A campus novel is a piece of fiction which mainly takes place in a campus or university. Its themes and plot benefit from the fascinating atmosphere typically associated with academic environments in western cultures
Since a lot of us are great fans of The Secret History and similar works, here’s a list of maybe lesser-known campus novels from various times and genres that I strongly recommend if you feel in the mood!
Contemporary campus novels:
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe
Abigail by Magda Szabó
White Noise by Don DeLillo (not pictured)
If you want a surreal/fantasy twist:
White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko (not pictured)
i always think it’s so fun to be like ~okay well what keeps a vampire away if you’re not christian :3 would a magen david do it for a jew haha*~ but i do also frankly think it’s like. like… moderately deep sigh. we all KNOW why it’s jsut christianity that keeps the blood-sucking fiends away, right? like we’re all on the same page about what the bottom line here is, right? we all get it? before we have fun and get silly… do we all… like… does everyone actually know why we’re here?
#*it would not bc that’s not how cultural differences work. cannot simply copy-paste jewish necklace over xtian necklace & get same result.
and i have said a lot in the replies of this post that i just want to consolidate but essentially: this is not just that (as in the tag) you can’t just copy paste one symbol with very specific cultural connotations to replace another one with very different ones, this has to do with e g what cultural anxieties vampires embody. so like the vampire is a very literal amalgamation of literal beliefs about jews (that they drink the blood of christians, that they are attempting to infiltrate the upper class or that they are in fact already dispersed invisibly throughout it and thence forth exert undue influence, etc) in addition to other cultural anxieties around (in the case of dracula, eg) reverse colonization and concerns around immigration and xenophobia (…in this case: towards eastern european jews), as well as cultural anxieties around sex and sexuality (…not for nothing but this is often a component of antisemitism from medieval times well into the present day)
so like i think it’s fine to be doing this kind of fun thought exercise it just really feels like it’s missing the point to sit down and be like how would a jew fend off a vampire when a vampire Is a jew, in the sense that a vampire is an embodiment Of antisemitic stereotypes and canards and so forth and so on. the horror of a vampire is “jews exist and are out there, invisibly preying on good christians and trying to infiltrate the echelons of power”; that IS the thing that is overpowered by the crucifix (a sign that christianity Is the true religion). the crucifix is “solving” that cultural anxiety around the jewish by positing the supremacy of the christian. that’s its function in this mythology, which makes it doubly ineffectual to simply replace it 1:1 with a jewish religious symbol - the vampire is inherently an interfaith monster in many ways, it is about (among other things) the interplay between differing religious groups, and any kind of Take has to at least partially take that into effect or at least think about these things.
what does it mean that (for example) willow rosenberg, a jew, put a crucifix on her wall to keep out vampires? there’s something to be said there about assimilation, so like i do Get why it’s more fun to be like, well what if she could just use a magen david instead, right? but that doesn’t in any way grapple with what the Source of the horror of vampires is (i.e. the sexual and religious other who preys on the faithful and can be overpowered by christian religious authority).
imo a more interesting Take is, like, the vampire existing In the social space Of antisemitism; the horror of vampires from a jewish perspective being for example the looming threat of violence and retaliation and antisemitism; being forcibly identified As a monster against your will; seeing the living (un-living) stereotype as what it is and being unable to communicate that. something more in that space.
like, this is not to say that jewish folklore doesn’t have these kinds of undead spirits and monsters - obviously, it does, and i am also interested in vampire Takes that draw more on a jewish worldview and existing folklore. but part of the Fun or Impact of the vampire Is its cultural omnipresence and legibility as an extremely Recognizable kind of monster, and playing with the … underpinnings and understandings Of that very specific cultural, like, milieu… is part of. the fun. so i like a jewish take on vampires i am jsut… less compelled by trying to figure out what the 1:1 jewish equivalent of holy water is than i am by trying to actually tweak on Themes and Resonances
Went to the Unite Against Islamophobia counter-protest on Sunday. It was organized to counter another protest, which was being held against Motion 103 at City Hall.
Motion 103 (which you can read here, it’s only 175 words) is a simple motion condemning Islamophobia and all other forms of discrimination, and asking for a study into hate crimes, but far-right websites have been fear-mongering about it as a “threat to free speech”, which is patently ridiculous. It’s not a bill or a law, it’s not “taking away your right to criticize Islam”, it’s a message of solidarity to the Muslim community and a good move to study hate crimes in Canada. It’s disgraceful that sites like the Rebel are using it whip up xenophobia and paranoia, just weeksafter six Muslim men were murdered for going to evening prayers in Quebec. These people have no shame.
On the bright side, our protest outnumbered theirs by the hundreds. Here’s a sample of signs, my favourite is the last one, where someone literally printed out the motion.
After seeing the viscount and viscountess in a rather…intimate moment, Penelope realizes there is more to grown up love than her sweet fantasies. There is something needier, something more passionate. A passion that rivals the love she feels for Colin Bridgerton.
Wake up besties the dinluke faves collaborated !!!!
To which @swedenis-h had this super sweet comic idea and I wanted to do it justice :D
Comic sketches (courtesy of the lovely @swedenis-h)
Oneshot (courtesy of me lol)
Dusk on Tatooine had always been filled with heady purple and the last licks of sweat the day tried to cling to, the day like an overenthusiastic mastiff trying to be led away.
Two dots of red on the horizon, a flickering fire- Tatooine shed its warmth like washing slobber from skin. The day’s heat lingered, and lingered… and vapourised without warning.
A flicker of silver, a spark of gold.
The smell of hot circuitry, huddling closer to the fire. Luke tried to stay still as Din removed the wiring tool from the open wiring panel of his robot hand.
“It’s beautiful work.” Din complimented gently, lowly, his gloved fingertips tracing the palm lines of Luke’s prosthetic hand. Almost as if he was tracing the lines of a map, learning the routes by heart. Luke imagined it would feel really nice, if there hadn’t been a dull edge of metallicism to every sensation from that hand.
“It doesn’t…” Luke fights a frustrated noise, feelings stuck in his throat like backed up Tatooine traffic. His throat tightened.
A breath.
“It’s not.” Luke admits finally, gaze shifting to meet Din’s. A warriors fire sparking in his eyes for the tiniest moment as he resigned himself to unravelling this particular insecurity for Din the way he had cracked the circuitry of his robotic hand wide open.
Young, immature. The harbingers that were supposed to breed wisdom and maturity… may have only just hurt the people he loved.
How could it not have? With Han’s sight affected for the rest of his life and Leia having nightmares about watching the empire take Han away…
Forces, he’d been so stupid. Too wrapped up in the thrill of getting to finally use Force for good to realize the time had been wrong.
Would the situation had resolved itself without his intervention? Had Luke lost his hand for nothing?
“This is going to sound weird…” Luke trailed with a reluctant smile, struggling with the words- embarrassment reigning them in until they crowded in his mouth. Hesitancy to lay bare; a fog he couldn’t shake. “But…”
He grimaced.
“It’s not your hand?” Din asked, ripping the words right out of his mouth. Luke blinked back at him, surprised.
Luke gulped thickly, but the tight knot of emotion wouldn’t unravel.
“Yeah.” Luke murmured reflexively, casting his gaze down- back to his hands. They were both held aloft in front of him, palms up. In theory there wasn’t much visible difference between them, but…
“Mine had calluses,” Luke began, his voice cracking at the admission as his eyes darted to where the calluses used to be. “from my work at the farm.”
An image of his hand before the injury conjured itself in his vision, like an overlay, as he studied the robotic one. Sticky blackness climbed his insides, his skin crawled.
A ghost he was haunted by day and night.
Din paused in his ministrations, and the silence yawned and waned in the space between them.
Luke was drawn back in.
“It had scars from working on ships,” Luke explained, his left, real, hand reaching out to point to the vulnerable stretch of skin around his wrist and the skin on the other side of his hand. It was pale in a way that was uncharacteristic of Luke’s tanned skin tone. The skin looked less durable than the rest of him on the robot hand, a constant chink in his armour.
A breath. Luke could see the ghost clear a day, like a sort of glitchy holo projection.
“It also matched my left hand.” Luke’s voice was small as he stared at the robot hand, the gaping hole where the circuitry he had been showing Din spilled out. The visible circuitry when he fixed it made it both more and less easy to see the hand as his, paradoxically.
Luke had almost lost more than his hand.
The price of his hand was nothing compared to the company of his friends. His loved ones.
He knew that.
He knew that.
But why was there such a bitterness there? A guilt and shame- the robot hand meant more than just a second chance at mobility; it meant an unspoken forgiveness from his loved ones.
AndForces, that was hard to digest.
Leia, Han and Chewie had almost died that day. It would have been his fault that their stars had blinked out, and Luke would probably never forgive himself for it.
He’d just dove in unthinkingly, all of his mind on the need to save them that he hadn’t thought it through-
The robot hand was just one big scar he’d never be rid of. One big forgiveness he wasn’t sure he deserved.
Why was blind, reckless, heroism worth any forgiveness?
Luke would always be haunted by his old hand- the one that had just always been a part of him- it followed him when tinkering and sparring, the loss a thing of endlessness.
A gloved hand grabbed out for the wrist of Luke’s real hand, cutting Luke’s absent movement short. He’d been unknowingly tracing the places his right hand used to have character and definition. Startled, Luke’s thoughts fell away.
“I-I… I sound insane.” Luke back-pedalled, feeling self-conscious and awash with a hot and sticky shame at the vulnerable oddity about it. Fuck, he’d opened up too much there-
A tug.
“These are my real hands,” Din’s warm voice followed, and Luke looked up at him with a moment of flustered confusion.
Din looked down at his own gloved hands, studying them anew. “The ones you see now.”
“I know their weight. Their durability.” Din flexed his hands like he was about to pick up a rifle.
“The ones underneath the gloves, I haven’t seen as mine for a long time now.” Din admitted softly, looking at his hands now like they were foreign to him. “They were soft, and reaching for something that doesn’t exist anymore.”
Oh.
And then-
Oh.
Din had lost his parents, but he was talking about the new relationship with his hands that his gloves gave him after the loss of his home. The gloves being used both to bring about vulnerability for others while protecting the vulnerability of Din’s open and wanting palms from his youth.
The side of himself that never had the opportunity to mature slowly. The side that grew up too fast but there would always be a sliver of, crying out for home.
Luke blinked, looking back up at Din.
“They were hidden away with a pain I never want to feel again.” Din’s voice wavered, and Luke unconsciously reached out, cradling one between his cupped palms, resting it on his knee.
“Yes, these hands have seen my mistakes, but they’ve seen my successes, too.” Din reached out with his other hand, trailing it along the territory of the faux skin of Luke’s robot hand with a reverence that made Luke’s face hot with something. Something between tears, appreciation and gratefulness.
Perhaps all three.
“The hands I know now were a gift.” Din concluded, looking Luke right in the eye. Luke could puzzle out his message now.
“A second chance.” Luke finished for Din, and he nodded affirmatively.
Not a mark of forgiveness. A possibility to start again.
“They may not have the scars to prove it, but they are mine. Just as much as the hands under the gloves.” Din softened, gloved fingertips lingering around the fleshy part of Luke’s robot wrist, near the open wire access panel.
Luke felt himself flush, flattered by the way Din so deftly applied such a simple yet all-encompassing type of logic to find a solution.
There was earnestness to it, fresh and raw. A hopefulness.
“Hm.” Luke hummed back, letting Din’s truth wash over him and settle, clinking, next to the old one.
Perhaps Luke had been thinking about the robot hand all wrong.
He took in Din with their hands still intertwined in the space between their knees, a pang of warmth filling him.
Look not to the past, but to the future.
Luke smiled. How Jedi of him.
Din’s helmet looked back down at their joined hands, and then back up at Luke.
All of a sudden, Luke was very aware they were still holding hands.
Luke blinked, blushing a deep red, letting go at the same time Din did and pulling his hands in to his chest like they had been burned.
The future that Keith lives in is very different from what he had always imagined and dreamed of. Namely, Shiro’s absence by his side haunts him like a waking dream. He watched him fall to his death a hour and seventy years ago. There’s a statue of him, a monument of hope and a symbol of freedom, commemorating the Black Paladin’s sacrifice and the end of the first Galra Invasion. But Keith had never been anything if not a fighter and he’s moving on, putting memories to rest with the help of his new team and his job as a superhero. At least until his memories come to haunt him with a vengeance in the form of Project Kuron.
[Or the Winter Soldier!AU that I started before S5 aired]
Chapter 1; 1936 Part 1. 6.8K. Read Here You can also find the incredible art for this first chapter made by @lucia-ik:Here
