Challenging the Comeback Trope: The Illness Narrative as a Narrative of Vulnerability As consumers of popular culture, we are obsessed with the comeback trope. From Marvel movies to classic works of literature, we have been fed with stories where the protagonists face immense challenges, are humiliated but determined to improve their conditions, and eventually proveContinueContinue reading “Between Two Kingdoms review”
Category Archives: Book Review
Educated review: a story of self-empowerment
My parents often speak of education, of how it transforms lives and helps people dismantle stratification. Education has been the core of my dad’s story of self-making, and now it is becoming my own. To Tara Westover, author of the memoir Educated, education renews her vision and awakens her awareness of the world, freeing herContinueContinue reading “Educated review: a story of self-empowerment”
Brave New World
In a world where the concepts of family, marriage, love, science, religion, and loyalty no longer exists, a character who has parents become the marginalized when entering into the Brave New World. In the book Brave New World, Huxley juxtaposes two worlds into one setting, where the Savage Reservation coexists with the civilized Brave NewContinueContinue reading “Brave New World”
“Love”
Good literature challenges expectations, preexisting norms, and grand paradigms that people have taken granted for; it defies conformation and refuses to be blind to human emotions and experiences; good literature experiments with the human conditions and ultimately brings more wisdom to the human world than anything else can. Brazilian author Clarice Lispector’s story “Love,” withContinueContinue reading ““Love””
A new way to see the world–The Three Ecologies
Guatarri’s The Three Ecologies relentlessly and poignantly challenges our simple conception of ecology. It creates a multi-dimensioinal definition of the concept, expanding the scope to now encompass mental ecology, social ecology, and of course, environmental ecology, with an ecosophical perspective on our conception of subjectivity. In fact, Guatarri completely denounces the clear-cut definitions separating ecologyContinueContinue reading “A new way to see the world–The Three Ecologies”
The Awakening: the faults of idealism
In one part of the novel The Awakening, Chopin writes down the classic line—“the bird that would soar about the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.” Like the bird, the protagonist in the novel Edna Pontellier holds “an ideal view of the world”; and like the bird, the character aspires toContinueContinue reading “The Awakening: the faults of idealism”
Psychoanalysis of Racism–Black Skin, White Masks
Psychoanalysis of Racism: book review of Black Skin, White Masks There are many ways to dissect and dismantle racism, and Fanon chooses psychoanalysis in his nonfiction Black Skin, White Masks, a book that explores the realm of Black people’s consciousness when white people enter it and imposes a hierarchy of racial superiority and inferiority. IContinueContinue reading “Psychoanalysis of Racism–Black Skin, White Masks”
The civilized and the barbarians: the formation of an oppressive system
The civilized and the barbarians: the formation of an oppressive system –book review of Waiting for the Barbarians On the first day of the Student Diversity Leadership Conference, the family group spent the bulk of the session discussing the system of oppression, linking our understanding and experiences to the larger system that justifies injustice, violence,ContinueContinue reading “The civilized and the barbarians: the formation of an oppressive system”
The metaphorical meanings of borders in Borderlands–Borderlands
The metaphorical meanings of borders in Borderlands –book review of Borderlands Unlike countless traditional literature and academic essays about the physical US-Mexico borders and the crossing experiences, Anzaldúa’s Borderlands explores the meanings behind such physical borders—including the psychological, cultural, spiritual, and even sexual implications behind obvious frontiers that separate two nations. Spanning from personal anecdotesContinueContinue reading “The metaphorical meanings of borders in Borderlands–Borderlands”
A story that heals under its dark and depressing guise–The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
A story that heals under its dark and depressing guise –book review of The Ballad of the Sad Cafe When I first finished reading The Ballad of the Safe Café, there were many things that I did not understand. I knew immediately that the book reads like William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, another classicContinueContinue reading “A story that heals under its dark and depressing guise–The Ballad of the Sad Cafe”
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