1. The Twilight Phenomenon

2. Stephenie Meyer  “Stephenie Meyer, born on December 24, 1973, in Hartford, Connecticut, is the best-selling author of the Twilight book series. Inspired by a dream, she wrote the first book and attracted the attention of agent Jodi Reamer, who secured her a three-book publishing deal. The books have sold more than 250 million copies, been translated into 37 languages, and adapted for a hit film series that includes five installments.” ("Stephenie Meyer." 2014. The Biography Channel website)  BA in English at Brigham Young University  Housewife from Arizona, inspired to write the 1 st novel based on a dream

3. The Novels… Twilight (2005) New Moon (2006) Eclipse (2007) Breaking Dawn (2008) Stephenie Meyer

4. The Movies… Starring Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner Twilight (2008) New Moon (2009) Eclipse (2010) Breaking Dawn I (2011) Breaking Dawn II (2012)

5. Why?  Love Lust: The Undead (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTg7YpD-BLI) Love Lust: The Undeadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTg7YpD-BLI  How is this reading of the Bella’s role in the series different from Kristine Moruzi’s argument in “Postfeminist Fantasies?”  Write for 5 minutes answering this question

6. Postfeminism  “Broadly defined, “postfeminism” encompasses a set of assumptions that feminism has accomplished its goals and is now a thing of the past. It presumes that women are unsatisfied with their (taken for granted) legal and social equality and can find fulfillment only through practices of transformation and empowerment. Postfeminism is defined by class, age, and racial exclusions; it is youth-obsessed and white and middle- class by default. Anchored in consumption as a strategy and leisure as a site for the production of the self, postfeminist mass media assumes that the pleasures and lifestyles with which it is associated are somehow universally shared and, perhaps more significantly, universally accessible” (Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture, 2007)

7. Moruzi, page 53  Postfeminism = Power Through  Femininity  Sexual Agency  Consumption  Sometimes equated with 3 rd Wave Feminism, but this is contentious.  A perfect example? BeyoncéBeyoncé  (http://beyfansofficial.blogspot.com.br/2014/02/beyonce-flawless-music-video-official.html)http://beyfansofficial.blogspot.com.br/2014/02/beyonce-flawless-music-video-official.html  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TedX Talk “We Should All be Feminists”

8. According to Moruzi:  How is Bella empowered?  How are Bella’s choices contained?  Patriarchal/Anti-Patriarchal?  Can she be both?

9. Theorizing 21 st Century Anxieties  In the Love Lust clip we watched, they speculate about the anxieties that might provoke new forms of the undead in the future. They claim that the vampires of Twilight are sanitized to the extent that they don't serve their purpose as gothic metaphors. Freewrite for 10 minutes about what you think we have been afraid of as a culture since the turn of the 21 st century (2000-2014). In what ways does Twilight (or True Blood, if you are familiar with it) respond to those anxieties?  What about Bella? What cultural anxieties might her behavior and relationship with Edward respond to?