Peeps
New York (City)
:
Razorbill
,
2005
Z1249344
2005
single work
novel
science fiction
horror
young adult
(taught in 1 units)
Taking a scientific approach to vampirism in this New York-based novel, Westerfierld draws parallels between vampires and parasites, noting that not all parasites are bad for you... (Jason Nahrung, 'Vampires in the Sunburnt Country,' 2007, p.57).
'Right after Cal Thompson moves from Texas to New York for college, he loses his virginity and become infected with the parasite that causes vampirism. Fortunately, Cal is "partly immune," so while he is parasite-positive, or a peep, he only experiences some effects, such as night vision. The 19-year-old works for Night Watch, the city's ancient peep-hunting organization. As Cal begins to track Morgan, the woman who infected him after a drunken one-night stand, he stumbles upon a mystery that eventually makes him question the very organization for which he works. He also finds a love interest in the strong-willed journalism student now living in Morgan's old building, but because of the disease he cannot act on his feelings' (Barbes and Noble website).
Abyssinia
Ringwood
:
Viking
,
2003
Z1036199
2003
single work
novel
young adult
(taught in 2 units)
'A psychological thriller, a desperately moving and ultimately uplifting tale of childhood innocence. . .
As small children, growing up at the property called Abyssinia, two sisters played with their dolls house together, side by side, always. Grace loved Mary and Mary loved Grace.
But inseparable bonds can be unexpectedly shattered. When this happens to Grace, she is plunged into a dark and mesmerising world, a world full of bells and the ringing sky, of odd little children, strange events and frighteningly bizarre grown ups.' (Publisher's blurb)
Reason, Imagination, Revolution: Literature and Culture from Pope to Austen (Dr Payne, Sem 1). This unit introduces students to writings that track the trajectories of formal, philosophical and cultural change in British literary culture between 1710 and 1825. It examines how Reason is idealised and critiqued by writers associated with the Enlightenment, such as Pope, Swift, Haywood and Johnson, and how it is situated in relation to Imagination and developed into the Romanticism of Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge.
The unit also explores how those conceptual exchanges feed into the revolutionary fervor of the 1790s and provokes the responses of Austen, Shelley, Byron and Keats, who along with their Romantic forebears, set the cultural bases for British literature into the nineteenth century. From Doll to Cyborg (Dr McCallum, Sem 1).
Throughout the history of children's literature—and more recently, children's film—toys have been depicted as taking on a life of their own, a life which sometimes reflects, interrogates, or carnivalises human experience of the world. This unit examines the various uses made in literature and film of manufactured, surrogate human characters, ranging from dolls and stuffed toys to robots and cyborgs.
