Adventures in MFA Land

Abstract...for work in progress.  Doing research at Bowling Green State University's Ray & Pat Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies . For decades, the Archie comics have depicted the fictional world of Riverdale and while doing so explicitly and implicitly addressed era-relevant social issues. Two characters have consistently been at the forefront of transgressive interests since their first appearances in 1941 and 1942: Betty Cooper, sweet girl-next-door, and Veronica Lodge, privileged debutante. These characters have been reinvented and freshly envisioned in the CW’s series, Riverdale . The world surrounding Archie Andrews, already dynamic as it has been developed over an extended period of time via multiplatform storytelling, has been updated, intensified, and othered. This multilayered amplification of setting provides an effective backdrop for the revitalized Archie characters but also complicates the understanding of the degree to which Betty and Veron...

Authors dream of social media pages filled with comments and interaction. Likes are lovely, but writers long to stir up the chatter with their clever posts. They want noise, but often experience virtual silence. Interpreting that silence for audience disinterest is a mistake. Fiction readers who consistently comment are more rare than might be expected. Social media is about you—it isn’t actually you. As an author, you want your social media to promote a representation of you and your work. This fragmented version isn’t your true self, but an intentional, crafted version of yourself. You aren’t self-promoting, you’re presenting and interacting in a public space in a consistent and participatory way. You’re providing people with an understanding of who you are, what you do, and what you stand for, but you are also bringing others together. Its your party; you’re the host, so the event is bigger than you and again, its not about you....

There are times when being ‘out there’ isn’t so great. Recently, I’ve been talking with fellow writers about their online experiences and repeatedly heard tales of two online creatures that are at minimum annoying and at worst traumatizing. What are these virtual animals? Trolls and cyberbullies.  These invisible beasts aren’t the same. They’re motivated by different goals and appear in the writer’s virtual life for different reasons. Unchecked, virtual attacks can do more than soak up chunks of time and patience. They can damage an author’s reputation, spirit, and creativity. Troll attacks aren’t personal. The troll seeks to disrupt an online community or ongoing conversation. The more positive or meaningful the troll perceives the online environment to be; the more motivated they are to damage it. Ironically, it’s for this reason that the presence of a troll in an author’s online community is an indicator that the author has created a c...

...a guest post from Roberta M Gubbins. You’ve spent time researching and writing your latest blog post but have you given thought to the font you use for display? Visual elements are just as important to the success of your blog as the words you selected so carefully. The font you use helps transmit the message you want to impart to your readers. What is a font? Font is design term for a set of characters which include lower and uppercase letters, numbers, punctuation marks and symbols. A font is the combination of typeface and other qualities, such as size, pitch, and spacing. For example, Times New Roman is the name of a typeface that defines the shape of each character. (Webopedia) Originally the term “font” referred to a size and style of typeface. In recent years, however, the terms have been used interchangeably with companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google using the term font to describe a typeface. Thus, it’s acceptable to refer to a typeface as a font. ...

A partial list of films watched before, during, and after the creation of my paper, Scary Vulnerability: Considering the ‘Guilty Mom’ Horror Film Through the Lens of Lacan’s the Real, presented Popular Culture Association 2019 National Conference. The Exorcist ‘ 73 Babadoook ‘ 14 Hereditary ‘ 18 Mama ‘13 We Need to Talk About Kevin ‘11 Child’s Play ‘88 Candyman ‘92 Repulsion ‘65 The Tenant ‘76 Black Sabbath ‘63 Carrie ‘76 Night of the Hunter ‘55 The Other ‘72 Rosemary’s Baby ‘68 Psycho ‘60 Friday the 13 th ‘80 The Tin Drum ‘79 The Omen ‘76 The Others ‘01 Goodnight Mommy ‘14 Dark Water ‘02 Society ‘89 Mother ‘17

A viewing of horror films featuring mothers with distressed children, The Exorcist , Babadook , and Hereditary , offers the opportunity to examine ways in which uncanny situations and Lacan’s conflicting imaginary and symbolic order create the frightening impossibility of absolute comprehension. The Exorcist , released in the end of 1973, is one of the early horror films featuring a mother whose child is being terrorized. While it’s true that the mother character, Chris MacNeil, is a career-minded single mother, she is not a ‘guilty’ mom. She doesn’t feel conflicted about her own behavior as a mother. Additionally, she is not being punished by society nor is she resentful of her child’s, distress and apparent need for help. Her child needs help and, with the support of her community and society, she does everything she can to get it. Her situation is not uncanny; it is understandable and customary, and, as a result, the mother character is not a source of tension. Instead, she re...

Within the context of a horror film, this three-pronged tensional dynamic highlights the unique vulnerabilities and conflicts of the ‘guilty’ mom and creates an avenue through which viewers experience Jacques Lacan’s Real. Lacan’s Real is the uncanny location between the conflicting imaginary order and symbolic order. The Real creates the impossibility of absolute comprehension. Not being able to understand something when one’s life is at stake is frightening. The imaginary order is the part of human consciousness that exists without language and expression. In the imaginary order, the self is connected to others, objects, and the world. This order is without boundary or definition; it is the fantasy image of self. It is narcissistic, fueled by unsatisfiable demands. It is the order of the maternal. The mother, in her traditional role, exists in the imaginary order with the child. She protects the emotions of the child and creates emotional safety. For these reasons, the traditiona...