Lok Yiu Louise Fung

Write a post about how what you read, listened to or watched for this week explores issues of the present by placing them in the context of an imagined future. For this week I listened to the first radio episode of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Since the first episode was more of an introduction to Arthur Dent and his friend Ford Prefect who turns out to be an alien and saves him from aliens when they destroy Earth. The issue presented in the episode was how a highway in the middle of an old, sleepy town and it reflects on how industrial buildings are pushing into living communities where they are not welcome. The indirect solution was the aliens just so happened to destroy Earth! The movie Downsizing more directly addressed issues of the present, which is that the environment and Earth is being destroyed because of human waste. However, instead of cutting down on waste or creating alternatives for packaging etc, they choose to downsize the problem...which creates other

This week we are attempting to distinguish between writing in genre and writing that may use elements of genre but that is essentially literary. Discuss this question in relation to the work(s) you read for this week. Do you think this is an important or necessary distinction, or not? Is your experience of the text affected by these questions? This week I read the short story, The Distance of the Moon by Italo Calvino. Whilst I read this story, I realized that it was a mixture of science fiction, fantasy but also prose. The structure, the descriptive and flowery language as well as the topic of the short story reminded me of poetry. If this piece was condensed, I could definitely see it as a piece of poetry. The genre of fantasy was most apparent as the narrator discusses traveling to the moon easily by "rowing out to sea" then climbing up the moon and collecting "moon milk" which almost resembled cheese. It also recounts how the narrator, Qfwfq, fell in love wit

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read? Whilst reading Bloodchild by Octavia Butler, I was confused and mildly disgusted as the story unfolded. From what I understand of the plot, the human race has been taken over by insect-like creatures and the character T'Gatoi is the insect creature that stays with the main character, Gan's, family. These insect like creatures lay their eggs in a human and the humans act as an incubator of sorts for their babies. The part that most disturbed me was when T'Gatoi cut open Lomas' body in order to get rid of the grubs that were eating him inside out. I was also highly disturbed when T'Gatoi "impregnated" Gan with her eggs, as I am unsure of how that happens since from what I know, Gan is a male. The story is vague with the act of the impregnation, but nevertheless it is disturbing that it is on the borderline of being an act of rape against an adolescent. Initially, when Gan describes "sipping" eggs

Discuss how the text(s) you read for this week's assignment did or did not reflect the values and perspectives of majoritarian culture.  This week I read the short story I Live With You by Carol Emshwiller. The narrator doesn't give the reader an indication of who they are, leaving us to wonder if they are an actual human being, or some ghost or spiritual entity. Throughout the entire story, we are given a glimpse into the narrator's life and perspective as someone who is not "seen" by the world, as well as the life of the woman (whose house the narrator stays at, unbeknownst to the woman). As the audience, we understand that both the woman and the narrator are lonely people, and are segregated or ignored by majority of society because of a unnamed aspect. Whilst reading, I assumed that this aspect that they shared was race. They might have been a minority living in a location with a small population of that minority. Thinking about it now, making this assumpt

Discuss the types of reality rendered in the works you read and watched for this week's assignment. Describe the effects of these reality on the narrative and the implications for the presumed reader. This week I read the short story Fragments of a Hologram Rose by William Gibson. The story revolves around Parker, a man whose relationship recently ended with a woman named Angela.  He copes by using sense recordings called ASP in order to sleep at night. He lives in a dystopian America, where major cities in the country have fallen into ruin. He replays Angela's "tape" of her sensory perceptions, which allows him to experience and see things that Angela did, and experiences part of her trip to Greece. Through this story the most obvious reality that has been rendered is the ASP. I imagined the ASP experience of viewing other people's sensory perceptions to be like the Pensieve from Harry Potter, where people can store their memories and have others watch them. T

What ideas or mind experiments were explored in the works you read for this week? What were some of the implications or consequences of those ideas for those of us living today? In Samuel R. Delaney's Babel-17 , the novel I read for this week, the plot surrounds Rydra Wong, a famous poet in multiple galaxies and has linguistic talents. She is recruited by the government to decipher an alien code that turns out to be an entire language that she is desperate to learn more about. The ideas of language and communication is explored in Delaney's work as Rydra explains that one made up word can have a long and complicated meaning and discusses how there might not be a word to describe an exact feeling or meaning. This translates to modern culture as words do not translate directly or with the same emotion into another language. Sometimes it takes away the full meaning or expressiveness of the term. Being trilingual myself, even I struggle with translating certain terms into another

Post a response to what you read this week discusses what elements from other genre have been used in the work you read.  This week, I read No Woman Born by C.L. Moore. The plot focuses on a singer/actress/dancer Deirdre who was almost killed in a fire, and saved by a scientist who transfers her brain into a golden mechanical body so that she can speak, dance and sing just as she could as a human. This results in a female cyborg of sorts, who has no face and no expressions, but sounds and moves just as Deirdre had. This short story reminded me of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley with its "gothic" aspects, although it leans more towards science fiction rather than the horror genre of Frankenstein. I believe this is a modern and futuristic retelling of the story of Frankenstein as the audience is able to easily fine parallels between the two stories. One of the gothic aspects of Frankenstein (that I discussed in an earlier blog post) was that it introduced the monster or supernatu

How was myth reinvented within the context of the story you read for this week? In what ways were the myth made relevant to the contemporary world? This week, I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. The myth is reinvented in the modern contemporary world where it revolves around a nameless 7 year old (the narrator) who has to deal with supernatural creatures after a suicide of an opal miner who lived at his house. Gaiman reimagines the traditional myth by creating supernatural world within a contemporary world, and making it seem believable that these creatures can exist with regular humans. Throughout the story we see the narrator befriend Lettie (an 11 year old girl) and her family that consists of Ginnie and Gran. However, it is revealed that they have been that age for a long time, and are not actually human...this reflects the mythological characters who are immortal. The character of the flea/Ursula also originated as a worm in the narrator's foot and it crea

Fantasy of this type is pointed at young adults to help instruct them in the complexities of navigating the world. In what way were complex moral issues and spiritual challenges presented in the work you read for this week? This week I read  A Wrinkle in Time  by Madeleine L'Engle. This novel was definitely a Young Adult, coming-of-age novel, as the plot revolves around finding and accepting yourself for who you are, learning the uniqueness of being an individual rather than conforming as well as just the hardships of growing up. Meg, a tween navigating her way through school, feels like an outcast because everyone thinks she's dumb and weird. She's not beautiful like her mother, not "normal" like her twin siblings and she's not ridiculously intelligent and eccentric like Charles Wallace, her five year old brother. Meg believes that she can't have any friends because she's weird. One of the biggest challenges she (and the rest of her famil

Discuss how the work you read for this week reflects or doesn't reflect elements of the classic journey of the hero.  This week I read The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, and although I've watched snippets of the movie series, I haven't had a chance to read it until now. When comparing The Hobbit to the classic stages of the Hero's Journey, I believe it follows most of the elements. According to the 12 Stages of the Hero's journey, it begins with the Ordinary World. The beginning of The Hobbit also showcases Bilbo's ordinary world, living as a hobbit and living in his homey hole in the ground where he enjoys good food and a comfortable lifestyle. The second and third aspect of the Hero's journey is the Call to Adventure and the Refusal to the Call, this comes when Gandalf approaches Bilbo and invites him to join him in an adventure, but Bilbo is happy to be living at The Shire in the comfort of his home and doesn't want anything to do with Gandalf. As much

Discuss the witches in Akata Witch. Are they archetypes? What do the characters represent of the way culture models women with power?  In Akata Witch, the traditional archetypes of witches is taken away and given a more modern context. Instead of the stereotyped warts, long noses, pointy hats and crooked teeth, the witches in Akata Witch are "prettier" and physically are much more relatable to teens. However, I do believe that there are archetypes in witches and teens in general. Sunny, the main character is the "witch who doesn't know she's a witch" character that is struggling to be accepted because she was raised in America and is albino, living in Nigeria. She is bullied by her classmates and not seen as equals or accepted by her family, most namely her father. Sunny struggles with her identity as she is unable to play soccer since she cannot be out in the sun. While reading, I found a lot of similarities between Sunny and Harry from the Harry Potter s

In the writing assignment for this week I would like you to create a blog post that discusses what you read for the topic of the New Weird and what you think other future trends in the genre of horror might be and why that trend is developing.  Write a post on your blog (250-350 words) that discusses what is "weird." Use specific examples from what you read and watched for this week. Why do you think is so compelling about the "weird?" For this week, I read Three Moments of an Explosion . In this collection of short stories, I read about iceberg's freezing and floating over London in Polynia , The New Death that causes dead people's feet to point in a direction like a compass after death and a depiction of a zombie movie depicted through a script in The Crawl .  I believe that in the New Weird horror movie genre, there isn't a limitation to what "weird" is. However, I think there is a definition of what it is not. The new "weird"

Please write a post on your blog (350-500 words long) that discusses the assumptions of the work you read for this week. Do the assumptions of the work—the nature or even the existence of good and evil for instance—reflect a different cultural orientation than that expressed in "western" horror or the gothic? In what specific ways do the assumptions seem to differ?  In the short story Diplomacy from Kwaidan, we see the assumption that hateful resentment will lead to a restless spirit, therefore haunting and taking vengeance upon the person they hate. A man is about be beheaded and tries to scare the samurai (who is about to behead him) by cursing him and saying he would avenge the samurai as a ghost if he killed him. I believe this is similar to the cultural orientation expressed in western horror. We oftentimes see that the backstory or history of a haunted location or person has to do with a spirit dying in hatred and vengeance and cursing the individual, an item or desc

The contemporary vampire tale has become a means of exploring a relationship with a complex and contradictory character, revitalizing the plot of forbidden love. In your reading for the week what pairs of  ideas or representations does the author place in opposition to one another? Does the author seem to privilege one set of ideas or values over the other? What set of values does the vampire represent? Are those the dominant or privileged ideas advanced in the work? How does the story you read embody larger arguments about values in human society? Does the work seem to express a simple morality on the surface, but a more complex moral environment once one considers the issues at more depth? What values does the work really seem to portray?  While reading Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice, a couple of main opposing ideas stuck out to me: the fear of death VS curse of immortality, human nature VS vampire nature and  companionship VS true love. With the fear of death VS curse of i

Post a response (approx. 250 - 350 wds.) on your blog page discuss some of the "gothic" aspects of  Frankenstein  or whatever text you read for this week. The first gothic aspect I noticed was having a dark and creepy environment, which is largely described in chapter 5 of Frankenstein . The scene depicts Victor bringing his monster to life and the eerie surroundings are listed: “It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.” This allows the reader to imagine the dark and frightening atmosphere of the event which adds to the horror aspect. Following this, the creature is first introduced and illustrated in detail, showcasing another gothic aspect of having a “hideous” monster or supernatural being introduced to the audien