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Triumph of The Walking Dead
Fringe Science
The Psychology of Twilight
The Man from Krypton
A New Dawn

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Tue 5/28
Triumph of The Walking Dead

Meaninglessness

Cause and Desire in The Birds, Shaun of the Dead, and The Walking Dead

by Craig Fischeron The Walking Dead

In both its comic book and television incarnations, The Walking Dead asks a fundamental narrative question: Why do the dead come back to life? This is a question posed by other entries in the zombie subgenre too, most notably George Romero’s series of six zombie films (from 1968’s Night of the Living Dead to 2009’s Survival of the Dead), none of which offer an explanation for the epidemic beyond the pseudo-biblical “when there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth” dialogue from Dawn of the Dead (1978). Some individual zombie movies, however, hint at deeper psychological causes behind the zombie apocalypse; some give us a protagonist whose unconscious desires are so ferocious that they bring back the dead and reshape the world.

To explore this desire-driven category of the subgenre, I begin with a long look at Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963)—not explicitly a zombie film, … read more»

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Fringe Science

The Return of 1950s Science Fiction in Fringe

by Paul Levinsonon Fringe

“There is nothing new under the sun”—from Ecclesiastes 1:9—is as true for our sun as for any alien sun, any sun in an alternate reality or a parallel universe, or even for a world, if one could exist, with no sun at all. Which is to say, that statement is … read more»

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Fri 5/24
The Psychology of Twilight

Team Jacob

by Erica Bergon the Twilight Saga

When Bella chose Edward over Jacob, she made the mistake of a lifetime.

Or should I say an eternity?

Let’s consider Bella’s options.

Edward Cullen: Vampire. Drives dangerously. Physically built to be seductive to prey. Kind of wishy-washy: Initially, constantly expresses guilt that he endangers Bella on a daily basis, yet continues to … read more»

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Thu 5/23
The Man from Krypton

You Will Believe a Man Can Walk

by Sarah Zettelon Superman

“Oh no, not Superman!” This cry rang through a darkened movie theater in suburban Detroit. The film we were watching was Deathtrap, and Christopher Reeve had just kissed Michael Caine. Now, in Deathtrap Reeve was playing a homosexual sociopath, and doing a splendid job, may I add, but to me, … read more»

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Wed 5/22
A New Dawn

As Time Goes By

by K. A. Nuzumon the Twilight series

As New Moon opens on the morning of her eighteenth birthday, Bella is dreaming of her grandmother—her dear, old, wrinkled grandmother. Edward—beautiful, youthful Edward—saunters into the scene, and Bella is faced with having to tell her grandmother she loves a vampire—and she thinks that’s the disturbing part of the dream. … read more»

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