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Gender and Sexuality in Dracula

March 17, 2018

Criticism

academia, criticism, Dracula, sexuality

Note: the following article on gender and sexuality in Dracula is a modified excerpt (pp. 102-107) from my doctoral dissertation, “Time is Everything with Him”: The Concept of the Eternal Now in Nineteenth-Century Gothic, which can be downloaded (for free) from the repository of the Tampere University Press. For a list of my other academic publications, see the list on the main website.

Productive and Non-Productive Sexuality in Dracula

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a text replete with sexual innuendos. More importantly, it is filled with hints at a non-normative sexuality.

Count Dracula makes it almost explicit, when he warns the three female vampires that are about to attack Jonathan to stay back, stating “[t]his man belongs to me!” (Stoker 2003, 46). Hindle notes that Stoker’s earlier drafts were even more revealing, as Dracula’s full warning originally was “[t]his man belongs to me I want him” (Hindle 2003, xxxiv).

sexuality in Dracula
Victorian sexuality is a misunderstood subject
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Neo-Hegelianism and F.H. Bradley’s Absolute

February 24, 2018

Criticism

academia, change, criticism, experience, idealism, time

Note: the following article on Neo-Hegelianism and F.H. Bradley’s Absolute is a modified excerpt (pp. 53-56) from my doctoral dissertation, “Time is Everything with Him”: The Concept of the Eternal Now in Nineteenth-Century Gothic, which can be downloaded (for free) from the repository of the Tampere University Press. For a list of my other academic publications, see the list on the main website.

Introduction

Neo-Hegelianism is the branch of idealism that is historically most pertinent to the Victorian era. As the name implies, this school of thought draws from the works of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

Typical representatives of British Neo-Hegelianism were Hutcheson Stirling, in his The Secret of Hegel (1865), the brothers Edward and John Caird, in several works in the late Victorian era – such as An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (1880) – and also F. H. Bradley, in works such as Appearance and Reality (1893) and Essays on Truth and Reality (1914).

Bradley’s Absolute: “No Truth which Is entirely True”
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How to Read Faster: A Practical Guide

February 14, 2018

Criticism

academia, criticism, education, reading

I am what you would call a fast reader. However, the designation is a bit misleading. I am a fast reader if the book is interesting, and a slow reader when it’s not. I’ve finished 900-page books in two days, but I can spend months on something boring. Still, sometimes – boring or not – you must read a book as soon as possible. A student of mine once asked me for tips on how to read faster. I gave her a simple answer: just read more. Today’s article will expand on that short but accurate piece of advice.

I will divide my tips in nonfiction and fiction, as the dynamics are a bit different. But you should read both sections, as the lessons from the one can be partly applicable to the other one as well.

how to read fast
To read fast you need to read more
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