Abjection

women agree that a fear of a female body has different forms of women’s oppression in Western culture? Julia Kristeva verbalizes about bringing the body back into the discourses in the human sciences, the significance of the maternal body, and about abjection. Luce Irigaray verbalizes about the “new” feminine language to allow women to express themselves verbally. Both women suggest that changing the dominant discourse on female sexuality and maternity is necessary to end women’s oppression.…

sexually powerful women. During the kill-or-be-killed game that they are thrust into, several students in Mitsuko’s class explicitly state that they do not trust her. Although they do not state their basis of distrust, Takami implies that their abjection of Mitsuko stems from her reputation as a promiscuous girl. When Mitsuko uses her sexuality to lure and kill male classmates, readers…

In Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao we get a greater glimpse into the politics of phenotypes and authenticity in Dominican culture. More specifically in its relationship to blackness. In Irene Lopez, a Puerto Rican clinical psychologist’s essay, Puerto Rican Phenotype: Understanding Its Historical Underpinnings and Psychological Associations, she posits that, “Puerto Ricans who consider being “Indian” more beautiful, or more authentic, than being Black and, thus, often prefer to…

Once again, Abraham lies in an alien land and uses Sarah to safeguard his life. Similar to the fate of the Pharaoh, the deity threatens King Abimelech’s life because of Abraham’s deceit. However, this time, the deity states that Abraham is a prophet and informs the king that Abraham has the power to pray for him and save his life. King Abimelech gives Abraham sheep, oxen, and male and female slaves just as the Pharaoh had done in Egypt. Thus, from one narrative to the next, as Abraham journeys…

The sense of place in Wideman’s Sent For You Yesterday, Gay’s Provinces of Night, and Chute’s The Beans of Egypt Maine transcends physical boundaries and is “seen heard, smelled, imagined, love, hated, feared, revered, enjoyed or avoided.” In Sent For You Yesterday, generations of Homewood inhabitants unconsciously become products of their landscape. The novel 's characters—Brother Tate, Doot Carl, Albert Wilkes (among others)—become manifestations of the history and experiences of Homewood, as…

What do you think of when we you hear the words “Plastic Surgeon”? Probably the bromidic affluent white middle-aged male who lives in Beverly Hills, with an ostentatious lifestyle, and prominent for working with the utmost celebrities. Despite this rather glamorous image, thats not the way I see myself as a future plastic surgeon. Then how do I picture myself then? I envision myself as a plastic surgeon without boundaries and one who is willing to assist anyone no matter the situation. One whose…

Civil liberties are defenses against government actions. It is a right that is guaranteed by the laws. An example of civil liberties is everyone has the right to practice whatever religion they would like. The government would not be able to restrict with the decision a citizen makes about their religion. A civil right is a right of an individual to obtain equal treatment in a number of scenarios. Examples of civil rights are freedom of speech, the right to vote, and the right to be treated…

submersion into the “Queer Underground”, it always hovers over him like a shadow. The shadow of homosexual blackness in Giovanni’s Room is visited by author, Richard R. Reid-Pharr in his journal article entitled, “Tearing the Goat’s Flesh: Homosexuality, Abjection, and the Production of a Late Twentieth-Century Black Masculinity.” Reid-Pharr quotes a portion of the first paragraph taken from the first chapter of Giovanni’s Room that…

A Review of the Manifesto of the Communist Party Before I write the review of the actual text of the manifesto, there is a few thoughts, questions, and ramblings that I would like to use as a preface to the actual review. First, there seems to be a repulsion in some western, and strongly capitalistic, societies to actually engage in the task of understanding thought that is foreign or different from the prevalent thinking. This seems to be the case when speaking about Marxist and/or…

As Marjorie Levinson compellingly argues in Keats’s Life of Allegory: The Origins of a Style, these contemporary reviews saw in Keats’s poems namely, a social-ego enterprise of a middling class, the self fashioning gestures of the petty bourgeois. Levinson is primarily interested in Keats’s style as the manifestation of his class ambition, but her argument is equally germane to Keats’s conceptualization of negative capability: it is part and parcel of his self-fashioning gestures. In a letter…