It took some time but over the past few months I have embraced the importance of having a voice. This class has demonstrated the importance of making your thoughts known and the consequences of people in power burying the voices of those who are not in power. Countless times, voices have been taken from those without political or social power and it ensures that the average person does not think about those people and how they can fit into society. Over the past few months, I have been exposed to several pieces of media that have explored the voices of peoples who have not been broadly represented throughout western cultures. From voices that have been gaining more traction in recent years like Eco-critical ways of thinking to voices that still have not reached very far such as native and indigenous voices in movies, books, games, and television. For me, the course began slowly but was still easily digestible as it explored concepts like Eco-criticism which has been under the mainstream lens for some time but is still swept under the rug a great deal of the time. Covering topics within Eco- criticism that are a bit more obscure helped me understand how this course would cover concepts throughout the semester. I wouldn't just be reading about things I've been hearing about diversity over the past few years but things I had never heard of or even considered. Concepts like anthropocentrism put the idea of leaving the self behind and having a willingness to learn about things that do not affect you at the forefront of the mind and helped lead into diasporic storytelling, Diasporic storytelling led into post- colonial concepts well as both carried an air of looking at cultures through a lens unique to that culture’s lens. From here, each section felt a little less connected to each other as we entered the “Borderlands” section that felt like a shift from focusing on culture to focusing on feminist viewpoints While this section did cover “intersectionality”, or the practice of looking at issues of different concepts (eg. race, gender, sexuality) asf they are not completely exclusive and separate, the concept did not seem to truly connect with the rest of the course until much later when the monster theses were introduced. Once again, the section labeled “The Past is not the Past’ felt disjointed from the section that preceded it. Looking at monsters and those of indigenous origins. That being said, it did a good job of covering the concept of discovering and listening to unheard voices that have typically been oppressed by western society by showcasingculturally appropriated monsters such as the Windigo and how they were portrayed by their original culture. While this section felt disjointed from its predecessor, the same cannot be said of its successor, “Monster Theses & The Undead Past” as it continues to focus on the monster as a symbol of culture. Here, we swap from monsters like the Windigo to the most prominent monster in modern media: the zombie. It covers how the zombie came to be and how it turned into what it is seen as now. “Queer Identities & Reclamation of the Monster” continues to delve into the monster as a symbol, but this time as a symbol for identity rather than culture. It looks at how symbols once used to vilify people can be twisted into something used to show pride and hope for the future. Taking a monster and making it into a hero.