What is your favourite tv show? What 'subjects' are represented in the show? Are any binaries being used in the depiction of these characters?

Our identities are often provoked by what we oppose.
--Jeffrey Escoffier, '"The Limits of Multiculturalism"

Julia Kristeva argues that 'the foreigner' in a society provokes interest and fear in the 'natives' of the society, because the foreigner shows to us the ultimate 'foreign-ness' of ourselves. In her book Strangers to Ourselves she says:

To be deprived of parents--is that where freedom starts? Certainly foreigners become intoxicated with ( Read more... )

In the lecture next week I will be discussing the representation of 'People and Cultures in Conflict and Change', focusing on the following selection from the wider group of readings:
-- "Theme for English B", by Langston Hughes
-- "Telephone Conversation" by Wole Soyinka
-- "The Man from Mars" by Margaret Atwood
-- "The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just ( Read more... )

                                  
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The first example I had of image and text did not appear in this post. So here it is again:


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Goodness gracious, I definitely deserve the prize for Most Banal Post of the Year. Perhaps Boring posting can become my speciality......

I was actually just showing a student how posts appear on friends' websites, when I typed 'Welcome to Week 4'. Nevertheless, it certainly is week 4, which means we are well and truly 'into' Semester 1, 2009. I ( Read more... )

Welcome to Week 4!

I've noticed that people express a range of different things through their choice of userpic. Some people have photographs of themselves, others have manga or random images of things that function to represent them (the user) symbolically. [See page 212 in Schwiebert for a short refresher on 'symbolism'.] To save time, but also, ironically, to ( Read more... )

I have made some comments on Summi91's LJ page, and I refer there to a poem by Les Murray, in which the narrator is a pig. The poem is called, simply, 'Pigs', and you can find it by clicking on this link:

http://www.poemhunter.com/les-murray/poems/

If anyone can think of any other poems written from the perspective of an animal or an object, rather ( Read more... )