Most college students put in a monster study session or two. Marina Levina’s students get to spend sessions studying monsters.
The course, “Film Topics: Monster Movies,” at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of a number around the country that mix scares and scholarship, using zombies, vampires and other ogres to study popular culture.
And, no, it’s not a frightfully easy course, says Levina.
“For a lay person, I suppose it does sound like, ‘What? Do you watch horror films all day?’” she says. “But it’s a really tough class. Students don’t automatically do well in it because it does involve a lot of serious theory.”
The class, an elective open to mass communication/media studies majors, has space for 50 students and fills up quickly. Students watch monster films and write about what the creatures represent.
They also make their own monster films as a final project.
As Halloween approached, the class was studying zombies, looking at the horrors they have represented.
In the 1980s, for instance, zombies personified mindless consumerism. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the raging undead represent “this post-apocalyptic nightmare where we lose control,” Levina says.
Not the most attractive characters, zombies mostly want to destroy humanity and have developed disturbing eating habits — they picked up a taste for brains in Return of the Living Dead.
Vampires, on the other hand, are “sexy and hot, they are those things that we would like to be ourselves but can’t be,” says Levina.
Students find the gore curriculum thought-provoking.
“It’s my favorite class, even though it is theory heavy,” said Azeta Hatef, one of Levina’s students, perhaps summing up what really sends a shiver down the spine of many students — the prospect of serious study.
(AFP WITH STAFF WRITER)
大多數的大學生是花時間埋首苦讀。但瑪莉娜.勒維那的學生卻得花時間研究怪物。
加州柏克萊大學開的這門「電影主題:怪物電影」課,結合了恐懼和學術研究,以殭屍、吸血鬼,和其他食人怪等角色來探討大眾流行文化;美國有若干學校提供此課程。
勒維那說,而且,不,這不是一門非常容易的課。
她說:「對外行人來說,我想他們八成會覺得:『什麼?你們整天都在看恐怖電影嗎?』但這其實是一門很艱澀的課。學生沒辦法隨隨便便就拿到高分,因為這門課中包含了許多嚴肅的理論。」
這門課開放給主修大眾傳播、媒體學程的學生選修,五十個名額一下子就額滿了。修課學生要欣賞怪物電影,並寫下這些怪物所代表的意含。
他們也得自己拍攝怪物電影,作為期末作業。
隨著萬聖夜來到,他們正在研究殭屍,探討其所象徵的恐怖意義。
勒維那表示,舉例來說,殭屍象徵的是一九八0年代的盲目消費。九一一恐怖攻擊事件後,這群暴怒的不死族則代表「失序的浩劫後夢魘」。
殭屍這種角色不甚吸引人,它們大多想要摧毀人類,還有著恐怖的吃人習慣──電影《芝加哥打鬼》中的殭屍嗜食人腦。
另一方面,勒維那形容吸血鬼「性感又令人興奮,他們是我們想要、卻又無法成為的那一類。」
學生們發現這門血淋淋的課相當發人深省。
勒維那的學生之一阿柴塔.哈特夫說:「雖然這門課有很多理論,卻是我最喜歡的課。」總歸來說,也許真正讓許多學生感到背脊發涼的是嚴肅的研究吧。
(法新社╱翻譯:袁星塵)
The strongest earthquake to hit Taiwan in 25 years killed at least 16 people and damaged dozens of buildings, but the destruction was largely contained thanks to decades of preparedness work. Taiwan sits on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic activity along the Pacific Rim, and — much like neighboring Japan — has a long history of catastrophic quakes. How does April 3 compare with other recent quakes? The April 3 earthquake, which measured 7.4 on the moment magnitude scale, was felt across Taiwan. It was the most severe since a 7.6 magnitude quake in 1999 killed
Around the time of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, the streets of Taiwan are filled with the delightful aroma of zongzi, a traditional snack made of sticky rice wrapped in leaves. The leaves are folded into a cone and then filled with sticky rice and other ingredients such as braised pork belly, peanuts and salted duck egg yolks. The filled leaves are then tightly tied with kitchen twine and ready for cooking. 每到六月端午時節,街頭巷尾就會飄出粽子的香氣。粽子是將糯米包進粽葉的傳統美食,先將粽葉折成圓錐狀塞入糯米,以及紅燒肉、花生、鹹鴨蛋黃等配料,用棉線綁緊後即可烹煮。 Dragon Boat Festival (n. phr.) 端午節 aroma
Everyone has seen a piece of fruit turn brown after being cut. Have you ever wondered why that happens? It is a common phenomenon that occurs due to a chemical reaction called enzymatic browning. The appearance, flavor and nutritional value of the fruit are all affected by this reaction. Some fruits, such as apples, pears, bananas, avocados and peaches, are more prone to enzymatic browning than others. These fruits contain high levels of an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, or PPO for short. __1__ This causes a chain of chemical reactions that ultimately transforms the phenolic compounds into
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