After reading and reviewing your final project and essay proposals, I think it would be best to extend the deadline to MONDAY December 20th at 11:59 pm (midnight). I want to make sure you have enough time to create really successful final projects, and that you have an opportunity to ask any questions from me or have me or another classmate look at your drafts.
Since I will be extending the deadline, I would like for you to write one final blog before posting your final project. By Friday, December 17th at 11:59, I would like for you to post a reflection about the course. You can use the questions below to get you started.
What have you learned this semester? What sort of ideas, themes, concepts, and questions have we explored, and how have they helped you to understand the vampire figure and its significance in literature and in our culture? How have you developed a better appreciation for the novel? What sort of reading processes has this course encouraged and how do you feel you've developed as a reader and a writer? What novel had the greatest effect on you? Why? How have your thoughts about the vampire changed? Do you see this figure differently now since you began the course? How did you feel about the blog and discussion format of the course? Looking back on your work, is there something you would have done differently? Do you think you experimented enough with the format? Did you take risks with the questions provided, and did you take the opportunity to push your thinking and your analyses further? How did your peers affect the way you read these novels? How did reading your peers' blogs, comments, and posts change the way you approached these works? Are there a few blogs and posters that really stuck out to you as being particularly helpful and interesting, and what made them so? How do you feel about the quality of your final project? Do you think this final project has helped you to explore some of the course themes in more depth? How so?
Again, please post your responses to these questions by Friday, December 17th at 11:59 pm. You do NOT have to comment on blogs.
Your final projects must be posted to your blogs by Monday, December 20th at 11:59 pm. As a precautionary measure, please email me any necessary materials by then, as well.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and “Childhood’s End: Let the Right One In and Other Deaths of Innocence” by John Calhoun
Please read the rest of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and “Childhood’s End: Let the Right One In and Other Deaths of Innocence” by John Calhoun (on D2L) for this 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.
For this week, students will NOT have to post in the discussion forums.
1) John Calhoun argues that Eli “is a repository of adult fears about children, who are so like us yet in crucial ways so different, who are both vulnerable and demanding, and in touch with the id in ways that can elicit great anxiety and discomfort, especially when sexual stirrings begin to take form” (27). What does Calhoun mean by this statement? Describe his survey of the way in which “the child” has been conceptualized throughout history. What sorts of changes, evolutions, and characterizations have the idea of “the child” gone through? What does the recent wave of “horror stories” concerning childhood say about our current culture and our anxieties towards children? How does this novel “trouble” our ideas of childhood and “innocence”?
2) For this blog, do some internet research on Freud’s idea of the “uncanny” or “unheimlich.” How could this concept relate to the novel and to this statement by Calhoun: “Parents and other adults are supposed to protect children, and their potential failure to do so can be a potent source of horror: for both children and adults” (27)?
3) Calhoun cites the director of the film version of LTROI as saying, ““Sweden was halfway behind the Iron Curtain,” and the grim, Soviet-era feel of the housing blocks where Oskar and Eli live conveys the sense of a failed community; few residents seem to venture outside, or have contact with their neighbors, and they certainly aren’t watching out for the local children. The only real communal feeling depicted is among a group of barflies who don’t even have a proper bar to frequent, so they hang out in a dreary Chinese restaurant. Mostly unemployed, these marginal figures are forgotten wards of a welfare state, and in their drunken late-night wanderings are easy targets for predation” (27). For this blog, explore some of the lives of these “marginal figures” and the break down of community in this novel. To what extent is the “vampire figure” a symptom of this breakdown in this and other novels?
4) Calhoun not only remarks about the way in which children have been conceptualized as “innocent,” but the way in which girls in particular are markedly constructed as “clean and sweet-smelling, not [having] matted hair and emanate foul orders like both Regan [from The Exorcist] and Eli” (30). How does this novel and other novels we’ve read redefine and “trouble” strict gender constructions? Furthermore, how does Eli’s ambiguous gender blur the boundaries in terms of identity? What is the significance of the shift in pronouns in the middle of the novel? How does it change the way in which we read the second half of the book?
5) For this blog, explore the character Tommy. What are his motivations in the novel?
6) At the end of the novel, Gunnar Holmberg, a police officer, describes Eli as “an angel,” but “hardly one from heaven” (471). How would you describe Eli? Is she/he an angel? A hero? How does this character push the boundaries of our ideas of the vampire? How is she different from other vampires we’ve read this semester?
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.
For this week, students will NOT have to post in the discussion forums.
1) John Calhoun argues that Eli “is a repository of adult fears about children, who are so like us yet in crucial ways so different, who are both vulnerable and demanding, and in touch with the id in ways that can elicit great anxiety and discomfort, especially when sexual stirrings begin to take form” (27). What does Calhoun mean by this statement? Describe his survey of the way in which “the child” has been conceptualized throughout history. What sorts of changes, evolutions, and characterizations have the idea of “the child” gone through? What does the recent wave of “horror stories” concerning childhood say about our current culture and our anxieties towards children? How does this novel “trouble” our ideas of childhood and “innocence”?
2) For this blog, do some internet research on Freud’s idea of the “uncanny” or “unheimlich.” How could this concept relate to the novel and to this statement by Calhoun: “Parents and other adults are supposed to protect children, and their potential failure to do so can be a potent source of horror: for both children and adults” (27)?
3) Calhoun cites the director of the film version of LTROI as saying, ““Sweden was halfway behind the Iron Curtain,” and the grim, Soviet-era feel of the housing blocks where Oskar and Eli live conveys the sense of a failed community; few residents seem to venture outside, or have contact with their neighbors, and they certainly aren’t watching out for the local children. The only real communal feeling depicted is among a group of barflies who don’t even have a proper bar to frequent, so they hang out in a dreary Chinese restaurant. Mostly unemployed, these marginal figures are forgotten wards of a welfare state, and in their drunken late-night wanderings are easy targets for predation” (27). For this blog, explore some of the lives of these “marginal figures” and the break down of community in this novel. To what extent is the “vampire figure” a symptom of this breakdown in this and other novels?
4) Calhoun not only remarks about the way in which children have been conceptualized as “innocent,” but the way in which girls in particular are markedly constructed as “clean and sweet-smelling, not [having] matted hair and emanate foul orders like both Regan [from The Exorcist] and Eli” (30). How does this novel and other novels we’ve read redefine and “trouble” strict gender constructions? Furthermore, how does Eli’s ambiguous gender blur the boundaries in terms of identity? What is the significance of the shift in pronouns in the middle of the novel? How does it change the way in which we read the second half of the book?
5) For this blog, explore the character Tommy. What are his motivations in the novel?
6) At the end of the novel, Gunnar Holmberg, a police officer, describes Eli as “an angel,” but “hardly one from heaven” (471). How would you describe Eli? Is she/he an angel? A hero? How does this character push the boundaries of our ideas of the vampire? How is she different from other vampires we’ve read this semester?
Monday, November 29, 2010
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
Please read parts one and two of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN for this 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.
For this week and next, students will NOT have to post in the discussion forums. Because we are nearing the end of the semester, I think it would be best to focus on our blogs and your upcoming final projects.
1) The title of this novel is based on a song by Morrissey entitled “Let the Right One Slip In.”
The lyrics are as follows:
Let the right one in
Let the old dreams die
Let the wrong ones go
They cannot
They cannot
They cannot do what you want them to do
Oh ...
Let the right one in
Let the old dreams die
Let the wrong ones go
They do not
They do not
They do not see what you want them to
Oh ...
Let the right one in
Let the old things fade
Put the tricks and schemes (for good) away
Ah ... I will advise
Ah ... Until my mouth dries
Ah ... I will advise you to ...
Ah ... let the right one slip in
Slip in
Slip in
And when at last it does
I'd say you were within your rights to bite
The right one and say, "what kept you so long ?"
"What kept you so long ?"
Oh ...
What connections do you see between these Morrissey lyrics and the novel? Quote passages from the text to support your answer.
2) Among many things, this novel makes a direct commentary on public housing and the manufactured nature of the suburbs and explores its secrets and its inherent violence. On the second page of the novel, Lindqvist writes that only one thing was missing from these modern high rises—“a past.” He writes, “That tells you something about the modernity of the place, its rationality. It tells you something of how free they were from the ghosts of history and of terror.” What is the symbolism of the vampire in this context? What do you think Lindqvist is trying to say about modern life and its manufactured and mass produced spaces?
3) This novel takes place during the Cold War. How does this novel explore themes of “war” and “violence”? How can we read the bullying on the playground as a metaphor? For what, exactly?
4) How would you characterize the relationship between Håkan and Eli? What might their relationship be symbolic of? Adversely, how would you characterize the relationship between Oskar and Eli?
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.
For this week and next, students will NOT have to post in the discussion forums. Because we are nearing the end of the semester, I think it would be best to focus on our blogs and your upcoming final projects.
1) The title of this novel is based on a song by Morrissey entitled “Let the Right One Slip In.”
The lyrics are as follows:
Let the right one in
Let the old dreams die
Let the wrong ones go
They cannot
They cannot
They cannot do what you want them to do
Oh ...
Let the right one in
Let the old dreams die
Let the wrong ones go
They do not
They do not
They do not see what you want them to
Oh ...
Let the right one in
Let the old things fade
Put the tricks and schemes (for good) away
Ah ... I will advise
Ah ... Until my mouth dries
Ah ... I will advise you to ...
Ah ... let the right one slip in
Slip in
Slip in
And when at last it does
I'd say you were within your rights to bite
The right one and say, "what kept you so long ?"
"What kept you so long ?"
Oh ...
What connections do you see between these Morrissey lyrics and the novel? Quote passages from the text to support your answer.
2) Among many things, this novel makes a direct commentary on public housing and the manufactured nature of the suburbs and explores its secrets and its inherent violence. On the second page of the novel, Lindqvist writes that only one thing was missing from these modern high rises—“a past.” He writes, “That tells you something about the modernity of the place, its rationality. It tells you something of how free they were from the ghosts of history and of terror.” What is the symbolism of the vampire in this context? What do you think Lindqvist is trying to say about modern life and its manufactured and mass produced spaces?
3) This novel takes place during the Cold War. How does this novel explore themes of “war” and “violence”? How can we read the bullying on the playground as a metaphor? For what, exactly?
4) How would you characterize the relationship between Håkan and Eli? What might their relationship be symbolic of? Adversely, how would you characterize the relationship between Oskar and Eli?
Monday, November 15, 2010
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE and George Haggerty's "Anne Rice and the Queering of Culture"
Please Interview with the Vampire and read George Haggerty’s essay “Anne Rice and the Queering of Culture” (on D2L). 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) On page six, Haggerty asks, “How do we explain the eroticization of Rice's figures of the night? What is it about the male-male seductions of Rice's work that places them on bestseller lists and makes them the staple of shopping malls and supermarket check-out lines? What makes these tales of pulsing bodily fluids the hottest topic in suburban as well as urban US culture?” How does he attempt to answer these questions in his essay? What do you think of his response to Anne Rice’s works? Do you agree or disagree with his analysis and why?
2) On page eight, Haggerty writes, “Readers of The Vampire Chronicles are offered a conflicted relation to Lestat and his posturing. They are like the audience in the Theatre of the Vampires: they desire a voyeuristic participation in something they want to believe and disbelieve at the same time. Their attraction to these creatures of the night is also a repulsion. They need to witness the homoerotics of this world and to reject its power at the same time. This is an uncanny relation but also a tremendously powerful one.” Do you agree with his assessment? Have our forays into vampire literature been a type of “theatre”? Read back through pages 213-224 and the scene at the Théâtre de Vampires. How are we as readers placed in a position that is voyeuristic and “forbidden”?
3) Haggerty sees Rice’s novels as symptomatic of our culture’s discussion over “the AIDS crisis, the crisis over ‘family values,’ and the collapse of the war on drugs with its attendant militarization of civilian life and war on male potency (10). What does he mean by these claims and how does he set out to support them? Do you agree with this reading? Why or why not?
4) Haggerty writes, “Dead brothers abound in these novels: Anne Rice seems to find in these deaths the source of imaginative life, the beginning of the tale, its generative force” (13). The film version of Interview begins with Brad Pitt mourning the loss of his wife and child. How does that change, in your opinion, the meaning of the novel?
5) For this blog, do a google search on some key terms such as “postmodernism” and the “theatre of the absurd.” How do you think these artistic and philosophical movements inform Rice’s work?
6) On page 284, Armand calls Louis “the spirit of the age.” What does Armand mean by that? What is Louis’ response? Is a part of what attracts us to the character Louis is that he represents some “spirit” or zeitgeist of our age? What is that?
7) What do you think of the ending to this novel? Imagine you were the boy interviewing Louis. Would your response to Louis’ story be the same? Why or why not?
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) On page six, Haggerty asks, “How do we explain the eroticization of Rice's figures of the night? What is it about the male-male seductions of Rice's work that places them on bestseller lists and makes them the staple of shopping malls and supermarket check-out lines? What makes these tales of pulsing bodily fluids the hottest topic in suburban as well as urban US culture?” How does he attempt to answer these questions in his essay? What do you think of his response to Anne Rice’s works? Do you agree or disagree with his analysis and why?
2) On page eight, Haggerty writes, “Readers of The Vampire Chronicles are offered a conflicted relation to Lestat and his posturing. They are like the audience in the Theatre of the Vampires: they desire a voyeuristic participation in something they want to believe and disbelieve at the same time. Their attraction to these creatures of the night is also a repulsion. They need to witness the homoerotics of this world and to reject its power at the same time. This is an uncanny relation but also a tremendously powerful one.” Do you agree with his assessment? Have our forays into vampire literature been a type of “theatre”? Read back through pages 213-224 and the scene at the Théâtre de Vampires. How are we as readers placed in a position that is voyeuristic and “forbidden”?
3) Haggerty sees Rice’s novels as symptomatic of our culture’s discussion over “the AIDS crisis, the crisis over ‘family values,’ and the collapse of the war on drugs with its attendant militarization of civilian life and war on male potency (10). What does he mean by these claims and how does he set out to support them? Do you agree with this reading? Why or why not?
4) Haggerty writes, “Dead brothers abound in these novels: Anne Rice seems to find in these deaths the source of imaginative life, the beginning of the tale, its generative force” (13). The film version of Interview begins with Brad Pitt mourning the loss of his wife and child. How does that change, in your opinion, the meaning of the novel?
5) For this blog, do a google search on some key terms such as “postmodernism” and the “theatre of the absurd.” How do you think these artistic and philosophical movements inform Rice’s work?
6) On page 284, Armand calls Louis “the spirit of the age.” What does Armand mean by that? What is Louis’ response? Is a part of what attracts us to the character Louis is that he represents some “spirit” or zeitgeist of our age? What is that?
7) What do you think of the ending to this novel? Imagine you were the boy interviewing Louis. Would your response to Louis’ story be the same? Why or why not?
Monday, November 8, 2010
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
Please read up to page 158 (Part One) of Interview with the Vampire. 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) What differences do you see between the vampire characters in Dracula and I Am Legend and the vampire characters in Interview? Considering our previous encounters with vampires, how do we see the concept of "the monster" being complicated in this novel? Consider the narrative perspective in this novel. How does Louis's first person narrative affect the way in which we view him as a "monster"?
2) What is the significance of slaves and slavery in this novel? How might this aspect of
3) What is the significance of religion in this novel? What are some of the depictions of Catholicism in this novel? In broader terms, what sort of theological issues does this novel explore?
4) How might the vampire family we see in this novel be a "queering" of the traditional American nuclear family?
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?
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?
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?
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