Sunday, October 31, 2010

1)Patterson argues, “It is my contention that the dramatic structure of Matheson’s novel contains a very clear, racially charged subtext that reflects the cultural anxieties of a white America newly confronted with the fact that it can no longer segregate itself from those whom it has labeled Other. This Other may be constructively viewed as a manifestation of what Toni Morrison has termed an “Africanist” presence” (19). How does Patterson go on to support her claims? Do you agree with her reading of I Am Legend? Why or why not? What is your opinion of Toni Morrison’s claim about an “Africanist presence”? What does she mean by this statement and how does it change the ways one might read these novels?

2) Explore Patterson’s ideas about women in I Am Legend. To what extent are the portrayals of women in the novel indicative of how women were viewed in the 1950s? What is the connection between women and “race” in this novel according to Patterson?

3) Patterson states, “In Neville’s worldview, hybrid blood equals contaminated blood. His obsessive studies of blood and his efforts to identify, prevent, and possibly cure blood contamination reflect a desperate desire to restore homogeneity and, with it, a social order that he recognizes.” What is the importance of “blood” in this novel? How is it similar or different to other discussion of “blood” in other vampire novels we’ve read? (23)

4) Patterson spends a great deal of time examining the representations of the “half breed” in this novel. She quotes H.L. Malchow who states,

“… there is also lurking in the vampire the powerful suggestion of an explicitly racial obsession – that of the “half-breed.” Both vampire and half-breed are creatures who transgress boundaries and are caught between two worlds. Both are hidden threats – disguised presences bringing pollution of the blood. Both may be able to “pass” among the unsuspecting, although both bear hidden signs of their difference, which the wary may read. “(168)

In your own words, explain where the anxieties surrounding the “half breed” come from and what they say about western notions surrounding “purity” and “race.”

5) Choose one of the stories in the later novels and explain its relationship to the vampire novel or the horror genre in general. How do some of the themes in I Am Legend relate to some of the other themes Matheson explores in these later stories?

6) How do the vampires differ from the vampires in the earlier novels we have read? Do you see a "shift" in behavior? Why do you think this is the case?

7) Neville ends the novel by saying, "I am legend." What does he come to understand at the end of the book? What does he mean by this statement?

Monday, October 25, 2010

I AM LEGEND

Please read up to page 163 of I Am Legend. Below are a few questions we'll be exploring this week. Feel free to draw from them, or to develop your own questions. You should also feel free to respond to another student's post.

Your blogs will be due on Wednesday at 11:59 pm.

Your comments on other student blogs will be due by FRIDAY at 11:59.

In addition to your blogs and comments, you also must post in one or more of the discussion forums on my blog by Friday at 11:59 pm. You do NOT have to post in all of the forums, but I will be assessing you on how well you are able to respond to the various prompts and each others' ideas. Remember that Forum C is an open forum, so if there is something you would like to discuss that hasn't been addressed by me or another student, please post there.

1) Last week we briefly discussed Arata’s claim that vampires in fiction are a sign of a troubled society riddled with anxiety about its possible decline. Given that Matheson’s novel was written in 1954, what sort of social anxieties do you think this novel reflects? Provide passages to defend your answer.

2) What do you think of Robert Neville as our “hero”? Is he a hero at all?

3) In this novel, we move from the conception of vampires as something supernatural and mystical to something biological. What is the role of science in this novel? What does this novel say about the promises, limitations, and dangers of modern technology?

4) How are these vampires different from other vampires we’ve seen and why do you think this is the case? What is Matheson’s vampire saying about the culture in which he wrote this novel?

Monday, October 18, 2010

DRACULA contd. and Stephen D. Arata's "The Occidental Tourist: DRACULA and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonization"

Please read up the rest of Dracula and Stephen D. Arata’s essay “The Occidental Tourist: Dracula and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonization” (located in the Dracula edition assigned to this course). Below are a few questions we'll be exploring this week. Feel free to draw from them, or to develop your own questions. You should also feel free to respond to another student's post.

Your blogs will be due on Wednesday at 11:59 pm.

Your comments on other student blogs will be due by FRIDAY at 11:59.

In addition to your blogs and comments, you also must post in one or more of the discussion forums on my blog by Friday at 11:59 pm. You do NOT have to post in all of the forums, but I will be assessing you on how well you are able to respond to the various prompts and each others' ideas. Remember that Forum C is an open forum, so if there is something you would like to discuss that hasn't been addressed by me or another student, please post there.

1) Arata explains that Dracuala is an extension of the vexed “Eastern Question” (462) What does he mean by this? How do we see these anxieties playing out in the novel?

2) Arata exerts that the presence of vampires hearkens in “the decline of empire,” relating how Stoker “thus transforms the materials of the vampire myth, making them bear the weight of the culture’s fears over its declining status. The appearance of vampires becomes the sign of profound trouble” (465). What do you think he means by this statement? Given the flood of vampires in our contemporary culture--filled with financial meltdowns, political strife, and an increasingly heterogeneous immigrant population—are vampires a sign of “profound trouble” in our current society? How so?

3) On page 466, Arata claims, “All the novel’s vampires are distinguished by their robust health and their equally robust fertility. The vampire serves, then, to highlight the alarming decline among the British, since the undead are, paradoxically, both ‘healthier’ and more ‘fertile’ than the living.” What does he mean by these statements? What is the construction of Victorian masculinity in this novel? In comparison, consider how current ideas of masculinities are constructed in, through, and against more contemporary vampire characters.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

DRACULA

Please read up to page 159 of Dracula for next week. Below are a few questions we'll be exploring this week. Feel free to draw from them, or to develop your own questions. You should also feel free to respond to another student's post.

Your blogs will be due on Wednesday at 11:59 pm.

Your comments on other student blogs will be due by FRIDAY at 11:59.

In addition to your blogs and comments, you also must post in one or more of the discussion forums on my blog by Friday at 11:59 pm. You do NOT have to post in all of the forums, but I will be assessing you on how well you are able to respond to the various prompts and each others' ideas. Remember that Forum C is an open forum, so if there is something you would like to discuss that hasn't been addressed by me or another student, please post there.

1) In our edition of Dracula, Phyllis A Roth writes, "Perhaps nowhere is the dichotomy of sensual and sexless women more dramatic than it is in Dracula and nowhere is the suddenly sexual woman more violent and self-righteously persecuted than in Stoker's 'thriller'" (412). For your post, explore the depictions of women in the novel. Could "vampirism" be a way in which women can express an otherwise repressed sexuality? Consider Jonathan's run-in with the "Brides of Dracula." How is he both allured and repelled by these women? Explore how Lucy and Mina both exceed but then at times transgress the stereotype of the angelic, Victorian woman. In what ways do both characters play "dangerously" with the role of the New Woman? How does Vampirism become symbolic of "dangerous" female sexuality?

2) Examine the role of Dr. Seward in this novel. What do you think is the significance of the insane asylum in this novel? What is the significance of the emerging "science" of psychology in terms of the themes of this novel and with the idea of the vampire in general? Why is the character of Renfield signficant?

3) Explore Dracula's relation to modernity. What is the role of technology in this novel? How, and why, does it work side by side with superstition and ancient Catholicism? How does Dracula use modern technology for his own ends?

4) How does "blood" work symbolically in this novel? Consider the significance of the many blood transfusions that were given to Lucy. How might we consider the transference of blood as a sexual act? What does that say about the symbolic "exchange" of fluids in this novel? Given that Victorians were so obsessed with "blood," bloodlines, and "race," how could this constant exchanging of fluids and "mixing" be considered an "uncanny" sort of trope in the novel?

5) The novel Dracula is told from several perspectives. Choose one character and analyze how this character “tells” the story of Dracula. What sort of medium does this character use? How would you define or characterize his or her point of view?

6) Take a moment to read through mcmahont’s last blog on Carmilla and Orientalism. What similar themes do you see developing in Dracula? http://mcmahont.blogspot.com/2010/10/carmilla-from-perspective-of.html

Sunday, October 3, 2010

CARMILLA contd.

Please finish the rest of Carmilla and read through Tamar Heller’s essay “The Vampire in the House: Hysteria, Female Sexuality, and Female Knowledge in Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla.’” You can find this essay on D2L.

Your blogs will be due on Wednesday at 11:59 pm.

Your comments on other student blogs will be due by FRIDAY at 11:59.

In addition to your blogs and comments, you also must post in one or more of the discussion forums on my blog by Friday at 11:59 pm. You do NOT have to post in all of the forums, but I will be assessing you on how well you are able to respond to the various prompts and each others' ideas. Remember that Forum C is an open forum, so if there is something you would like to discuss that hasn't been addressed by me or another student, please post there.

1) In “The Vampire in the House,” Heller connects themes of vampirism in Victorian literature with female hysteria. What sorts of connections does she draw in her essay? Do you agree with Heller’s analysis? Can we see Laura and Carmilla as extensions of the Victorian discourse surrounding “hysterical” women? How so?

2) Heller suggests Le Fanu’s Carmilla is an early version of what has become a very familiar narrative of the lesbian “vamp” devouring young girls. In this narrative, she writes, “Both the body of the lesbian and the mind of the victim she brainwashes are the site of a battle over who gets to define, and hence to control, femininity and its desires: women or the fathers, priests, and doctors who are the story’s male ‘knowers’” (80). What do you think she means by this statement? How do you see this sort of narrative functioning within Carmilla?

3) Within her essay, Heller connects vampirism with Victorian anxiety surrounding menstruation and masturbation. What are some of the connections she makes and would you agree with her interpretation?

4) Heller connects Carmilla’s vampyric presence with the East, saying, “This feminine invasion is figured in terms of imperialist anxiety, for Carmilla rides into Styria—already, because of its orientalism, an only tenuously domesticated zone—like the return of the repressed colonized Other” (84). For this blog, conduct an internet search on these two key terms—“orientalism” and the phrase “return of the repressed.” Share what you find with the class and explain how we might see Carmilla as a manifestation of imperial anxiety.

5) Along with our first “lesbian vampire,” this text also contains our first “vampire hunter” character. How would you characterize this figure? How is he described? Would you agree with what Heller implies in her essay that this character symbolizes “male” ways of knowing? Or is he some sort of conduit? Use examples from both the essay and Carmilla to explain your answer.

6) We only read Carmilla through a transcript written from Laura’s point of view. For this blog, feel free to rewrite a scene from another character’s perspective.