeling of freedom whenever I go to the grocery store. It offers me a reprieve from the stress and anxiety that creeps up on a daily basis as I worry about deadlines approaching or what I’ll do next after I finish graduate school. And then there’s always the peripheral flutter of unending concerns about issues that most people are able to accept as out of their...
The curious thing about the arts is how they flow across geographical limitations like no other stream of study or career. Art has an organic capability to mold itself in the vision of its audience no matter what its origins were. The story of a French boy who finds an extremely spherical balloon that has a mind of its own (Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon) can create vivid emotions for a...
Last academic year, serving as a 2013-2014 HASTAC scholar, I began work on The Pedagogy Project (forthcoming). The HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Sciences, Technology Alliance and Collaboratory) community asked fellow scholars to submit sample lesson plans or pedagogical strategies. I submitted a lesson that I use when I teach Twin Peaks, and I helped compile and organize the collection of over 80...