![]() ![]() Over a 35-year career, VanderMeer has been a four-time World Fantasy Award winner and 19-time nominee. Clarke Award), The Strange Bird, set in the Borne universe, are being developed for TV by AMC and continue to explore themes related to the environment, animals, and our future. ![]() Dead Astronauts, Borne (a finalist for the Arthur C. Recent works include Hummingbird Salamander and A Peculiar Peril, in addition to Theo Ellsworth’s graphic novel adaptation of his short story Secret Life. ![]() The first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula Award and Shirley Jackson Award, and was made into a movie by Paramount in 2018. Jeff VanderMeer’s NYT-bestselling Southern Reach trilogy has been translated into over 35 languages. ![]()
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![]() Although she wants deeply to have friends, the potential for pain and consequent fear make it too arduous a process having seen and experienced others’ racism and bigotry, she feels they perceive her as different: “I’d become a talking point a statistic. She acquires a label of “mean” because of her lack of interactions and open unfriendliness with classmates. These events caused Shirin to develop fearfulness with interpersonal situations in general (such as when strangers on the street, including adults, yell insults at her) and with peer relationships specifically, causing Shirin to construct figurative emotional barriers between herself and other students. ![]() ![]() ![]() After September 11, strangers and acquaintances showed distrust and intolerance toward Shirin because of her religion and appearance soon after the terrorist attacks, two male students attack Shirin. Inside, Shirin recalls lost friendships from her family’s moves when she was younger, which causes enough pain to convince her that friends are not worth pursuing. Her fear manifests itself in outward-facing personality traits like toughness, vulgarity, rudeness, and emotional passivity. Shirin’s difficulty with fellow students represents a consistent and deep fear of peer relationships. ![]() ![]() Likewise, the pie shop where Giles goes to flirt with the clerk quickly transforms into a vector for bigotry, as we watch the clerk homophobically rebuff Giles's advances and then make it clear to a black couple that they aren't welcome in the store. His family life inside that home seems rotten to the core despite the giant smile his wife and kids all wear. Strickland's home is bathed in urine-yellow light and full of so many bizarre '60s decorating cues that it feels surreal. The American NightmareĬonsistently, the most terrifying spaces we encounter in this film at the ones that seem plucked from Norman Rockwell paintings. ![]() We also see this play out in the casting of Hoffstetler, a Soviet spy and therefore an enemy of America, as one of the good guys. By painting Strickland as the monster, del Toro indicts all of the American values Strickland stands for. Strickland's foil is the creature, who is capable of a surprising amount of tenderness and has a literal healing touch. But Strickland is quick to shocking violence and constantly looking for opportunities to position himself as an alpha male. The creature-a freakish aquatic humanoid-should by all accounts assume the role of the monster while Strickland-a clean-cut American ubermensch-should be its hero. The play of heroes and villains in The Shape of Water is one of the film's most clever aspects and a crucial component of its drama. ![]() ![]() In later years, Raicho became increasingly aligned with theories of mother’s rights (boken) wherein the valorization of motherhood was emphasized with the expectations of support from the welfare state.29 Different from women’s rights (joken) theory, which rejected such potential of dependence on men or a patriarchal state, Raicho’s mother’s rights movement aided in her own evolutionary identity as a New Woman. This, Raicho states, Japanese women would not and could not fathom. I feel I should follow you and make sure you’re all right.28 Questioning the sincerity of Nora’s self-discovery, Raicho remained critical of what true female independence meant. ![]() Kato Midori in the notes of Hiratsuka Raicho, In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun: The Autobiography of a Japanese Feminist, trans. ![]() ![]() Hiratsuka Raicho, “In the Beginning Woman Was the Sun,” Seito Manifesto, Seito 1.1 (September 1911) in Jan Bardsley, The Bluestockings of Japan: New Woman Essays and Fiction from Seito, 1911-16 (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, 2007), 94. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I can always count on Katherine Center to deliver a great “beach read” and this one is no different. “This fun and quirky audiobook is the perfect listen for summertime. Avi Roque's narration brings all the characters, but Ander in particular, to brilliant riotous life, and the depiction of immigration injustice will ensure Ander and Santi get lodged in your head just as much as your heart. Filled with so much queer joy, profound queer love, and delicious Mexican food, it'll warm your heart, bring tears to your eyes, and make you want some tacos ASAP. “ Ander & Santi Were Here is the queer YA book the world needs right now. That in combination with Michallon's atmospheric writing make this a must-read thriller. The "family man with a dirty secret" trope is not new, but giving all the power of storytelling to the victims in the killer's sphere, was fresh. ![]() “I was awed by Michallon's ability to create such vivid portraits of every character in this book, while keeping the tension so taught, I had to remind myself to breathe. ![]() |