Essays on Abject

Some of the greatest works of Victorian literature look at English culture in the 1800s through a critical or jaundiced eye; these works then find ways to expose the restrictive, oppressive and isolationist aspects of British culture that were characteristic of the empire at that time. This is particularly true of Bram Stoker’s Gothic novel Dracula, as it looks critically at race through the personification of Dracula as the feared Other from Eastern Europe, seeking to violate the women of England with his exotic sexuality and behavioral taboos. Looking at Dracula through the lens of race, it becomes ...

Compare and contrast the most important points to development that William Easterly, Jeffrey Sachs, and Susan George & Fabrizio Sabelli Give in their books

Introduction

This paper analyzes the vital points to development in the books by William Easterly, Jeffrey Sachs, and Susan George & Fabrizio Sabelli. I will examine the three books one after the other, highlighting the similarities and differences. Importantly, the three books have diverse views about the developmental aid offered by the World Bank and the IMF. However, they all advocate for the establishment of stable, transparent and credible governance in the underdeveloped countries.

In his book, Easterly ...

The fourth season of Ryan Murphy’s FX anthology horror series American Horror Story, subtitled Freak Show, resets its rotating cast of regular actors into a new setting – that of a fictionalized freak show in 1960s Florida. The series capitalizes on the overarching cultural discourse of freaks throughout 20th century media and culture, particularly inspired by the depiction of freaks in Tod Browning’s Freaks and Herk Harvey’s film Carnival of Souls. Over the course of the series, however, the freaks (many of whom are played by people with the actual disabilities and deformities they purport to have) ...

Jonathan Glazer’s 2013 science fiction film Under the Skin is a supremely stylized, innately profound work that utilizes kaleidoscopic visuals and an unsettling performance from Scarlett Johannson to explore issues of the male gaze and take them to their furthest conclusion. Telling the story of an alien (Johansson) who comes to Earth and entices men with sex for her own twisted, mysterious purposes, Under the Skin charts the progression of a woman’s experience by simultaneously giving her a power and a predatory agency that women are not typically afforded, then stripping that agency away bit by bit ...