Lok Yiu Louise Fung

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  compa...