You Can Do These While Watching Television Or, Break Them Up Throughout The Day! All You Have To Do Is

Cultural Dark Academia

After my last post about the lack of representation in academia, I felt it neccessary to provide some examples of what I’m talking about. Obviously there are more countries in the world than I can list and provide books for, so for a quick list this is what I got. !! Keep researching !! If you have any more books by POC please reply them !! If a country isn’t listed, that doesn’t mean it’s not important, this is just what I could get together real quick. If I made any mistakes, please let me know, we’re all learning. We need to help each other end eurocentrism in academia, so value representation and educate yourselves 💓💓💓

Chinese:

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Dream of the Red Chamber

The Water Margin

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

The Journey to the West

The Scholars

The Peony Pavilion

Border Town by Congwen Shen

Half of Man is Woman by Zhang Xianliang

To Live by Yu Hua

Ten Years of Madness by agent Jicai

The Field of Life and Death & Tales of Hulan River by Xiao Hong

Japanese:

A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oë

Pakistani:

Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

Ghulam Bagh by Mirza Athar Baig

Masterpieces of Urdu Nazm by K. C. Kanda

Irani/Persian:

Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji

Savushun by Simin Daneshvar

Anything by Rumi

The Book of Kings by Ferdowsi

The Rubiyat by Omar Khayyam

Shahnameh (translation by Dick Davis)

Afghan:

Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Indian:

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Aithihyamala, Garland of Legends by Kottarathil Sankunni

The Gameworld Trilogy by Samir Basu

Filipino:

Twice Blessed by Ninotchka Rosca

The Last Time I Saw Mother by Arlene J. Chai

Brazilian:

Night at the Tavern by Álvares de Azevedo

The Seven by André Vianco

Don Casmurro by Machado de Assis

Colombian:

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Delirio by Laura Restrepo

¡Que viva la música! by Andrés Caicedo

The Sound of Things Falling by Jim Gabriel Vásquez

Mexican:

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolf Anaya

Adonis Garcia/El Vampiro de la Colonia Roma by Luis Zapata

El Complot Mongol by Rafael Bernal

Egyptian:

The Cairo Trilogy by Nahuib Mahfouz

The Book of the Dead

Nigerian:

Rosewater by Tade Thompson

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Malian:

The Epic of Sundiata

Senegalese:

Poetry of Senghor

Native American:

The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King

Starlight by Richard Wagamese

Almanac of the Dead by L. Silko

Fools Crow by James Welch

Australian Aborigine:

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe

First Footprints by Scott Cane

My Place by Sally Morgan

American//Modern:

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Internment by Samir’s Ahmed

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurtson

Rivers of London Series by Ben Aaronovitch

The time when Harry and Malfoy are surprisingly domestic; And Ron nearly cannot process that :

Ron would never believe what he was seeing before his eyes.

Malfoy lived in a studio flat now, Harry had said. They had buried their old rivalry now, Harry had said. Harry was quite taken up with the blond ferret git now, he had said.

What Ron expected though, was certainly not this.

Upon stepping out of the floo into the living room, Hermione in tow, Ron’s brows began to furrow in confusion. The sight which welcomed him was a large, spacey room with furniture sparsely covering its white marble floor. The fireplace behind him cackled loudly, illuminating the huge wooden table in the middle of the room etched with meticulously designed carvings. The room was dimly lit otherwise, an open kitchen to the corner of the flat and paintings decorating the ivory coloured walls, family heirlooms floating along a corridor leading to a door which could only be the bathroom. At a side, a sofa with golden trimmings sat.

When Harry said studio flat, Ron did not expect this large, posh room with space enough to host a party. But of course, he wouldn’t expect less with Malfoy. If Malfoy was to live in a studio flat, it would be a mansion studio.

But what Ron really didn’t expect, was the sight before him. On the bed. An odd feeling welled up within Ron, as he felt his chest had ceased working to take breaths in. He felt like he was intruding into a fantasy bubble.

Because before him, Malfoy was perched in the middle of a king size bed which was placed several feet off the ground on a small platform, half lying against the wall behind him. With one hand, he was flipping a book casually held in it, and the other hand…was currently wrapped protectively around the figure basically on top on him.

Ron could recognize that nest of messy dark hair anywhere, having known his best friend for a decade and said best friend’s profile always plastered on posters. What he could not begin to process, was that Harry was currently lying face down, sprawled across Malfoy, snoring softly. His face was buried deep against Malfoy’s collar bone, arms loosely clutching the body under him, in his, apparently, deep slumber. Malfoy’s chin was resting gently atop Harry’s head, eyes peering down at his book in concentration. A comfortable-looking duvet was thrown across both of their bodies, covering Harry waist down. Malfoy’s arms were left out.

What slightly unnerved Ron was, the both of them looked so cozy that it seemed like they had resumed the same position for the millionth time. Ron has no idea that this was the definition of “taken up”.

Hearing commotion, Malfoy eventually lifted his head up from his literature. He blinked at the couple before him for a moment, sighed, but not unkindly, then shifted.

To Ron’s slight horror, the ferret shut his book after marking his place in it, throwing it to a side, then used his now free hand to…begin slipping it into the head of dark hair resting on his chest. His fingers moved smoothly, tangling in the messiness. Ron looked on as Malfoy slowly caressed and massaged the scalp.

Then Malfoy began speaking, in the gentlest tone Ron had heard the git used that lacked every ounce of bitterness that he was familiar with. “Love, get up. They’re here.”

Gradually, the still figure on him began to stir. Clinging to Malfoy yet, he reached up to rub a fist into his eyes. Harry was not wearing his glasses, Ron noticed. Malfoy smiled down at him affectionately, a smile so secretive that Ron was not sure that he should be allowed to watch. Uneasiness in him remained, he watched on. Malfoy thumbed away a strand of hair which was blocking Harry’s face, cupping the cheeks in a light grasp and pressed a kiss to the scarred forehead, rousing his lover to wakefulness. Ron inhaled sharply.

Harry made a noise of confusion, but got up from his spot previously basically stuck to Malfoy. He staggered up, stepping down from the platform of the bed, which made him stand taller than Malfoy’s sitting form. A side of his face was red with imprints from being pressed to Malfoy’s shirt. Malfoy looked up at him with an almost fond, open expression on his face, soft smile still lingering. They started a what seemed like silent conversation with glances, or so Ron assumed, before Harry pointed a thumb towards the corridor. Malfoy nodded. “Go, shoo,” He said, waving a hand.

Then he turned to Ron and Hermione, acknowledging them for the first time since they got into the flat. “Sorry about that,” He said, with no intention of moving from the bed, “Poor one was working himself exhausted from doing overtime the whole week. He thought he could stay awake. I bet he can’t.” He gave a polite but slightly smug grin to Ron, and Ron suddenly found everything surreal.

“Aww,” Hermione whispered beside him while they all wait for Harry to come out of the bathroom, “Aren’t they so cute?”

“Yeah,” Ron found himself agreeing, his voice faint to his own ears, “Which is exactly the issue here. What the hell was that?”

______________________________________

(just a short one)

(more?)

on being the daughter of the family

if my body could speak, blythe baird // i put the coffin out to sea, lisa marie basile // @/belovedbi // ? // been a son, nirvana // elektra, sophokles; translated by anne carson // ? // churching, kristin chang

Batman 129 Variant Cover by Simone Di Meo

a growing realisation that you aren’t going to change the world after all

The years from late middle age onward are also marked by a steady erosion of ambition. The cause isn’t so much a loss of drive as a growing realisation that you aren’t going to change the world after all. You’re just going to die and be forgotten, like almost everyone else. The knowledge that your existence doesn’t really matter is sobering, but also sort of a relief. It’s certainly changed my approach to paperwork.

— Tim Dowling, from “I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far.” (The Guardian, June 8, 2022)

Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary, August 18th 1921

[text ID: And so this August is wasted.]

me after I shop online 😭😭😭😭

Hey Everyone

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What should you be reading to maximize your language learning?

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of literature we can learn from. Baby books bore you, but you’re not ready for any type of novel, so what’s left?

Here are some tips 

For beginner/A1/A2 learners

Watch a YouTube video in your target language, then read the comments

you’ll already have vocabulary from watching the video, most of the comments will probably use that vocab

it’s a short enough text that you won’t get fatigued

the only downside is that sometimes people utilize abbreviations and slang terms, but even these are good to know

Read news headlines and if you find one you understand almost fully, try to read the full article

sometimes the vocabulary used is not common in everyday usage, but it’s a total win for an A1 learner to fully read and mostly understand any text

while vocab is not used everyday, it will give you the ammunition to talk about that particular topic

Watch Netflix in target language with subtitles in the same language

believe it or not, you will learn to read better, especially because you don’t have to understand written description of visuals (usually uses very niche vocab) or emotion

and now you can slow down or speed up 

I watched DARK in German before I felt like I could read a book, and I understood 85% of it. This is because I looked up some vocabulary in the first episodes and they continued to use it throughout the show so it really cemented in my head to the point where I don’t even think about it. Now, I had to rewatch some conversations the characters had, but that’s much better for understanding than switching it to English or looking up full phrases and sentences. 

For intermediate/B1/B2 learners

read fanfiction

it’s ALWAYS good to read about something you’re interested in so if you like any major movies, books, television, this is the perfect option for you

most people use relatively basic language and you can choose the length 

find a comic book or graphic novel

like watching tv, that visual aid really helps with understanding of the plot without all those tricky descriptions

read a book in your target language that you’ve read and loved in your native language

this is by far my favorite way

you don’t have to worry about trying to understanding the bigger picture because you already know what’s happening/what will happen, you really have to discover the meaning of each sentence and then you begin to picture the scene using only your target language

Check out my other post for methods of how to get the most out of reading !