Hothouse
Literary Journal
Category: Criticism
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The Halloween witching season has come but not gone because apparently—it is here to stay. Over the past few years, witches have been claiming more space in social conversations and creative productions. In the literary and cinematic spheres, witches are either sparking new stories, embodying good or evil, or both at once (the best kind), and…
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Written by Kylie Warkentin As any young, voracious reader can attest, I used the worlds novels offered as benchmarks in which to measure the unruliness of the world around me. As a teenage girl trying her hardest to scrape together any sort of sense of self, books seemed like they held-if not the answers, then…
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By Caitlin Smith Thousands of high school students in English classrooms across the world read, under-analyze, and hate Romeo & Juliet each year. Why is what’s arguably become Shakespeare’s most recognizable tragedy met with such vitriol from students? Can they not relate to the teenage angst exhibited by the titular characters? Is the language too…
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Written by Carolina Eleni Theodoropoulos The realm of magic was always governed by women. Women are nymphs, they are jealous goddesses; they are lustful and vengeful monsters like Medusa, and dangerous women yielding destructive power like Pandora. In fairy tales they are witches, they are crones, they are evil stepmothers and hags. The norm in…
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Written by Luis De La Cruz “Where else in all of America are we so symbolized / As in this hall?” –“The Congressional Library,” Amy Lowell Sometimes, when I walk through the Perry-Castañeda Library, I’m reminded of some literary works that center on libraries and illuminate the library’s relationship to its faithful patrons. Charles Simic…
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Written by Julia Schoos “What difference did Stesichorus make?” asks Anne Carson in the beginning of Autobiography of Red (3). For years, Geryon’s story lived in the mouth of the people focusing solely on Herakles and his journey, with Geryon merely an hurdle to be overcome during his labors. First and foremost a creation of…