For my creative project I chose to create a re-interpretation of the small pornographic photographs that were circulated around the turn of the century and referred to as “French Postcards.” There were a few of these on display during our visit to the Museum of Sex, some depicting women in lingerie, others showing two people […]
Cal’s story traces the lines of her life through the well-trodden path of a young girl’s development, suddenly shifting towards the well-worn path of adolescent boys, but stops and hovers in the middle. He did not have to struggle to break gender boundaries. In a very real sense, it came naturally. Cal’s story is harder […]
Genes tell the mythology of the contemporary age. Cal Eugenides traces his personal mythology through an unlikely series of events that conspire to create the perfect circumstances to produce Cal exactly as he/she is. This tale is spun like most other myths, with fibers of truth and patterns of exaggeration, but it reflects a very […]
My friend recently found out that his boyfriend was diagnosed with HIV, and I was surprised by how he talked about it. “HIV isn’t really a big deal anymore. You can live with it, and the government pays your rent. But it kills you psychologically.” He spoke about the idea of living with the knowledge […]
As The Scarlett Letter was written in the Victorian Era about the Puritan Era, Sula was written about an older period of time through the lens of an more recent one. To what extent might Sula be superficially set in an older period of time, but actually concerned with society at the time the book […]
Media is a far more essential part of life now than it has been ever before. It is harder to separate it from the rest of our lives. Media consumption is not an activity anymore. It is not usually something you go out to do, or set aside time to do. It fills all of […]
The truth is in the details. Whence did Humbert Humbert’s strange and unceasing desire for nymphets arise? Reading the first part of Lolita, I found myself frequently looking back to pick up details I had missed. Despite the depth of information about Humbert’s fascination, many other things (like the physical setting and other mundane details) […]
Walking trough the animal sex exhibit in MoSex, I noticed one wall close to the entrance dedicated to Charles Darwin. This was, aside from the artist’s statement, the only purely conceptual panel in the exhibit. Darwin, who lived during the Victorian era, is widely credited as the founder of the theory of evolution through natural […]
What are we running away from, and what are we running towards in our efforts to change social ideas of sexuality? Or, perhaps in more Foucauldian terms, who are we running circles around? This week’s readings bring new light to the realm of sexuality in Victorian America. The era we commonly define by the repression […]
In Puritan society, women are compelled to sin through their passion. Hester, losing all passion, in one ironic sense loses her ties to sin. She learns power over herself, and power to define her own code of ethics. This, as Lee pointed out, is distinct from the biblical code of morality that rules Puritan society. […]
