Showing posts with label Book Smart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Smart. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Reality Check!

Oh, whoops! I typed that title 20 minutes ago. I got caught up with twitter and a fellow blogger's story on how she met her husband.

Here's the deal, I'm a month and 5 days away from graduation. I am 32 days and a wake up from graduating with my BA in Literature.

(As I type, there is a cat fighting to find his footing behind me on the back of my chair)

I have one last research paper to write. The subject? History. Did you see that my major is in LITERATURE?

I'm just grand at history as it pertains to literature, but the history of sexuality? I'm so lost! All I can think about is the time Helen slammed the door on Arthur's face in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. So racy! So unheard of for a woman of that time to deny her husband! How about Shakespeare and all of his bawdy language? Or how Adam and Eve ravished each other in Milton's Paradise Lost after having eaten from the Tree of Knowledge?

I feel like we've had this talk.

I'd really like to write about fetishism, perhaps even Sadomasochism. Why? Because all of the readings I have done on these subjects are completely different form the way they are portrayed in the media and in pop culture.

This paper is due the last Thursday in April... in 23 days. I'm really good at working under pressure but I'm already feeling anxiety's sick grip on my stomach as I type. I can chose any topic as long as it relates to gender studies and/or sexuality. I also have to chose a time in history that effected or was affected by the topic. For example: how prostitution was affected by the printed pornography during the Victorian era.

That actually sounds like a good topic. The Romantic Period is my absolute fave but a close second is the Victorian era. Did you know that Pornography was the most popular (purchased and read) form on literature during that time? And now you know.

If you have stuck through this entire post PLEASE just make one bitsy comment that you are still here. I would love to know how many of you can get through these stuffy school posts. I promise that after I graduate I will write more about fun books, rather than old books. Or I will find a way to make the old books fun! Love ya!

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*** I am not a fan of pornography or the objectification of women (or men) of any kind. These ideas and topics are strictly for academic purposes. Besides, Victorian era pornography? Hey baby, lemme see dat knee cap.... but really. I am purely interested in the history... not repeating it.

****Random catstgrams? To keep my readers who are not interested in school/literature/history of sexuality interested. Hey, everyone likes something different.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Book Smart

I've been looking for a way to tie my love of books and all things Lit into my blog without going the book review route. I'm not against reviews, they are very helpful sometimes. I just suck at them, that's all. I'm better at critiquing and analyzing. You know, looking for themes and conventions of discourse then trying to apply all that to the meaning of the universe. Agh! So maybe just for now I'll start by posting what I know and if I happen to stumble on something cute (ahem):

I'll pass it on with a comment or five. I found this comic on my sister's tumblr page and traced it back to it's origin. Which really meant, I had to do a google search because the little twat (excuse my French) it was credited to on tumblr didn't credit the photo properly. Anyhoo, this isn't a "careful to link" rant.

I love this particular take on Pooh and Poe because I feel like "The Tell-Tale Heart" doesn't get read often enough. Heck, I don't think Poe gets read often enough at all! In fact, I never read any for high school and I only read one short story for college. Everything I have read was on my own time and I think I enjoyed it more for that reason.

If you like Thrillers, Horror, or Mysteries take a look at some of Pooh, I mean Poe's work (teehee). My personal favorite is the "The Cask of Amantillado." I was really stoked to see a Poe themed haunted house at Busch Gardens's Howl-O-Scream last year. In fact, the second time I walked through I identified all the poems and short stories that were being enacted. The guy from Cask looked pretty surprised when I yelled "Oh, your from "The Cask..(yadayada)." He said, "Yes!" 

Is any of this interesting? I kinda got excited and started typing. We'll do this again some time, thanks for hanging in there!

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