TRAINS AND OMNIBUSES: ON THE MEANS OF TRANSPORT IN FICTION

As readers and spectators, we tend to think of the means of transport as background elements of moderate importance. Yet, the moment I do some digging, what emerges is a rather complex picture of their relevance in the stories we tell and consume.             I am thinking of this matter today because of two lectures. […]

THAT BAD WITCH: BELLATRIX BLACK LESTRANGE

Continuing with the topic of my previous post, and because I have been preparing a talk about her, I’d like to focus here on a truly bad witch: Bellatrix Black Lestrange. Bellatrix has been the object of a few scholarly publications, none devoted to her alone (all to be found on Google Scholar; the MLA […]

KEN LEARNS ABOUT THE PATRIARCHY: KENOUGH MIGHT NOT BE KENOUGH

[WARNING: This post discusses the movie Barbie with spoilers] It’s been a week since Greta Gerwig’s movie Barbie was released and the internet is abuzz with comments of all sizes and types. Surely, mine is not needed but, as happens, the more I think about the movie, the more restless I get. I was delighted […]

NOT RADICAL ENOUGH: PRINCE HARRY’S SPARE

Prince Harry’s memoirs Spare were published only six days ago but it is already difficult to have something new to say about them, given the flood of opinion articles and blog posts that has greeted them. I’ll try, though.             I’ll begin by noting that I remain flabbergasted by two things: that this man still […]

Experiencing Music: Lost Habits

Next semester I will teaching an MA subject on popular music and masculinity as a sort of sequel to the BA course I taught last year which led to the publication of the collective e-book by the students Songs of Empowerment: Women in 21st Century Popular Music (downloadable for free). I wrote a post presenting […]

AN HOMAGE TO MINISERIES

It’s evening, after dinner, time to relax and choose a film to watch from whatever platform you subscribe. This means employing about two hours on consuming a story, leaving aside the fifteen minutes (or more) it may take to select a minimally enticing movie, unless you have preselected and placed some on your list. If […]

A PHANTOM GENRE: THE STRANGE CASE OF THE TECHNOTHRILLER

The one who should be writing this post today is my PhD student Pascal Lemaire since he has chosen to deal with the technothriller as his topic of research. However, I am myself curious about some of the points he is raising about this genre, so here I am. Back in 2014 Pascal published in […]

ON BULLIES, TYRANTS, AND THEIR SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT: STOP THEM NOW

As I write, the Russian nuclear armament is ready to strike anywhere in, probably, the whole world and both the media and the social media are debating whether Russian President Vladimir Putin might eventually order a strike, and against whom. To the world’s amazement, the Ukrainians are still resisting and Kyiv has not fallen down […]