Bulletin Board of the Brain

And That Makes 108

I just turned in my final paper of graduate school. I took fewer classes this spring and summer. The “extra” time went to finishing my integrative project (#1 on the list) and being a research assistant for “Theology & the Artistic Impulse.”

Also, I did some research that spanned more than one class, hence two papers that look at the same thing (Jane Eyre) from two different perspectives.

So here’s 2010, the last of these oh so listy of lists.


“WHY ARE YOU APOLOGIZING FOR BLEEDING?”
Confronting The Evangelical Embrace Of Stephenie Meyer’s
Twilight Saga


“GOD DID NOT GIVE ME MY LIFE TO THROW AWAY”
Reading Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre As Theological Articulation of Salvation in Light of Women’s Experience:
An Introduction


CHARLOTTE BRONTË, THEOLOGIAN:
Charting The Constructive Theology Of Jane Eyre


THE SHADOWS THAT GLORY REVEALS:
Spiritual Formation Through The Fiction Of C.S. Lewis


[SUBJECT] TO AN UNKNOWN GOD:
Postmodern Philosophy And The Transcending Of Our Human Claims On The Transcendent God

Posted in Books, History, Lists, Mars Hill Graduate School, Pop Culture, Psychology/Being Human, Seattle, intertextuality, theology

We’re On The InterWebs!

Here’s my 9 & 1/2 minutes on my Twilight & Evangelical culture research. Click here or on the links below to see more MHGS MDiv Integrative Project Presentations.

MDiv Integrative Projects – Kj Swanson from Mars Hill Graduate School on Vimeo.

Posted in Bravery, Film, History, Mars Hill Graduate School, Pop Culture, Psychology/Being Human, Quotes, Seattle, intertextuality, theology

Dialogical Film Club: Rundown 2010

Next month will mark the one year anniversary of the Dialogical Film Club, which, considering that it all started because six of us wanted to deconstruct Twilight, that’s really pretty amazing. Here’s what we’ve been up to. And DFC members- feel free to amend my versions of things. I know I forget about 80% of what we talked about once it’s over.






December 2009: DFC Christmas Extravaganza

Stop-Animation Specials: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy
Bonus Feature: Little Women
Chosen Because: I was really curious what Rudolph would be like for people who didn’t grow up with it, and I wanted to parse out my theory of Rudolph being a pro-queer text. Also, since I’d bought a Stop-animation Christmas DVD collection, we decided to explore one none of us really knew. Little Women came out of conversation around movies we always watch at Christmas, and after sitting there quoting Christian Bale and Gabriel Byrne for twenty minutes, those of us still hanging out decided to go ahead and just watch it.
Our Dialogue: Rudolph & Drummer Boy- you really have no idea how violent and angry they are till watching it with those who have never seen them. And I lost track of my “dentist/misfit=okay-to-be-gay” subtext as we realized what an A-hole Santa is in Rudolph. Little Women–I have no idea what we talked about, but man that night made up for the two weeks of Christmas break I spent weeping at my desk alone in the middle of the night writing my thesis. We even had British style Christmas Crackers- the kind that explode with toys, not covered in cheese.





January 2010: The Nines
Chosen Because: Ian was visiting us from NYC and curated this DFC, bringing with it questions of determinism, fate, spirituality, and how the film might function well as a play.
Our Dialogue: Much prediction around the trajectory of the mysteriously bifurcated narrative, and what the filmmakers wanted us to question about our reality. Also- we got kind of scared a bit.




February (though we met first week of March): Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban
Chosen Because: Harry Potter comes up a lot, and this is one of my top ten films of all time. Plus, Chasten had just finished reading the series.
Our Dialogue: Orphanhood, identity, protection–the various ways the story explores Harry’s need for care and protection from adults, but also how those relationships enable him to learn to protect himself.






March: Where The Wild Things Are
Chosen Because: The DFC is largely counseling psychology graduates and good lord, this film reads like a DSM article on the childhood subconscious.
Our Dialogue: This was the most heated (and lengthy) DFC meeting yet. We literally took an hour and a half to get through the first twenty minutes of the film. Factions formed between those who found the boy overdrawn, overwrought and heavy-handedly hipster, and those who found his portrayal heartbreakingly true. We discovered the split seemed to exist between oldest siblings (the former opinion) and youngest siblings (the latter). There was many a battle fought over this one- which doesn’t surprise me since when I saw the movie in the theater last October, it was the first time I ever walked out of a theater and said “Now that’s a movie for the DFC.” This viewing also marked another time where we were blessed with visits from Ian and from the Pietsches as well. The DFC misses them!


April: The Graduate
Bonus Feature: Garden State
Chosen Because: I don’t know who initially suggested The Graduate, but since most of our choices center around watching and wondering about what’s most popular culturally, The Graduate was a great opportunity to reflect on an iconically popular classic. I suggested Garden State as an intertext since it’s functioned in some similar ways for our generation as The Graduate did for our parents’, not the least of which being, the significant role of soundtracks for each film.
Our Dialogue: We were shocked by how clearly The Graduate (at least acts I & II) illustrated the cycle of abuse- with seduction, manipulation, guilt, abuse of power, etc. We were all equally flummoxed by WTF was going on during act III other than that Benjamin just basically goes insane. Then those who were able to stick around, shared embarrassing and cathartic stories of why Garden State felt so amazing six years ago, and now seems absolutely ridiculous. Go figure.

That’s it for now. Here’s to another great year of dialoguing our way through some breathtaking films and some crappy ones too!

Posted in Cultural Shifts, Film, History, Lists, Pop Culture, Psychology/Being Human, Seattle, Television, The Universe, intertextuality, theology

Today

I’m giving my 8 minute intro/overview of my Twilight paper at MHGS.

Quite a few people have asked to read the paper. I’m happy to email a copy to anyone who’s interested. Just let me know where to send it.


Cheers, Kj

Posted in Books, Mars Hill Graduate School, Pop Culture, Psychology/Being Human, Quotes, Seattle, intertextuality, theology

Time to Talk Twilight

For about eight minutes, at least.

Anyone in Seattle who’s interested, some of us from my MDiv cohort will be presenting our Integrative Projects

Wednesday, April 7th at MHGS from 3-5.

You would be most welcome.

Posted in Art, Bravery, Cultural Shifts, Film, History, Lists, Mars Hill Graduate School, Pop Culture, Psychology/Being Human, Seattle, The Universe, intertextuality, theology

Tiny Movie Review: The Runaways

Smartly made and well-played; With echoes of 24-Hour Party People and The Velvet Goldmine, this ambivalently girl-power film should have Twilight fans vomiting in terror for weeks.

4 out of 5 stars

Posted in Film, Music, Pop Culture, intertextuality

2010 Pop Culture Conference Rundown

4 days, hundreds of professors, PhD/Grad/Undergraduate students and very short food breaks = the Southwest/Texas Popular and American Culture Association’s annual conference.



Ian Klein joined me in Albuquerque for another year of frying our brains with academic discourse on popular culture. We heard about 50 papers and drank a lot of smoothies. It was indescribably delightful.


Here’s the panels I attended and the papers I liked best (per panel- not overall):

Science Fiction & Fantasy 19: Battlestar Galactica and Narrative
Fave paper:
“I Came to Galactica to Tell a Story”: Battlestar Galactica and Transmedia Interactivity
Jennifer Fong, UCLA

Science Fiction & Fantasy: Twilight Fandom
Fave paper:
Undead Authors, Anne Rice, J.K. Rowling, and Stephenie Meyer Battle Roland Barthes on the Internet
Bridget R. Cowlishaw, Northeastern State University, Tahlequah

Science Fiction & Fantasy: Joss Whedon, Sexuality and Gender
Fave paper:
Anya’s “Disturbing Sex Talk”: Breaking the Pattern of Punished Female Sexuality in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Tamy Burnett, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Science Fiction & Fantasy: Sex and Violence in Twilight
(I presented on this panel)
Fave paper:
Rewriting the Byronic Hero: How the Twilight Saga Made “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know” Acceptable Teenage Fiction
Jessica Groper, Claremont Graduate University

Religion: Conservative Christianity and Culture
Fave paper:
Sacred and Sexular: Ann Veal in Arrested Development
Brandon Barnes, Texas A&M University

Computer Culture: Game Studies 7
Fave paper:
Beyond the Button: The Nintendo Wiimote Interface and its Implications for Embodiment, Performance and Play
David O’Grady, UCLA

Science Fiction & Fantasy: The Dangers of Twilight
Fave paper:
Un-Biting the Apple and Killing the Womb: Genesis, Gender and Gynocide in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga
Colleen Orihill, Cleveland State University

Science Fiction & Fanstasy: Whedon and Genre
Fave paper:
Firefly: Between the Noir Frontier and the Final Frontier
E. Chrlotte Stevens, york University and Ryerson University

American History & Culture: Rethinking Suburban Sense of Self: Identity and Memory in the Suburbs
Face paper:
Everything’s Bigger in Texas: Mega-Religion in Lone Star Suburbia
Charity R. Carney, Stephen F. Austin State University

Computer Culture: Game Studies 11
Fave paper:
America’s First Person Shooters: Violent Interactions with Historical Narratives
Harrison Gish, UCLA

Horror (Literary & Cinmenatic): “Torture Porn”
Fave paper:
It’s all Liv Tyler’s Fault!: Male Shame and Protective Failure in The Strangers
Glen Donnar, RMIT University, Melbourne

Horror (Literary & Cinemantic): Affective and Imaginary Machines of Horror
Fave paper:
Manufacturing Images: Allegories of the Factory in Tomb Raider
Craig Bernardini, Hostos Community College



Punk: Punk Literature Philosophically and Rhetorically
Fave paper:
Punk’s Not Dead, it’s Un-Dead: The Vampire Spike as Punk Rock Expression
Bryan L. Jones, Northeatern State University, Oklahoma

Computer Culture: Ethnography, Writing, Second Life, and Film
Fave paper:
The Sex Life in your Second Life: An Ethnological Study of Women as Sexual Objects in Second Life
Alexis Waters, Northeastern Illinois University

Science Fiction & Fantasy: Whedon and the Body
Fave paper: Ian, of course!
“I Like My Scars”: Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and the Narrative of Flesh
Ian Klein, Columbia University

Computer Culture: Theorizing Internet Forms
Fave paper:
“Wizards and Witchcraft in the Wired World”: Magical Thinking in Popular Culture
Nicholas Goodman, Northeastern State University

Posted in Books, Cultural Shifts, Film, History, Lists, Mars Hill Graduate School, Pop Culture, Psychology/Being Human, Quotes, The Universe, intertextuality, theology

Talking Twilight, or am I…?

Powerpoint sneak peaks from my presentation for this year’s Southwest/Texas American & Pop Culture Association’s conference. Best week ever kicking off next Tuesday!