Nabokov and Kinsey present work that is provocative in the same way, though the former crafted an intricate work of fiction while the latter published research: Both writers confront the reader with a sexual matter the reader would like to deny by forcing him to recognize its presence in American life and society. This is […]
The range of psychoses related in Lolita is relentless. The entire text could be a document in Peiss’s textbook, and wading through these murky waters becomes an exercise in suspicion. Humbert’s mixture of paranoia and recklessness makes me root for his success in keeping his and Lo’s anonymiy despite my increasing disgust and fury with […]
Humbert Humbert and Class From the outset of Nabokov’s Lolita, it is apparent that issues of culture and class will be of considerable importance to the unfolding of the narrative. Humbert Humbert is born of parents of different ethnic backgrounds and grows up in the life of a privileged child in Western Europe. His early […]
Nabokov writes with beautiful ambiguity. He uses words in a way that makes the reader question what she just read and, perhaps, turn back to read it again. An example of this is seen in Chapter 13 when Humbert apparently masturbates on the couch next to Lolita while she is oblivious to what he is […]
Victorian Discourse in Volumes In the Puritan world, the hand of God or the temptation of the devil were to be found anywhere and everywhere. For the Victorians, the readings for this week seem to point less to an obsession with sin than to an obsession with words and language.
One night in the summer of 2001, a bat bit me while I was sleeping. The medical treatment isn’t fun. Since the bat got away, I had to have the anti-rabies regime of shots over 6 weeks. Thankfully, they are no longer in the stomach, but I did have fever, flu-like aching, and felt weak […]
Are Vampires Incestuous? The lecture on vampires and sexuality brought up some interesting questions about kinship and family systems in the vampire world. I’ve watched and read a lot of different stuff pertaining to vampires. And after vampires are “made” or “sired,” they sometimes refer to their lineage in family terms such as “mother” or […]
O. Hugo Benavides, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Anthropology (at Rose Hill) Director, M.A. in Humanities & Sciences Program B.A., Queens College; M.A., Hunter College; Ph.D., City University of New York, 1999 For more information, here is a link to our speaker for Tuesday: http://www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/sociology__anthropol/faculty/benavides_9318.asp
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 […]
The Never-Ending Confession The Scarlet Letter, a novel so imbued with the themes of sin, guilt, and confession, has an interesting confessional: the scaffold. Hester is taken to the scaffold early in the narrative and a confession is demanded of her, but she refuses that with silence. Her silence is in itself a powerful act, […]
