Monsters, mashups, and popular culture
So. After a week’s hiatus due to a bout of the flu, I’m back (sort of). I watched a lot of Netflix while in bed, mainly Adventure Time, which I’m even more excited about since I discovered it’s post-apocalyptic, and I picked up some digital downloads for entertainment as well. One of the films on my … Read more
Terry Pratchett’s publisher just announced that the Discworld author, who spent many years struggling with Alzheimer’s, has passed away. He was only 66. I have no words at the moment to express the loss that I – or that many other fans – will feel at this moment. I can only offer my heartfelt thanks for the many … Read more
Happy World Book Day (a few days late, and also only in the UK and Ireland)! This week’s post will be a short one, because I’ve got a big deadline on Friday that I should be focusing on, but I’ll try to start you off on an interesting trajectory. Naturally, the part of Book Day most people … Read more
This post originally appeared on Social Media Skills for Students, a comprehensive website that hosts how-to guides for and reviews of the most popular forms of social media. It also provides firsthand experiences, opinions, and advice from students and staff who use social media in teaching, learning, research, and other professional capacities, as well as showcasing … Read more
So the Oscars were on over the weekend. And although The LEGO Movie may have been snubbed in the nominations for Best Animated Feature, it was very present in the evening’s rendition of ‘Everything is Awesome’, which included Oscar statuettes made out of LEGO blocks and a heavy metal interlude by Will Arnett (as Batman): … Read more
This week I spent a good chunk of time trying to figure out which literary monster mashups had been translated into which languages, as well as how and by whom. This turned up all kinds of interesting information – for example that Quirk’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters are the most … Read more
For my PhD research into monster mashups, I’ve ended up reading a lot of things with cheesy titles. Jane Slayre, Wuthering Bites, Grave Expectations, Mr Darcy, Vampyre – I could list them all day. Compared to these, Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer isn’t too bad, but it’s got the same gleeful level of camp and (ir)reverence for … Read more
At guest lectures I usually come prepared to fully understand about half of the references made, and get excited about one or two particular sound bytes. Not so at Jack Halberstam’s lecture on Zombie Humanism at the End of the World (originally titled ‘Our Zombies, Ourselves: Queerness at the End of Time’), kindly hosted by the Cardiff … Read more
A little while back the Oxford English Dictionary’s always-delightful blog had a special feature on a certain pop culture phenomenon: The Simpsons. This piece, written by English professor Michael Adams, talked about a number of the words The Simpsons has brought to the English language, but two in particular stood out: d’oh and meh. Aside … Read more
Whatever I had been expecting from vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, it wasn’t what I got in the end. And I mean that in the best possible way. Where to start? With plot, I suppose, though that may be the least interesting part about this film. What We Do in the Shadows follows a film … Read more