Podcasts To Listen When You Don’t Have Time
Source: Photo by Mohammad Metri on Unsplash. October is the month of stress for post-secondary students. You could be facing midterm exams and papers in addition to working during the long-weekend or preparing for Thanksgiving dinners with family and friends. While it seems there is never a dull moment, you barely have time to give...
A Bombastic Feminist Blockbuster: Birds of Prey
[Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. Warner Bros.] Superhero films —and blockbusters in general— are overwhelmed with stories about (mostly white) men. This doesn’t mean women are never in them; every so often they’re even allowed to star. However, modern outings of feminist blockbusters (with a few exceptions) have been tepid at best, and hollow “girl-boss”...
The Restorative Powers of Interactive Storytelling
Source: Photo by: Edwin Hooper on Unsplash. In these strange times, when social interaction outside of our small social bubble is limited to virtual and socially-distanced spaces, creators of media are driven to experiment with more creative approaches. At the beginning of the pandemic, as we were sequestered inside our individual dwellings, a trend of...
Sweet Wild Grace: On Forgiveness, Redemption, and Humanity in Elizabeth Goudge’s The Rosemary Tree
“‘We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.’ “‘What is that, grandmother?’ “To understand other people.’” —George Macdonald, The Princess and the Goblin Elizabeth Goudge’s The Rosemary Tree is a story about many different things: about family, relationships, secrets,...
A Duty of Care: On Hospitality, Protection, and the Expression of Love in Redwall
Redwall Abbey, image c. Christopher Denise (illustrator) The 1995 Studio Ghibli film Mimi wo Sumaseba (耳をすませば) (marketed in the West as Whisper of the Heart), directed by Yoshifumi Kondo and written by Hayao Miyazaki, follows a young girl named Tsukishima Shizuku on her journey to finding and dedicating herself to her dreams and ambitions. The...
If You Listen Closely: On Art, Love, and Chasing Your Dreams in Whisper of the Heart
The 1995 Studio Ghibli film Whisper of the Heart, directed by Yoshifumi Kondo and written by Hayao Miyazaki, follows a young girl named Tsukishima Shizuku on her journey to finding and dedicating herself to her dreams and ambitions. The themes of struggling in school and navigating love for the first time lend themselves to the...
