From LISTSERV@listserv.uic.edu Fri Aug 25 10:36:29 2000 Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 12:34:11 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at University of Illinois at Chicago (1.8d)" To: Laura Quilter Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF-LIT LOG0005E" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 22:41:37 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Susan Hericks Subject: Re: Imago, Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Glenda wrote, r.e. _Imago_ "Butler's Oankali are just such benevolent invaders, but are they benign? ...occasionally, when Jodahs was lusting after the humans Jesusa and Tomas,I had a creepy feeling that for all the benefits it--called "it" as a third gender person--offered them, they were giving away more self-determination than anyone ever should. The author is really skillful in getting the reader to accept the Oankali behavior and at the same time wonder whether it is right. Like, how can you not love someone who feeds you, gives you pleasure, protects you, heals you and loves you unconditionally, who always seems to do what is best for you? Like the best mother, lover, and hero combined. It could make you wonder if the human insistence on self-dominance is somehow as wrong as the insistence on dominating other people." I finally finished reading the Xenogenesis trilogy, after re-reading _Dawn_ for the BDG. Butler really gets under my skin and I am starting to see that it has something to do with tension between how I would like to see "self-determination" (i.e. that we have free will) and her stories in which people have to balance adaptability, survival, and violation. I think she is saying something that disturbs us because we can't really deny it--that we are always involved in power struggles and compromises and that one person's survival looks like another's sell-out. And that's because "self-determination" is not as literal as we like to think it is. For me, Butler (in Xenogenesis and the Wild Seed books) is always exploring how adaptability is both a strength and a weakness in situations where self-determination is not an abstract ideal, but where characters must "submit" to some degree in order to survive. Butler shows us how we, in reality, are choosing how we will submit all the time, but we insist on calling it self-determination. Do you really choose to let your local utility company provide power to your home? Or are you at their mercy, out of habit, and you never notice it until the power goes off? Why were so many people freaked about Y2K? Isn't dependence a kind of submission? I sure think so! The controlling benevolence of the Oankali makes the question of choice almost absurd, whereas in the Patternmaster books it is easier to take a stand against a seriously abusive powerful individual who controls many others. By the end of Xenogeneis, it seems ridiculous that some humans are still suicidally set on their so-called self-determination. And it made total sense to me that the in-bred village was relieved and willing to accept the Oankali trade. If you accept the set-up of the novel, that humans left alone _will_ self destruct (which is a big "if") then there is no sensible choice but to mate with the Oankali. There's always that Mars colony that could prove the Oankali wrong, but I personally wouldn't bet on the long-term success of that compromise. So... in the end I thought that Lilith was right in the way she did the best with the options presented her. This theme of humans preferring our own "self-determination" (usually destructive) to even the most benevolent "masters" (who are often quite helpful to us, or benign, if it's possible to be benign) comes up a lot in sci-fi. It was an element in the Jaran books and Ring of Swords (?). Can't there be some distinctions made between colonialism as we have known it mostly hellishly destructive of lives and cultures) and situations like those raised in Butler's work? Are the latter only fictions? Should the trade-offs of interaction with other peoples all be regarded as the same, that is, are there situations in which the "gains" are worth the "losses"? (ie. are longevity, perfect physical health, long term relationship with someone who needs you as much as you need them (ooloi), ability to survive, etc. worth the loss of "pure" humans, heterosexual sex, and the illusion(?) of self-determination? Susan ------------------------------------------------------ This is the FEMINISTSF-LIT listserve, intended only for discussion of feminism and Speculative Fiction. To unsubscribe from this listserve, send a message to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU and in the body of the message say: unsubscribe FEMINISTSF-LIT Contact FEMINISTSF-LIT-request@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU if there are problems. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 21:37:46 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Dave Samuelson Subject: [Fwd: post for me?] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------5BE6882C36B2EB97F6A02A21" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------5BE6882C36B2EB97F6A02A21 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --------------5BE6882C36B2EB97F6A02A21 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Received: from usagi.cts.com (usagi.cts.com [209.68.192.66]) by postman.csulb.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA11938076 for ; Mon, 29 May 2000 21:27:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [204.216.199.54] (psc24154216.cts.com [204.216.154.216]) by usagi.cts.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA16737; Mon, 29 May 2000 21:28:07 -0700 (PDT) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: brin@popped.cts.com Message-Id: Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 21:32:50 -0700 To: estowers@ccmail.nevada.edu, dnsmlsn@csulb.edu From: "d.brin" Subject: post for me? Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 Hi. I tried to post the following item on three lists: WISENET@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU, FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU, SCI-LIT@CDINET.COM All three appear to be closed-access. Could you decide if my message is appropriate, and if so, post it on whichever of these lists you belong to? I am grateful. With cordial regards. David Brin == The following message was forwarded to me. May I respond on-list? When it comes to the lamentable dearth of strong, intellectually-stimulating SF aimed at young people, some of us have been busy. Together with Sheila Finch, Nancy Kress and Roger Allen (all Nebula Award winners) I developed the OUT OF TIME series of novels, published by Avon Books. Sheila's novel, TIGER IN THE SKY, features a strong young woman as its lead character, assertively using both compassion and science to help prevent genocidal conflict aboard a space station in the future. Her story won the San Diego Book Award last month. As in Nancy's book and Roger's, the story portrays young people from here-and-now, yanked out of their problem-filled daily lives into a distant future when they are revered figures -- admired for the work they "will have done" when they grow up, in the mid twenty-first century. Work that will turn out to have saved the world. Now though, the near-utopia of 2345 c.e is in danger and kids from throughout the past are recruited to help save the future. Why kids? Well, the explanation seems to make sense, at least well enough to drive some exciting stories. Nancy Kress has posted a sample chapter at www.sff.net/people/nankress More info is available at http://www.kithrup.com/brin/ = May I add another item? In hope of doing some good in a small, targeted way, I've started a contest -- with a $1000 first prize -- for best educational website that uses science fiction to help classroom educators teach difficult subjects. The Webs of Wonder contest is co-sponsored by Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine, aimed at generating resources that will help teachers and students use science fiction to complement subjects faced in today's classroom. If we get enough entries, a $1,000 cash first prize - plus runner-up awards - for excellent new sites on the World Wide Web that unite a love of learning with a passion for good stories, will be awarded at Chicon. For years, educators have given their students famous and obscure science fiction tales to help enliven difficult topics. A chemistry teacher might illustrate part of her curriculum with a classic Hal Clement novel, while a social studies class would argue the ethical questions raised by Tom Godwin's famous story "The Cold Equations" or James Tiptree Jr's "The Screwfly Solution." These efforts have mostly been isolated. Great teachers had no simple way to share their study guides, illustrations, provocative question sets . . . or the story itself. Until recently, that is. Today's technology can help teachers and web-designers create vivid materials to brighten any subject, then let them share their creativity with colleagues all over the country and around the world. Moreover, this offers one more way to get compelling literature into the hands of young people who might otherwise never be intrigued by some of science fiction's greatest stories. For details about rules and available supporting materials, see http://www.analogsf.com/wow = Thanks for your attention. With cordial regards. David Brin >>Greetings -- I am writing to this list with a request for help. A >colleague and >>I are doing research on the topic of women, science, and young adult >literature. >>We are attempting to locate Young Adult novels that depict heroines with >an interest in >>science. So far we have met with limited success for fiction. There are >a lot >>of good non-fiction books out there about female scientists, but, unless >we're >>missing the obvious, fictional female characters still aren't interested in >>science. Some of the books we have discovered are A Wrinkle in Time >(L'Engle), >>the Magic School Bus series (Cole and Degen), Who Will Speak for the Lamb? >>(Ames), The Summer I Shrunk My Grandmother (Woodruff), My Sister, My Science >>Report (Bechard), The Fire Bug Connection (George), The Midwife's Apprentice >>(Cushman), and Weather Eye (Howarth). We are not really looking at "science >>fiction" because so much of it seems more fantasy than science. >> >>Any recommendations you might have of novels written for young readers that >>portray women in relation to science would be most appreciated. Thanks >for your >>consideration. >> >>Eva Stowers >>Science Reference Librarian >>University of Nevada, Las Vegas >>estowers@ccmail.nevada.edu --------------5BE6882C36B2EB97F6A02A21-- ------------------------------------------------------ This is the FEMINISTSF-LIT listserve, intended only for discussion of feminism and Speculative Fiction. To unsubscribe from this listserve, send a message to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU and in the body of the message say: unsubscribe FEMINISTSF-LIT Contact FEMINISTSF-LIT-request@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU if there are problems. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 21:42:19 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Dave Samuelson Subject: strong females for young readers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm sorry if I duplicated David Brin's post. I forwarded Petra's second-hand posting to David, Greg Benford, and the sfra listserv in hopes of a quick reply from someone more knowledgeable than I. After doing a quick forward, I noticed that David seemed to have sent it directly himself. Dave Samuelson ------------------------------------------------------ This is the FEMINISTSF-LIT listserve, intended only for discussion of feminism and Speculative Fiction. To unsubscribe from this listserve, send a message to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU and in the body of the message say: unsubscribe FEMINISTSF-LIT Contact FEMINISTSF-LIT-request@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU if there are problems.