Hello World!

So, I'm jumping on the bandwagon of blogging. I come to this for a few reasons. One, I often have more to say that what a Facebook post will allow and two, I find writing therapeutic. I guess that’s why I am getting my master’s in English. Also, it’s an excellent way of procrastinating on doing my real work, and if there is a way to do this, I will. I am slowly coming to terms with the idea that I probably won’t graduate in May. Wow. Just to write that down is pretty cathartic. Unlike my wiser friends who already planned for this (hi, guys!), I was under the assumption that I could get everything done by the oh, so early deadline of March 21^st. Now that it is February, and I only have about have written (yeah…about that procrastinating), I need to face reality. Which for me, is somewhat hard. Not to say that I’m foolishly optimistic—although this is possible as well, but I do have confidence is my abilities. And I guess it’s true, that procrastination is a sign that you are afraid of eventually failing so you don’t try. I suppose that is true. And I’m lazy. And incredibly busy with teaching and being a student, not to mention this “extra” project we call a master’s thesis (which needs to be around 50-70 pages, and I have about 30 pages done). I think it’s also hard to write about what you love, which is what I’m doing. I’m writing about vampires and romance! I know what you are thinking. Eeck, Twilight. But, not true. I tried to read it, but couldn’t get through it. I know romance has its problems with feminism, but that series REALLY has problems with feminism. And, as a self-proclaimed feminist, I can’t go there. However, I also refuse to lambast the girls and women that do like it and refuse to consider them as “little girls or ignorant women.” So, this is where my thesis is taking me: female masochism that we see in these contemporary gothic-y texts (and I’m talking about masochism as a structure of power, not the whips and chains sort—at least not always) and why many women love ‘em. I see it as an avenue of attaining female agency, identity and working through misogyny as a cultural trauma (this is all done through a close reading of the characters in the text, so I’m not really studying the reader, but more the text). So, generally, a way to be a feminist in a patriarchal world (cause as much as we would like to think sexism is dead, it sure is hell isn’t). It’s edgy and I deal with some trash books, but I love it. It definitely isn’t what one would think of when they think “literature” but I think that may be the point.

I sometimes think of how I came by these interests. Was it when my mom gave me a copy of Jane Eyre and said this is “real” literature? Was it my love for Anne Rice and the Vampire Chronicles as an adolescent? That I love Wuthering Heights (hence the URL, Wuthering Bite), and the messed up relationship (tragically beautiful) between the original Catherine and Heathcliff? That I read The Vampire Diaries probably a decade before it became a show on the CW? What drew me to these books? I guess that is my own, personal reason for exploring these ideas, although I don’t think I will find a sufficient answer. I suppose the question and the exploration is what is so tantalizing, and scary. However, what is interesting to me is not necessarily my own pathology (cause I will admit my slight obsessiveness), but the fact that I am not alone. There are reasons that, at this point in time, vampires are “booming” and this is an interesting question as well. Why have we, as a culture, called them into being? Nina Auerbach (the go-to theorist for original vampire-as-metaphor in culture) says that we call into being the vampire that our time needs. Why does the girl always choose the wickedly handsome, death-bringing vampire? Especially when she is always offered another, less deadly, choice. Why are we, as women, choosing death, choosing metamorphosis? I think this says a lot about women’s fantasies and about what is still wrong with “our society today.” Not that the woman is making a dangerous choice, but rather that she has to, to attain a sense of identity, freedom and power. All right. That’s it for now. Hope you enjoy, please comment if you would like. J