I Am Here

Since 1997 words like Quidditch, Gryffindor and Hogwarts have become a part of our vocabulary. In a decade the Harry Potter-universe won our hearts. But while Harry Potter and his two best friends have all the attention, the evil confronting them is just as interesting: Voldemort will do anything to evade death and gain immortality. And while he is just a character in a book, he is not so different from us as we might think. Starting from this observation, I Am Here discusses the ways in which we are like Voldemort. Analyzing television series and films, it argues how our fear of death is omnipresent. I Am Here draws the increasing representation of death in popular culture, coinciding with a paradoxical taboo of death. Scared of death, we no longer know how to deal with it and therefore start to live towards a fantastic immortality by trying to live forever and by leaving immortal traces. By traveling, using Botox, buying Porsches and eating vitamins, we want to gain control over our death and life. I Am Here shows how we need the fiction of immortality in order to live, but risk losing ourselves in the process.

Autorentext

Anouk van Kampen (1989) graduated with honors in her Bachelor Art History and her Research Master in Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam. While studying she worked for art historical magazine Simulacrum. Today she writes essays for dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad and she won different renowned essay prizes.