Jun 26
First, a couple disclaimers:
One, I have not seen Brave or any of the new Snow White features as of the time of this writing. I intend to see Brave this weekend, but we’ll have to see what this weekend brings.
Two, as a future parent, I’m not disturbed by the Disney Princesses as they appear in film. They all represent a young woman who is trying to… Continue reading
Jun 8
I read the first book of the trilogy back in 2010, mostly as an exercise to find out what the hype was all about, but also to prepare myself for writing my dissertation. Sometimes some good fiction is a nice mental cleanse. I thoroughly loved the first book: the dystopia of Panem mirroring the dystopia of America, a nod to Theseus and his own Hunger Games as he took down the… Continue reading
Jun 7
It is probably no surprise to the passive reader of this blog (all two of you) that I am a fairy tale enthusiast. It’s a topic I keep returning to time and time again, and it’s a topic that provides hours of academic muddling for this mythologist. That’s what scholars such as the Jungians find so fascinating about fairy tales. In their simplicity, they speak archetypally, deeply, meaningfully… They can become… Continue reading
Jun 4
The trailer for The Perks of Being a Wallflower premiered last night during the MTV Movie Awards:
Get More: Nina Dobrev, Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, 2012 Movie Awards, New
Apr 25
My friend, Nikki Faith, asked in response to my last post what I thought about Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Only then did I remember that I started writing an essay about this film in spring 2010, but never finished. My original intent was to get it published somewhere (I was thinking Spring Journal), but since we’re so far removed from the original release, I’ll just
Apr 24
It’s time to get writing again. I have a defense date scheduled (May 14th), and my final draft went in the mail today to begin the editing process. This means that Grad Student Limbo is coming to a close, but this also means that it’s time for me to really start defining what I want to be when I grow up… Continue reading
Jan 25
There are two themes I’ve been returning to in my research these days: Disney and myth-in-transition. The Disney research is paying off; my chair has given his seal of approval on the completed draft. The myth-in-transition question arose as I was writing the dissertation. 2012 is a year full of potential change, and after researching the Cold War for my dissertation… Continue reading
Jan 13
In short, this is a film about psychologist C.G. Jung. Jung is underrepresented in American culture, even with all the publicity he gets in the academic circles. This is one of the first films I’m aware of that portrays Jung at all, beyond documentaries of course.
The story concentrates on Jung and his patient… Continue reading
Jan 11
Neil Gaiman, author of The Sandman among other wonderful stories that make Jungians giddy with excitement, posted a link to this blog post yesterday that considers the significance of some elements in The Kindly Ones from the Sandman. The author, Matthew Cheney, concludes his post with this observation:
People have made the case that television and movies and comic books are our contemporary myths, that popular mass… Continue reading
Jan 4
I was able to finish 2011 on a positive note. My dissertation is completely drafted and in the hands of my chair. Now begins those agonizing few weeks of waiting to see if my draft will be approved. My conclusion opened a few conceptual doors for me, and I’m a little nervous that my chair is going to ask me to flesh out that tiny chapter. Since we’re entering 2012… Continue reading