Old libraries and dusty tomes. Gothic spires and cobblestone streets. Corduroy trousers and tweed blazers. Ink stains and candle wax. Dark Academia is every English lit grad’s wet dream, and we, your local former gifted children, are by no means immune to its charms. And neither is Netflix it seems.
Join us this episode as we discuss the pervasiveness of Dark Academia across all corners of pop culture and in particular, Netflix’s contribution to the romanticisation of Oxford University: My Oxford Year. Listen, we can delude ourselves into thinking it’s all for the love of the art, for the love of poetry itself, but set against the backdrop of an ancient elite higher education institution? It’s not all so pretty upon a closer look.
While this episode might just be a thinly veiled excuse for us to rant about how Edna St. Vincent Millay is not a Victorian poet, we’re also here to remind the internet (and ourselves) to stay self-aware as we explore the wealth and class implications of the Dark in Dark Academia.
The Gifted Children are going back to school! Today’s lesson: LESBIAN VAMPIRES!
Most specifically, their history and legacy, from Carmilla to First Kill and stopping by some of her most iconic cinematic appearances. Joining us for this episode is the utterly brilliant writer and filmmaker Lulenoxx, whose immense knowledge and passion for queer theory, history, and media makes them the perfect guest lecturer on this subject. They also have written their own take on the dykey vampire in the form of the short film “Thirst”.
“At once an image of death and an object of desire”, as Andrea Weiss writes, the Lesbian (NOTE: just as with “Dyke”, we use the term to refer to her as a cultural idea, but it often does not encompass the complexities of her sexual orientation) Vampire is eternally relevant and dangerously alluring. Chronologically tracing this trope, we uncover our personal and societal fascination with this enigmatic figure who throughout all time seems to embody our darkest secrets: human fears of death, men’s anxieties about female power, and, of course, homoerotic desire, preferably in an all-girls boarding school. We focus our discussion mainly on Dracula’s Daughter (1936), The Hunger (1983), and The Moth Diaries (2011), in order to study how the Lesbian Vampire has both reacted to the culture and politics of her time and deeply influenced them.
More seminar than essay, exploration rather than dissertation, this episode’s format is as queer as vampires have always been. Listen in to learn a fang or two about our most beloved and complex monster.
TW: Blood, homophobia, suicide, self-harm.
Music by Max Elliott
Bibliography
Castle, Terry. The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture. Columbia University Press, 1993.
Dracula’s Daughter. Directed by Lambert Hillyer, Universal Pictures, 1936.
Hanson, Ellis. “Lesbians Who Bite”, Out Takes: Essays on Queer Theory and Film, Duke University Press, 1999.
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan. Carmilla. Edited by Carmen Maria Machado, Lanternfish Press, 2019.
San Filippo, Maria. The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television, Indiana University Press, 2013.
Sleeping Beauty. Directed by Les Clark, Eric Larson, and Wolfgang Reitherman, Walt Disney Productions, 1959.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Directed by David Hand, Walt Disney Productions, 1937.
The Hunger. Directed by Tony Scott, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1983.
The Moth Diaries. Directed by Mary Harron, IFC FIlms, 2011.
Verilybitchie. The Lesbian Vampire in Film (A Deep Dive). Youtube, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hP8H1kbT1Q&t=1386s
Weiss, Andrea. Dracula’s Daughters: The Female Vampire on Film, Scarecrow Press, 2014.
Weiss, Andrea. Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in Film, Penguin Books, 1993.
Zimmerman, Bonnie. "Daughters of Darkness: Lesbian Vampires." Jump Cut, 1981.
You know them. You love them. You find them inexplicably attractive. In this first ever minisode of the Gifted Child Symposium, we discuss the evergreen trope of the broody male love interest. Think Mr Darcy from Pride & Prejudice, Rhysand from A Court of Thorns and Roses, Edward Cullen from Twilight, and many, many more. What is it about these mysterious, sullen, tall, dark, and handsome men that makes them appear so often and appeal so widely? Join us as we discuss two case studies and unpick the dynamics that make power imbalance in romance hot and also work. Are the girlies okay? That’s an entirely separate discussion.
TV musical episodes - truly the marmite of TV episode genres. Love ‘em, hate ‘em, tolerate ‘em, you can’t deny that they are amongst the funniest and most memorable episodes in your favourite TV shows. You get to watch your beloved characters sing and dance, whether they want to or not. That’s all there is to it… right?
In this episode, we dig deep into our ability to over-analyse the most banal and cash-grabby content studio execs and showrunners are able to churn by using TV musical episodes as a starting point for an episode all about free will and divine authority. How do we as the audience, the showrunners, and the on-screen characters themselves, justify to ourselves and each other about why we are suddenly accepting that Buffy Summers is singing about her emotions? What dynamic needs to be created in order for us to believe that Snow White and Prince Charming singing about their love for each other is also a powerful weapon to be used against the Evil Queen? Is the Blue Fairy actually God? How does God play into Sam and Dean Winchester witnessing a high school musical production based on their lives? Join us as we crash out to these questions and more. And do enjoy the special musical number we wrote to celebrate this weird and wacky sub-genre of TV episodes.
"The Gifted Child Symposium: The Musical"
Music by Max Elliott
Bibliography
Have you ever thought of Willy Wonka, not as mad genius or whimsical chocolate maker, but as a corrupt CEO? In this episode, we will discuss and shed light on how he and Mark Zuckerberg have more in common than you realize.
This is also the first (although not the last) time The Gifted Child Symposium is featuring a guest! We are joined by Max Elliott, our theme song composer and resident Charlie and the Chocolate Factory expert. Focusing on the 2005 Tim Burton adaptation, which Max has seen more times than anyone we know, we explore the exploitative conditions of the Wonka Chocolate factory, the massive unemployment and poverty rates it has created in local community, and the way the Bucket family manages to see past all of that once Charlie gets the golden ticket. Listen in as we seek justice for the Oompa Loompas, interrogate the practices that keep the poor Buckets poorer, and question why in the world Willy Wonka would want his successor to be an 11-year-old boy.
The answer might lie in the way we venerate powerful men and excuse cruelty for the sake of abstract innovation, or it might be found inside a chocolate bar. Take a look…and you’ll see… into your imagination.
Special guest and music by Max Elliott.
Find Max on Youtube at EMAYEX MUSIC.
Bibliography
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Directed by Tim Burton, Warner Bros, 2005.
Dahl, Roland. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Knopf, 1964.
Dahl, Roald. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Puffin, 2016.
Lohmann, Meisha. “‘Wonka’ movie holds remnants of novel’s racist past”, The Conversation, 2023. https://theconversation.com/wonka-movie-holds-remnants-of-novels-racist-past-217069
Miller, Victoria. “The Heartbreaking Charlie And The Chocolate Factory Detail Tim Burton Took From Real Life”, Looper, 2021. https://www.looper.com/671450/the-heartbreaking-charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory-detail-tim-burton-took-from-real-life/
Min, Paige. “The Hypocrisies of Wonka’s Chocolate World: Flipping Dahl’s Story Inside Out”, Tortoise: A Journal of Writing Pedagogy, Princeton University, 2021. https://tortoise.princeton.edu/2021/05/02/the-hypocrisies-of-wonkas-chocolate-world-flipping-dahls-story-inside-out/
Yacovone, Donald. “Roald Dahl, the Caribbean, and a Warning from His Chocolate Factory”, ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America, Harvard University, 2020. https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/roald-dahl-the-caribbean-and-a-warning-from-his-chocolate-factory/
Wonka. Directed by Paul King, Warner Bros, 2023
Welcome to the first episode of 2025! We’re kicking off the year with a deep-dive into ‘the lakes’, the bonus track on Taylor Swift’s 2020 Grammy-award winning album folklore. Some may wonder how two people can spend over an hour talking about a single 3.5 minute long track, and to that we say: are you even surprised anymore?
Let us first point out that we are huge fans of Taylor Swift’s songwriting. She is a talented lyricist with a serious knack for catchy melodies and no one can say her bridges aren’t genius. folklore is also both of our favourite album by her. So when we heard ‘the lakes’, we were confused. How did that same artist write a song that not only feels completely overwritten, literal, and clunky lyrically, but is also actually factually incorrect?
Part fact-check, part critique, join us as we try and untangle the intentions behind the lyricism of ‘the lakes’, deep-dive into the actual literary and historical context of Romantic poetry, and attempt to answer the question: does Taylor Swift actually know what Romanticism is? Fellow English literature graduates, get your Norton Anthologies out, we’re doing some close reading.
Music by Max Elliott
BIbliography
Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful and Other Pre-Revolutionary Writings. London, Penguin, 2004.
Daugherty, Kristie Frederick ed. Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift. Penguin Random House, 2024.
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions. Directed by Taylor Swift, Disney+, 25 Nov. 2020.
Swift, Taylor. folklore. Republic, 2020.
Swift, Taylor. ‘I Hate It Here.’ The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. Republic, 2024.
Swift, Taylor. ‘the lakes.’ folklore (deluxe version). Republic, 2020.
What do Chaucer, Shakespeare, and MsKingBean89 have in common? What unites them, beyond their abilities to speak to the masses of their time, pioneering brand new literary traditions that represent their own lived identity? RIP Shakespeare, you would’ve loved AO3.
Welcome to the second episode in our two-part series on fanfiction, in which we explore the enduring and necessary tradition of transformative works in literary innovation, historically and contemporarily. Touching on translation, copyright etiquette and law, and the very concept of identity - and by proxy originality - by way of the Ship of Theseus paradox, join us in our defence of adaptation, our celebration of literary legacy. The essential practice of fanfiction is the very backbone of artistic innovation, whether you’re Shakespeare or an anonymous AO3 username.
Music by Max Elliott
Bibliography
Borges, Jorge Luis. “On William Beckford's ‘"Vathek’”, Selected Non-Fictions. Penguin Random House, 1999.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benso. Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
Fathallah, Judith May. “From Foucault to Fanfic.” Fanfiction and the Author, Amsterdam University Press, 2017, pp. 17–32. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1v2xsp4.5.
Higgins, Charlotte. “The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson review – a new cultural landmark” The Guardian, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/08/the-odyssey-translated-emily-wilson-review
Hobbes, Thomas. “Of Identity and Difference” in The Collected Works of Thomas Hobbes. Routledge / Thoemmes Press, 1992.
Illyriantremors. A Court of Mist and Fury (Rhysand’s POV). Archiveofourown.org, 2017. https://archiveofourown.org/series/685860
Kuang, R. F. Babel, Or, The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution. Harper Voyager, 2022.
Mayer-Schonberger, Viktor. “Fan or Foe: Fan Fiction, Authorship, and the Fight for Control.” IDEA: The Intellectual Property Law Review, 2013
Merriam-Webster. “Definition of FAN FICTION.” Merriam-Webster.com, 2020, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fan%20fiction.
MsKingBean89. All the Young Dudes. Archiveofourown.org, 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/10057010
Murdock, Chelsea J. “Making Fanfic: The (Academic) Tensions of Fan Fiction as Self-Publication.” Community Literacy Journal, 2017, 12, 1, 48 2017, https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1085&context=communityliteracy
Price, Ludi. “Fan Fiction in the Library.” Transformative Works and Cultures, City University of London, 2017.
Sarah Z. “An Exhaustive Defense of Fanfiction.” Youtube, 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvP_BLMgYBg.
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Washington Square Press, 2002.
The Try Guys. “The Try Guys Find Their Harry Potter Patronus”, Youtube, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56cSkkfsI-U
Woodmansee, Martha. “On the Author Effect: Recovering Collectivity”, The Construction of Authorship: Textual Appropriation in Law and Literature. Duke University Press, 1994.
Wilson, Anna. "Fan Fiction and Premodern Literature: Methods and Definitions." Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 36. Harvard University Press, 2021. https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/2037/2877#:~:text=De%20Certeau%20writes%20of%20the,nomads%20poaching%20their%20way%20across
If you’re anything like us, some of your favourite books exist only on a little site called Archive of Our Own, and some of your favourite authors are only known by a weird internet username, and some of your favourite characters are well known fictional characters, but only written by this one specific anonymous pseudonym.
This is the first episode in a two part series about fanfiction. This time, we’ll be exploring the joyous world of reading fanfiction, dissecting the psychology behind our fascination with tropes, how we never seem to tire of reading about the same two people falling in love over and over again in a million different scenarios, and the mythology we create by experiencing this as collective fandoms.
All writing is familiarity and innovation. This episode is about familiarity: true comfort reads, comfort characters, and a home we find in the communal language of fandom. The next episode will be about the innovation we find in the writing of fanfiction - stay tuned.
Music by Max Elliott
Bibliography
De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984, pp. 91–110.
DoraaTonks. Dolor de Luna. Fanfiction.net, 2008, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3982420/1/Dolor-de-luna.
Chrmdpoet. Popcorn Love. Archiveofourown.org.
Epps, Zach Van. “Trope Talk: Repetition Makes the Narrative World Go 'Round.” Vox Magazine, 6 Apr. 2017, www.voxmagazine.com/arts/books/trope-talk-repetition-makes-the-narrative-world-go-round/article_5bedd70c-1a7a-11e7-8732-6bed4d864d7c.html.
gabriel and standbyme. Twist and Shout. Archiveofourown.org, 2014, archiveofourown.org/works/537876.
Hughes, Kl. Popcorn Love. 8 Sept. 2015.
Jenkins, Henry. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1992.
Jung, C G, and R F C Hull. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1968.
Merriam-Webster. “Definition of FAN FICTION.” Merriam-Webster.com, 2020, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fan%20fiction.
Original Broadway Cast of Hadestown and Anaïs Mitchell. Hadestown (Original Broadway Cast Recording). Sing It Again Records, 2019.¨
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. Robin Books. 1963.
Sarah Z. “An Exhaustive Defense of Fanfiction.” Youtube, 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvP_BLMgYBg.
Wikipedia Contributors. “Myth.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Apr. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth.
Willis, Ika. “Amateur Mythographies: Fan Fiction and the Myth of Myth.” Transformative Works and Cultures, vol. 21, 15 Mar. 2016, https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2016.0692. Accessed 20 Nov. 2019.
Yorke, John. Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them. London, England, Penguin Books, 2013.
Is heterosexuality enough to take down a tyrannical government? That is the question YA dystopian novels in the 2010s were brave enough to ask. Over a decade later, we take it upon ourselves to try to answer it. In this episode, we analyse some of the most iconic and still-relevant-to-this-day books such as The Hunger Games, Uglies, and Delirium, exploring the tropes and inconsistencies that made this genre. Listen in as we delve into how YA dystopia managed to equate technology with authoritarianism and revolution with heterosexual romance.
But what does it mean for all of us tumblr girlies who thought the solution to a Big Bad Government was found in a love triangle? And what does that have to do with (yet again) Adam and Eve? You’re not gonna want to miss this episode - it’s (catching) fire.
Music by Max Elliott
Bibliography
Remember Cars? It has probably lingered in the abyss of your childhood memories - the story of an arrogant race car who learns the meaning of community and becomes the best racer. But if you've revisited this franchise recently you may have been haunted by very different concerns.
Turns out, the world of Cars is a capitalist nightmare (relatable) that implicitly endorses eugenics (not relatable and very stressful). Join us this episode as we delve into the class politics, labour ethics, and everything else that kept us awake in the dark about the worldbuilding in Cars. Life is a highway, and we gotta drive it all night long...
Music by Max Elliott
Bibliography
Bacchilega, Cristina. Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fhs88.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 3rd ed., Novato, Calif., New World Library, 2008.
Cars. Directed by John Lasseter, Pixar, 2006.
Cars 2. Directed by John Lasseter, Pixar, 2011.
Cars 3. Directed by Brian Fee, Pixar, 2017.
choopo. “The Worthless Worldbuilding of Pixar’s Cars.” YouTube, 8 June 2024, www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJX_fms_2NM.
Jack Saint, “Oops! Disney’s Cars Did Eugenics.” Youtube, 30 Apr 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6qMgiA-VY0.
National Human Genome Research Institute. “Eugenics and Scientific Racism.” National Human Genome Research Institute, 18 May 2022, www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Eugenics-and-Scientific-Racism.
Kilmer, Alyson. “Moving Foward: Problematic Ideologies in Twenty-First Century Fairy Tale Films.” Central Washington University, 2015
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. “Manifesto of the Communist Party.” Marxists.org, 1848, www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/index.htm.
Yorke, John. Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them. London, England, Penguin Books, 2014.
Tired of living through major historical events? Do you feel like the times are never going to stop being unprecedented? Does every news alert fill you with existential dread and anxiety?
Introducing the wonderful optimism of Red, White & Royal Blue! This month, we invite you to dare to imagine a world in which the bi, mixed race, First Son of the United States and the gay spare to the British Throne have a clandestine affair and the world is Mostly Totally Fine With It. In this episode we discuss the serendipity of rom-com plots and what exactly it takes to make a queer rom-com as escapist and light-hearted as other Netflix and Amazon Prime original movies. Call it delusion or optimism - it's a good time either way.
Music by Max Elliott
Bibliography
Brennan, Matt. “‘Red, White & Royal Blue’ is the gay rom-com we’ve been waiting for”. LA Times, Aug. 2023, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2023-08-10/red-white-royal-blue-prime-video-gay-romantic-comedy-bros-fire-island-happiest-season
Carey, Leigh A. “Queer Rom-Coms Are Finally Getting Their Due”. The Zoe Report, Jun. 2023, https://www.thezoereport.com/culture/lgbtq-rom-coms-on-the-rise
Gutterman, Annabel. “Casey McQuiston Is Writing the Queer Rom-Coms She’s Always Wanted to Read”. Time Magazine, May 2021, https://time.com/6050860/casey-mcquiston-one-last-stop/
McQuinston, Casey. Red, White & Royal Blue.New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2019.
McQuinston, Casey. Interview by Savannah Walker. BookPage, May 2019, https://www.bookpage.com/interviews/24017-casey-mcquiston-romance/
Red, White & Royal Blue. Dir. Matthew Lopez. Amazon Studios, 2023.
Staples, Louis. “The Complicated Politics of Queer Rom-Coms”. Harper’s Bazaar, Dec. 2022, https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a42355387/politics-of-queer-rom-coms-2022/
Walsh, Savannah. “Red, White & Royal Blue May Be “the Most Expensive Bit of Fan Fiction Ever””. Vanity Fair, Jul. 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/07/red-white-and-royal-blue-may-be-the-most-expensive-bit-of-fanfiction-ever
Yucarba, Jo. “1 in 5 studio films included an LGBTQ character in 2021, GLAAD report finds”. NBC News, Dec. 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-pop-culture/1-5-studio-films-included-lgbtq-character-2021-glaad-report-finds-rcna61872
This time, we’re taking on a film basically everyone has an opinion on: Barbie (2023), dir. Greta Gerwig. We will dissect the gendered societal structure of Barbieland, praise the rise of himbos, discuss the tradition of utopian narratives, and apply some good ol’ Audre Lorde to girl’s night (which is every night).
Music by Max Elliott
Bibliography
Babb, Tiffany. “The Ken Problem.” Popverse, 10 Aug. 2023, www.thepopverse.com/barbie-allan-ken-we-deserve-michael-cera-ryan-gosling. Accessed 23 June 2024.
Cavendish, Margaret, and Anne Maxwell. Observations upon Experimental Philosophy: : To Which Is Added, the Description of a New Blazing World. London, Printed By A. Maxwell, In The Year, 1668.
Dockterman, Eliana. ““Barbie” Is a Movie about Male Fragility.” TIME, 21 July 2023, time.com/6287484/barbie-male-fragility-ken. Accessed 23 June 2024.
Barbie. Directed by Greta Gerwig, Warner Bros, 2023.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper & Herland. Pan Macmillan, 24 June 2021.
Hossain, Rokeya. Sultana’s Dream and Padmarag. S.L., Penguin Books, 2022.
Lorde, Audre. The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. 1984. London, Penguin.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Samuel Simmons, 1667.
More, Thomas, et al. Three Early Modern Utopias : Utopia, New Atlantis and the Isle of Pines. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008.
The Take. “The Himbo Trope, Explained.” YouTube, 17 Dec. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBYVswMmvqw&ab_channel=TheTake. Accessed 23 June 2024.
Vanity Fair. “Stellan Skarsgård Breaks down His Career, from “Mamma Mia!” to “Dune: Part Two” | Vanity Fair.” YouTube, 29 Feb. 2024, youtu.be/l5nLONCv6Kg?si=-E71PA5Wcw3w97Cy. Accessed 23 June 2024.
This episode is all about the bear, the myth, the legend: Paddington. Whether you know him as the British icon who has tea with the Queen, or if you know him as the quirky little bear with a big heart, Paddington Bear's reputation certainly precedes him. Join us this month as we attempt to unpick the dynamics of Paddington's dual identity as both a model Brit and model immigrant. We will be delving into his origins as an environmental refugee, his relationship to British culture, and his lasting legacy as just a super cute Literal Bear from a children's book. We also discuss the author, Michael Bond's, inspirations behind the character and attempt to answer the all important question: where in the world is "Darkest" Peru?
Music and sound mixing by Max Elliott
Bibliography
Bond, Michael. A Bear Called Paddington. London: Collins, 1958.
Bond, Michael. Paddington Here and Now. London: HarperCollins, 2008.
“Can You Pass the Citizenship Test?” Lifeintheuktests.co.uk, lifeintheuktests.co.uk/life-in-the-uk-test/.
Hunt, Peter and Karen Sands. “The View from the Center: British Empire and Post-Empire Children's Literature.” Voices of the Other, edited by Roderick McGillis, Routledge, 2000, pp. 39-54.
Masters, Tim. “The Story behind Paddington’s Calypso Songs.” BBC News, BBC News, 28 Nov. 2014, www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30196290. Accessed 12 May 2024.
Mead, Rebecca. “Paddington Bear, Refugee.” The New Yorker, 28 June. 2017, www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/paddington-bear-refugee.
Pauli, Michelle. “Michael Bond: “Paddington Stands up for Things, He’s Not Afraid of Going to the Top and Giving Them a Hard Stare.”” The Guardian, 28 Nov. 2014, www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/28/michael-bond-author-paddington-bear-interview-books-television-film.
Smith, Angela. “Paddington Bear: A Case Study of Immigration and Otherness.” Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 37, no. 1, Mar. 2006, pp. 35–50, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-005-9453-3.
Thomas, Adam. “Paddington Bear and Black British Migration Politics.” AAIHS, 2 Nov. 2022, www.aaihs.org/paddington-bear-and-black-british-migration-politics/.
Yeo, Colin. “An Immigration Lawyer Reviews Paddington.” Free Movement, 29 June 2017, freemovement.org.uk/an-immigration-lawyer-reviews-paddington/.
Have you ever looked at two fictional characters and thought to yourself omg they are gay and so in love despite the aggressively platonic or heterosexual relationships they’re shown in? Have you ever been personally victimised by a straight showrunner for 10 seasons of TV? In this episode we discuss shipping and the psychology behind it, as well as queerbaiting and Roland Barthes’ "The Death of the Author." With case-studies from Supernatural and Once Upon a Time, we delve into the ways in which shipping is actually literary criticism and the ways in which queer audiences will, despite the odds, impose queerness on anything they attach themselves to.
Music by Max Elliott
Bibliography
Who says we don’t talk about Bruno? In this episode, we take a deep dive into Disney's Encanto, and the specifics and non-specifics of its world. Enjoy as we dissect its bizarre societal, religious, and physical structure, musing over issues such as are the Madrigals an absolute monarchy? Can Julieta's arepas cure mental illness? And where in the world is Colombia according to Disney?
Music and sound mixing by Max Elliott
Bibliography
For our first episode, we analyze the literary classics known as The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer through the lenses of the Biblical Fall.
Starting with the claims of anti-feminism that plagued the books and movies in their time, we develop our argument by deeply considering the books’ religious allegories and Mormon values, the mechanics of vampire sex, and how old exactly is Carlisle Cullen. So hold on tight, spider monkey.
Music and sound mixing by Max Elliott
Bibliography
Welcome to The Gifted Child Symposium Podcast!
