Every Storm Has Its Soundtrack

Something I’ve always connected to is music. Music is incredibly powerful, cathartic, and has a way of connecting people. We’ve studied natural disasters all semester, and after every hurricane we discuss, I find myself thinking about how crucial of a role music plays in helping communities heal and rebuild after.  Often musicians will write songs after catastrophic events to raise money, raise awareness, and provide relief. 

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The Continued Conversation on Caliban and The Tempest

Noah had a very quick, and admittedly legitimate, criticism to my previous post regarding some of my interpretations of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. There are some claims that I won’t be able to defend, such as the question of Prospero’s honesty: It’s evident in the play that he’s not exactly the most forthright when it comes to his intentions. For example, he did hide Miranda’s origin from her for most of her life, and he constantly spied on and manipulated others with the use of Ariel and his magic. With that being said, many of Prospero’s claims regarding Caliban and the island could indeed be put under question. Continue reading “The Continued Conversation on Caliban and The Tempest”

Michelle Wolf in Effigy: The White House Correspondents’ Dinner

As we finished our last class today, I thought it was only appropriate that I attempt to apply course concepts to an outside event. I stand a mere 10 days from finishing my time at Geneseo (as long as I survive my Capstone!), and I wanted to be sure that concepts like those presented by Joseph Roach were applicable to me outside of the microcosm of our classroom. Which is lucky, because I’ve got something on my mind. Continue reading “Michelle Wolf in Effigy: The White House Correspondents’ Dinner”

Fem Future Unchained

Similar to Clio in her blog post “Janelle Monae’s ‘Make Me Feel’ and Commemorating the Dead”, I was so inspired to write a post of my own after watching Monae’s recently released emotion picture*, “Dirty Computer” (which if you haven’t taken the 48 minutes and 37 seconds out of your day to watch it, I highly suggest you do as soon as possible). Monae’s visual album is steeped in political sentiment with notions of queerness, blackness, and femininity float to the surface.

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A Practice of Personal Recollection and Forgetting

With a major theme of this class being the human relationship with memory and the role of the final essay as one of self-reflection, I wanted to use this final blog post as a means to look back and process the past 15 weeks in this class. I plan to look back at my impressions going into the class and think about how those impressions have been proven, problematized, and evolved during my time in this class.

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A (Brief) Tribute To My Experience With Maps This Semester

This semester we looked (albeit it somewhat briefly) at maps and how they had the ability to tell stories through a cycle of memory and forgetting and even had the power to give a narrative perspective to all types of places and locations. I had never spent much time looking at maps before my experiences in this class, as I, with only a little bit of shame, admit that I am closely tethered to my exclusively Internet accessible Google Maps safety rope whenever I am in a new place or need directions somewhere.  To be quite honest, I have memories of scoffing to my friends and housemates when I found out that the book list for this class included a couple of real paper atlases. My fondness for maps was limited, to say the least, before we dove into texts such as, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas. 

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Grounding Myself in Any Way I Can

I was reading Katie’s post, entitled “In a Course Called “Metropolis,” I Almost Thought the Setting Didn’t Matter: Confessing, Reflecting, and Trying to “Do Better,”” and I thought “not only is this so eloquent and thought-provoking, but I actually have the exact opposite experience.” So, I decided I should document it!

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Life is Strange: The Relevance of Video Games

For my final blog post, I want to reflect and talk about video games–specifically one of my favorites: Life is Strange. I’ve gotten more into playing video games as they develop; I have noticed they rely heavily on stories rather than the simple action and gameplay. Video games are usually seen as a form of entertainment, but nowadays, I consider them almost like playable novels. Just like novels, the creators of these games can make connections and illicit messages through themes, symbols, allusions etc.

I’m discussing Life is Strange specifically because its prequel, Life is Strange: Before the Storm, references “The Tempest” in the students’ production of the play. As I found out through actually reading “The Tempest” for the first time, the presence of this reference is important for the context of the game’s storyline.

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