Here's the references for Rachel's True Blood panel presentation which was previously posted in 2 parts (paper & PowerPoint) below:

References

True Blood Reenacts the Goddess Persephone's Ordeal of Abduction and Rape...Or Self-Directed Sexual Initiation? Opening a Vein on Woman-Centered Sexuality

SW/TX PCA/ACA Joint Conference

San Antonio, 2011 

 Abramowitz, M. (1996). Regulating the lives of women: Social welfare policy from colonial times to the present. Boston: South End Press. 

Amador, V. (2003). The Post-feminist Vampire: A Heroine for the Twenty-first Century. Journal of Dracula Studies, 5. Retrieved April 4, 2011, from www.blooferland.com/drc/index.php?title=Journal_of_Dracula_Studies.  

Austen, H. I. (1990). The heart of the goddess: Art, myth and meditations of the world’s sacred feminine. Berkeley: Wingbow Press.  

 Budapest, Z. (1992). Self-Blessing Ritual. In J. Plaskow & C. Christ (Eds.), Womanspirit Rising (pp. 269-272). San Francisco: HarperCollins.  

Brace, P. & Arp, R. (2010). Coming out of the coffin and coming out of the closet. In Dunn, G.A. & Housel, R. (Eds.), True blood and philosophy: We wanna think bad things with you. (pp. 93-108). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 

Burkert, W. (1996). Creation of the sacred. Tracks of biology in early religions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.  

Christ, C.(1997) Rebirth of the goddess.  New York: Routledge. 

Cranton, L.E. & Jonell, K.E. (2010). “I am Sookie, hear me roar!”: Sookie Stackhouse and feminist ambivalence. In Dunn, G.A. & Housel, R. (Eds.), True blood and philosophy: We wanna think bad things with you. (pp.  109-122). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.  

 Dashu, M. Icons of the Matrix. Retrieved March 15, 2011 from: http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/icons.html   

Gadon, E. W. (1989). The once and future Goddess. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco 

Gatta, J. (1997). American Madonna: Images of divine woman in literary culture. New York: Oxford University Press. 

Goerner, S. J. (20021). After the clockwork universe: The emerging science and culture of integral society. Charlotte: Baker & Taylor, Inc. 

Hirchbein, R. (2010). Sookie, Sigmund and the edible complex. In Dunn, G.A. & Housel, R. (Eds.), True blood and philosophy: We wanna think bad things with you. (pp.  123-138). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.  

Kimmel, D. M. (2010). Vampire Porn. In Wilson, L. (Ed.), A taste of true blood: The fangbanger’s guide. (pp. 3-18). Dallas: Smart Pop. 

Lorde, A. (1989). Uses of the erotic: The erotic as power. In J. Plaskow & C. Christ (Eds.), Weaving the visions: Patterns in feminist spirituality (pp. 208-213). San Francisco: HarperCollins. 

Martin, M. (1995). Introduction to the photographs. In Mariechild, D. & Martin, M. (Eds.), Lesbian sacred sexuality. (pp. xi-xiii). Oakland: Wingbow Press.  

McCabe, J. (2010). Pure blood. In Wilson, L. (Ed.), A taste of true blood: The fangbanger’s guide. (pp.  101-110). Dallas: Smart Pop. 

Mendel, H. (2009). Dancing in the footsteps of Eve. Washington: O Books.  

Morin, E., & Kern, A. B. (1999). Homeland earth: A manifesto for the new millennium.  Cresskill: Hampton Press. 

Nicolescu, B. (2002). Manifesto of transdisciplinarity. Albany: State University of New York Press. 

Noble, V. (1991).  Shakti woman: Feeling our fire, healing our world. The new female shamanism.  San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. 

 Parlour, S. (2009). Vixens and Virgins in the Nineteenth-Century Anglo-Irish Novel: Representations of the feminine in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Journal of Dracula Studies, 11. Retrieved March 30, 2011 from: www.blooferland.com/drc/index.php?title=Journal_of_Dracula_Studies.    `

Plumwood, V. (1993). Feminism and the mastery of nature. London: Routledge. 

Poole, C. (2010). The Ego, the Id, and Sookie Stackhouse. In Wilson, L. (Ed.), A taste of true blood: The fangbanger’s guide. (pp. 75-88). Dallas: Smart Pop.   

Razak, A. (1991). Toward a Womanist analysis of birth. In Diamond, I. & Orenstein, G.F. (Eds.), Reweaving the world: The emergence of ecofeminism. (pp. 165-172). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.    

Rivera, R. Z. (2003). New York Ricans from the hip hop zone. New York: Palgrave.  

Rogers, P. (2010). To live and die in Dixie. In Wilson, L. (Ed.), A taste of true blood: The fangbanger’s guide. (pp.  45-60). Dallas: Smart Pop.  

Rubin, J. (2010). SOOKIE! Bee-ill! And the downfall of William T. Compton. In Wilson, L. (Ed.), A taste of true blood: The fangbanger’s guide. (pp.  19-32). Dallas: Smart Pop. 

Sanchez-Grant (2008).  The Female Body in Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman and Lady Oracle. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 9, #2, 77-92. 

Spretnak, C. (1989). The Myth of Demeter and Persephone. In Plaskow, J. & Christ, C. P. (Ed.), Weaving the visions: New patterns in feminist spirituality. (pp. 72-76). San Francisco: Harper and Row. 

Starhawk (1982). Dreaming in the dark: Magic, sex & politics. Boston: Beacon Press. 

Stone, M. (1976). When god was a woman. New York: Harcourt, Inc.

Ward, T. (2006). Savage breast: One man’s search for the goddess. New York: O Books.   

Wilshire, B. (1990). The moral collapse of the university: Professionalism, purity, and alienation. Albany: State University of New York Press. 

Wilson, N. (2010).  Who’s the best vampire dad? Ms. Magazine blog, June 20, 2010. Retrieved March 29 from: http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/06/20/whos-the-best-vampire-dad/

And Pluto Can Start Bein' A Planet Again, Connected To Stuff...

Aahhh...Jason Stackhouse. Poor, gorgeous Jason Stackhouse. He of the farm boy good looks, perfect abs and wide-eyed man-child persona.

As Kirsty Walker writes in her essay appearing in the book "A Taste of True Blood: The Fangbanger's Guide" titled True Stud, "The people of Bon Temps don't take him seriously and, for the most part, neither do we. Both Jason and his storylines are usually played for laughs" (p. 111, 2010).

Perhaps Lafayette described Jason best, "that boy is sex on a stick!" (S1E1 Strange Love). But he's so much more than that, too...

A recent "Science Friday" on my local NPR radio station featured a piece on Pluto's demotion from planet to dwarf planet to FLR (Fairly Large Rock - I know, ridiculous and kind of sad, right!?!). For the past several years the former ninth planet of our solar system has been caught up in a wholesale redefinition of planethood that has seen it's celestial status bumped down a few notches.

What does this have to Jason Stackhouse, you ask? Or, more accurately, what would anything related to science ever have to do with Jason Stackhouse, you ask?

Not that I really need an excuse to think about Jason and his many charms ;-) but listening to the promos for this piece on Pluto reminded me of an exchange between our boy and Amy Burley right before they partake of V together for the first time:

Amy: God, I love your place, man. It's very un-self-conscious. So off-the-grid.
Jason: It was my parents' house. Haven't really done much with the place since they passed.
Amy: That's even better. I mean, this place goes back to like a more legitimate time, you know, before everything got totally out of whack.
Amy: Your parents are part of Gaia. You know what Gaia is, right? Theory of Gaia?
Jason: Yeah!
Amy: The earth is a living organism. Makes weather, which is good for us. Plants give us the chemicals we need. Everything is connected. But you know that.
Jason: Yeah, I don't like how they keep takin' stuff away. Like Pluto's not a planet anymore and a brontosaurus stopped being a dinosaur. You can't say somethin' stopped being what it's always been.
Amy: Do you live by yourself?
Jason: Yeah. Come on, let's do the V's.
Amy: Slow down, baby. Do you even know how this stuff works?
Jason (softly): No.
Amy: It's blood. It carries oxygen to our organs, right? That's what makes them function. So it keeps us goin'.
Amy: It's like gas in a car engine.
Jason: OK.
Amy: Vampires, they don't need oxygen. Everything just runs directly off the blood.
Jason: Ah, like those cars that run on corn.
(Amy holds up a vial of V and looks at it)
Amy: I've had this blood for like...forever, so we're gonna need to take some steps to keep it from coagulating.
Jason (whispering): Coagulating...!
Amy: Aspirin. Thins it.
(Amy opens the jar of aspirin, and places two in the mortar)
Amy: We'll get the full effect faster, and more intense.
(Amy opens the vial of V, puts a dropper in it, and withdraws some of the V. Jason gets off the sofa and kneels beside Amy as she places a single drop of V onto each of the white aspirin pills. The V quickly turns each pill blood red)
Amy: You just know this is what Holy Communion is symbolic of. This is the real deal here. None of that lame-ass empty ritual. This is nature's greatest gift.
(Jason smiles as he watches Amy grind the V-soaked aspirin pills with a pestle)
Jason: I thought they'd get all mushy.
Amy: No. See, the V adapts. It wants to be in us.
(Amy scrapes the red powder from the mortar with a blunt knife, and places the powder in two small doses on the small plate. Amy bows her head and prays)
Amy: We honor Gaia, and seek the deepest relationship to her.
(Amy looks at Jason, who wasn't praying. Jason bows his head, and Amy does likewise)
Jason: Uh, yeah. Me too. And Pluto can start bein' a planet again, connected to stuff.

Transcript for S1E7 Burning House of Love courtesy: http://www.losttv-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56485

The bolded part of dialogue above points to how very much - at this particular juncture in his life  - Jason longs to restore the familiar. There's been an awful lot of change swirling around him and it seems to me that Jason would love nothing more than for the spiraling Milky Way to slow down a bit and for his universe to go back to being fixed and stable.



slow down already, will ya! you're making me dizzy with all this spinning!!! 

Why can't Pluto be a planet again, just like his matronly third grade teacher taught him it most certainly was? Why can't the status quo remain enshrined? Why must the proverbial they take things away, shake things up, make things change?

BECAUSE AFTER ALL, I'm just saying there's a reason things are the way they are...it's called, "this is how we do it!" (Jason Stackhouse to Bill Compton, S1E2 "The First Taste").

Jason spat this defensive retort to Bill when Bill pointed out that the reason things are the way they are is called injustice; it's not just the normal, established and right order of things maintaining itself. With Amy, however, we see Jason take a less aggressive stance; his tone is one of yearning, an innocent plea for life and the world to be as he knows it once again.

In True Stud, Kirsty Walker writes that True Blood shows us a society in a unique state of change. In many ways Jason's journey since Season 1 is the perfect barometer for the impact of a society in flux. According to Walker, as a white, heterosexual male (and I would add, a handsome former football god in the deep South where high school pigskin is the only game in town and its gladiators the home town heroes) Jason should very clearly be part of the dominant group in this patriarchal society. Except, in Bon Temps - backwater outpost that it is - even here vampires are "coming out of the coffin" and they, along with other supernatural (and supernaturally endowed) males like shifters and werewolves are threatening his elite status.

You see, especially in Season 1, Jason's identity and sense of self are very much wrapped in in the neat little package of masculinity; the "traditional" version of masculinity in which his physicality and sexual virility mark him as male - as master of his realm. As Walker writes, Jason can't seem to gain the respect of the female characters - his sister Sookie who tells him he doesn't have enough sense to pour piss out of a boot, or any of his various liaisons who call him a "moron," a "horn dog," and a "loser" (p. 115).

But Jason's never pinned his sense of worth or value on his smarts (although, in our estimation, he's underestimated himself and been similarly written off by most people he knows) - it's when his sexual potency is challenged (and fails) that he really starts to feel second best to the supes who seem to be beating him out "in the masculinity stakes" (Walker, p. 115) at every turn. When he loses his erection with Dawn, for example, she rebukes him, yelling that he was at one time the best sex she had ever had until he distanced himself from her, she hooked up with a vampire (likely Eric) and found that such uber-males never go soft, so to say.

Seems like Jason's manhood is shrinking like the diminished Pluto...

...and all the crude "size matters" jokes kind of apply - since a man can effectively be reduced down to his penis, right? (you're picking up the facetious tone I'm putting down here here, yes?)

 

 We know that in times of change the "haves" who feel they are losing ground seek a scapegoat to blame (usually the "have-nots") for their perceived loss of power and privilege. 'Cause as rights that were once accorded them exclusively are now more equitably distributed, they must be losing out, right? (more facetiousness)
In a semi-comical, semi-tragic sequence spread over several episodes in Season 1 we see Jason start to experience vampires as the bane of his existence...they're inescapable - on every TV channel, moving into his 'hood, "dating" his paramours, and now even putting the moves on his (virtuous) baby sister!

Jason's fear and loathing of vampires and his animosity towards them as they continue to unseat him from his throne of former glory and upend his comfortable and familiar - if narrow and unfulfilling - world climaxes in Season 2 when he joins up with the creepy/scary Fellowship of the Sun and is recruited into the paramilitary arm of this fundamentalist cult. At the FOS's summer/boot camp the Light of Day Institute, he takes the idea that "God hates fangs" to heart and funnels his hurt, rage, and alienation into his training to become a Soldier of the Sun.

Fortunately, this is not a straight path to destruction for Jason. Although we've seen his attempts to "man up", as Walker writes - in Season 1 through sex (and love) and in Season 2 through power and violence - by imitating overtly masculine male role models and stereotypes blow up in his face, it is the Lukenator, and not Jason, who blows himself up for the cause of preserving the status quo at all costs.

Jason - who prayed in S2 "Scratches" for God to give him a sign, "'Cause I'm lost. I'm so fucking lost" (Walker, p. 117) - finds a way to renegotiate the deconstructed concept of masculinity. According to Walker, sex and violence prove to be failed ideologies by which Jason could become self-actualized yet we find that we has taken steps in the direction of growth and development as a man and as a person.

Specifically, Walker sites 2 shifts; one in his (sexual) relationship to women and another in his relationship to vampires (or at least one specific vampire - Bill Compton).

We see Jason move away from sex as tool of selfish gratification, conquest and domination and towards sex as a mutually pleasurable and bonding experience - contrast his "American Psycho" nod, pointing at himself in the mirror in a self-congratulatory way while hooking up with Dawn with his practically melting together with Amy. Granted, his relationship with Amy was built upon a foundation of manipulation and glued together with V, but Jason does seem to have moved away from a "hit 'em and quit 'em" attitude towards women with her.

As Walker writes, "he had begun to use his masculinity to compliment femininity, rather than dominate it" (p. 121).

We know that by the time Jason had seen the error of his FOS ways and saved the day by nailing false prophet Rev. Steve Newlin right between the eyes with a paintball, he had also reconsidered his blanket condemnation of vampires and was willing to accept Bill if Sookie loved him. Yeah, yeah, he pulls a 180 on Bill after that nasty little incident when Bill nearly (accidentally) drained Sookie in S3, but it was a start, right?

And so, as his world continues to change; as the idea of masculinity and what it means to be a man, his family relationships, his town and the larger culture, and yes, even that distant rock-that-used-to-be-our-ninth-planet Pluto continue to be defined and redefined, Jason continues on his journey of self-discovery. Maybe things are spinning a little too fast for him at times; maybe it's hard for our Quixote of the Grabbit-Quik to keep his bearings as more than windmills turn around him.

But maybe, it could also be that Jason - like the oft-maligned Pluto - is part of a wholesale reconfiguration and realignment of life in the 21st century. If what we know, or take for granted, about our very heavens and the hunks of rock, metal and ice that hurtle through them can change, be reclassified and evolve, can't we? Can't our societal structure? Can't the way we think about and do...sex...relationships...masculinity and femininity....self and Other...power and equity?

I, for one, cast my vote for progress...and I'm rooting for you, Jason!

~ Rachel    

Well, how do you know? Um, I read.

The title of this post comes from a memorable exchange between Jason Stackhouse (first part) and Tara Thornton (second part) during S1E4 "Escape From Dragon House". The scene went down in the walk-in refrigerator at Merlotte's and ended with Tara zinging Jason, "You're not the first vain-ass, body-conscious ex-jock to overdo the V and wind up with an acute case of priapism!". Next stop, hospital!

This bit of dialogue captures the subject matter of this post perfectly...no, no, no, not priapism; reading!

When we first met Tara in Season 1, her penchant for reading was evident. It was, in fact, a foundational aspect of her character development. The types of books she chose to read (i.e. Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine), the frequency with which we found her with her nose in a book, and her rationale for reading ("school is just for white people looking for other white people to read to 'em. I figured I save my money and read to myself") all gave us insight into the person of Tara Thornton. She was presented to us as a multifaceted character who is, amongst other things, an independent-spirited-and-minded, sociopolitically aware young woman who has been self-educated and empowered through books.

Oh, Season 1 Tara, where art thou?!? That's fodder for another post, perhaps...

In her last post, Rebecca mentioned that we've given ourselves some homework to bolster the discourse here at the PPT. Ever the eager students, we're both currently immersed in True Blood-related literature. One of the books I'm reading now - a collection of essays entitled, "True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things With You" - draws upon a quintessential Stackhouse quote to set up the "blend of smarts and sensuality" (2010, p. 1) that editors George A. Dunn & Rebecca Housel saw in TB and hoped to bring to the book: "Jesus Christ, I want to lick your mind!".

Jason's exclamation to then-girlfriend Amy Burley oddly mirrors publishing magnate Charles Scribner, Jr.'s (1921-1995) quote: "Reading is a means of thinking with another person's mind; it forces you to stretch your own".

When taken together, the Stackhouse-Scribner quotes form a sort of strange conglomerate; this idea of licking, blending, and melding with another's mind...it conjures a weird but potent image for what the act of reading can do to enrich one's life, doesn't it?

In the Introduction to "True Blood and Philosophy", editors Dunn & Housel discuss the ease with which TB brings "unabashed carnality" to the screen while "raising tough questions about the human condition". They write of TB in terms of "death and transgressive sexuality"; "overturning expectations and tempting us to think outside conventional boundaries"; "dark corners of the human mind"; "uncomfortable truths that others prefer to leave buried"; "a quest for the meaning of life that often seems quixotic"; and "the paths and impediments to erotic fulfillment" (pp. 1-4).

Forgive the pun, but I'm just starting to sink my fangs into these kinds of "mind-licking good" (p. 4) themes which run through many of the essays in both "True Blood and Philosophy" as well as the other book I'm reading, "A Taste of True Blood: The Fang-Banger's Guide" edited by Leah Wilson. Don't let the latter's title fool you (as I nearly did) - both books boast essays that seem quite relevant to the aims of the PPT, like: "'I Am Sookie, Hear Me Roar!': Sookie Stackhouse and Feminist Ambivalence" and "Sookie, Sigmund, and the Edible Complex"; "Working Class Heroes"; "Blue-Collar Bacchanalia"; and "True Stud".

American writer and social critic Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) once said, "No two people read the same book". While surely untrue in the literal sense, this quote is quite true in the sense that while many may read the same book, each reader derives her own unique, subjective experience from it.

I suspect that this will be the case with the books Rebecca and I will exchange once we're done reading them. I am looking forward to bringing our different takes on these True Blood titles into the PPT - and to you sidling up to the bar with your take on these books or other True Blood readings.

More to come, so stay tuned!

~ Rachel

P.S. I recently discovered the Journal of Dracula Studies; while it doesn't address True Blood per se, it does look at the the vampire in folklore, fiction, film, popular culture, and related topics. I've bookmarked some intriguing essays therein such as, "Vixens and Virgins in the Nineteenth-Century: Anglo-Irish Novel: Representations of the Feminine in Bram Stoker’s Dracula"; "In Search of the Lesbian Vampire: Barbara von Cilli, Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” and the Dragon Order"; and "The Post-feminist Vampire: Heroine for the Twenty-first Century". We'll see how they can be brought to bear upon our conversations here (or not).

Sometimes Quickies are Fun...

Here's a quickie post for ya...we're expecting some True Blood related reading material to arrive in the next few days - last week we ordered the following titles:

• Truly, Madly, Deadly: The Unofficial True Blood Companion by Becca Wilcott (this is the book the moderator of the "True & A" - the Dragon * Con panel we attended and posed our questions to the cast at - quoted to open the session, "True Blood is the most progressively political and sexual show on TV"). Click here to read our post about that panel and see video of our questions being answered *Rebecca found a better, more complete video - most likely the one made by Dragon * Con - and will hopefully be posting it soon.  
• A Taste of True Blood: The Fangbanger's Guide edited by Leah Wilson
• True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things with You (The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series) edited by William Irwin, George A. Dunn &  Rebecca Housel

One of the ladies we met at the BlogHer Holiday Meet-Up said she had read Truly, Madly, Deadly, have you read any of these titles? Any opinions on whether or not they will be relevant to the discourse here? Inquiring minds want to know! Rebecca & I will be dividing up the reading...so there you have it, our True Blood reading list for the first few weeks of the New Year.

What are you reading? Check in and let us know!

~ Rachel