Tony Kushner’s two-part play Angels in America is heavy on sexuality, disease, politics, professional discrimination, religion, race, and gender. The two themes that stick out most to me are sexuality and gender. The portrayal of the Jewish identity as ethnicity versus religion is very realistic for the modern day, and it is not a treatment […]
Though absolutely devastating and often hard to swallow, the position of enslaved African American women described by Brenda E. Stevenson in “Slave Marriage and Family Relations” evoked the kinds of power that we had read about earlier (Nancy Cott). Women had little say in determining the path of romance in their lives and would often […]
Thoughts on Sula In her essay, Stevenson presents a very clear, though complex, depiction of slave sexual and marital relations; sex was generally encouraged only between married couples and pre-marital pregnancy led to marriage, and, in terms of monogamous relationships, fidelity was highly valued. Most important in her analysis is her assertion that “[Slave kin] […]
Sex, Death, and Lexiconsiousness This week, while reading Nabokov’s masterpiece, I was also traveling around the National Cherry Blossom Festival in DC. My absorption of the narrative was contextualized by the event — Japanese trees in bloom, tourists and GW students of all ages, races, intellects, couplings, and persuasions.
Public and Private, In Writing Walt Whitman’s romantic poems are most usually written to romanticize nature and the heavenly practices of growing grass. This excerpt from “Calamus” however is a an escape into nature for some much needed sensual privacy. Whitman comes here not to reflect on the seclusion of nature, but on the necessarily […]
In the 1892 case of Alice Mitchell in Chapter 6 of Major Problems in the History of American Sexuality, the author talks about “urnings”, which are individuals who are only stimulated people of the same sex, i.e. “unnatural sexual practices” (Peiss, 199). There is a parallel between sexual desire of two females and theses “unnatural […]
Vampires, Sexuality, and SciFi (I wrote this on Saturday night, but couldn’t post it due to a lack of internet access) I’m writing this blog post from Rye, New York, home to Lunacon – a science fiction/fantasy convention that I’ve attended almost every year since I was an infant. With Professor Benavides’ talk on Vampires […]
“Love is spiritual, only passion sexual” In this week’s readings on the emotional intimacy between women in the 19th century, I was surprised at the intensity these bonds held, though it was understandable given the sexual segregation of the time. I think it was surprising to read about because it differs so strongly, in my […]
Female Love and Myths of Passionlessness I found this week’s readings on the intimacies of 19th century female relationships to be very interesting. Carroll Smith-Rosenberg’s essay provided a very well-rounded look at the dynamics between women and how their close relationships were formed within societies. It makes sense that sexual-segregation would influence women to become […]
Last night Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to ever win the Academy Award for Best Director. As you may know, the film industry is essentially a Boys Club and if you didn’t know, well, I’m afraid it is. Though this is certainly a great achievement, a ‘milestone’, not only for women, but the industry […]
