My choice to reimagine scenes from The Scarlet Letter, Lolita, and Middlesex in the context of 21st century technology, specifically the internet, came from three factors. One is the “Universe of Desire” exhibit at the Museum of Sex, which showcased the collision of sex and internet and blurring of publicity and anonymous “privacy.” The exhibit […]
According to Michel Foucault, “biopower” emerged as the deployment of alliance and its complementary sovereign power over death (to allow or disallow life) shifted to the deployment of sexuality and accompanying power over life on the individual bodily level and on a larger population level (138-139). Foucault continues with that this power over life uses […]
Despite being in the midst of reading articles about hermaphrodites, drag queens, and transsexuals and finishing the documentary, Southern Comfort, for another course, I think I’ll try to choose to not write about intersexuality and related topics for this week’s response for Middlesex simply because in the bulk of book one and two, Calliope/ Cal […]
The subtitle, “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” of “Angels in America” is a pretty good statement for the plays’ topics. Breaking it down, it can be read as a fantasy or something fanciful and unreal with a gay/ homosexual overture about American issues relevant in that time period (1985-1986). The fantastic elements of angels, […]
In the very beginning of this course, I mentioned that a partial reason for taking this course was because I was taking a Gender and Society course and was interested in how it would couple and/ or digress with this course. There were instances of “ah-ha’s” and some nods of familiarity throughout this course in […]
At the end of Lolita, I felt kind of regretful that I did not borrow/purchase the annotated version because of all the references and word plays I am bound to have missed. I appreciate that this novel was split up into two classes: after our initial discussion, I approached reading part two differently than part […]
Since I go to Brooklyn College and intend (ha!) to graduate from Brooklyn College, I have to complete what is known as the “Core Curriculum,” a set of courses intended to give every undergrad a liberal arts and sciences education in a nutshell. One of these courses I am currently taking is “ The Shaping […]
After reading all the historical documents and essays, what struck me the most was that I never learned about or heard of the Postal Act/Comstock Act or Anthony Comstock in any American history class let alone anything about the Free Lovers and other prominent figures and ideologies in this particular historical moment. A quick skim […]
After finishing The Scarlet Letter and this week’s selection of readings, like Colby, I noticed the similarity between Hester Prynne’s situation and the argument Nancy F. Cott makes in “Passionlessness: An Interpretation of Victorian Sexual Ideology 1790-1850.” Plus, from last class, the fact that The Scarlet Letter is a story about Puritans through a Victorian […]
This week’s selections of readings played off each really well. From the historical excerpt of Massachusetts’s colony’s laws on sexual offenses, the overarching message is death is result of any sexual deviances away from heterosexual and martial sex in colonial America. However, that is not always the case (or even rarely the case) as evident […]
