Like Rudy, I am also new to the list and have been wading through
everyone's comments, waiting to find a thread. My name is Ingrid Kloss
and I am a senior English/Theatre Arts major at Susquehanna University
(in the middle of Pennsylvania...rural Pennsylvania!). My favorite
English class here at SU was Utopian Literature, a wonderfully small
class in which we read most of the books on your list, Rudy--"Herland",
"Woman on the Edge of Time," in addition to some standards like More's
"Utopia" which started the course. Having read "The Handmaid's Tale"
and "The Disposessed" on my own, I found that I got a lot more out of
the course and frequently made comparisons back to literature by LeGuin,
and others--including Anne McCaffrey, who, although she is not an author
to hold up as a feminist role model, I enjoyed her books when I was
younger and can definitely credit her with igniting my love for the
genre.
I apologize for the lateness of this message. One of the problems of a
small school is that the network is frequently down, or the computer
labs are terribly full!
>----------
>From: Rudy Leon[SMTP:releon@SYR.EDU]
>Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 1997 3:15 PM
>To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU
>Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Crossing Press, et al
>
>At 10:36 AM 9/16/97 -0500, you wrote:
>>-- [ From: David Christenson * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] --
>>
>>
>>Does this book's subtitle, "Women's Fantasy & SF" signify something
>>about the material other than the fact that it's written by women (as
>>"women's music" seems to)? Are books by Crossing Press and others (Naiad
>>?) getting respect in the SF field? I'm also wondering how these small
>>feminist presses are faring in the current publishing upheavals, if
>>anybody has any inside info.
>>--
>>David Christenson - ldqt79a@prodigy.com
>>
> I am new to the list, as of last week, and have been waiting for a break
>on the size thread to introduce myself. perhaps the most important thing
>to know is that my mail reader does not do spell check, so I apologize for
>my awful typing. I'm Rudy Leon, and I am a grad student in religion,
>American religion and New Religious Movements, at Syracuse U., and this
>semester I am teaching a course on Religion in Feminist Utopian Fantasy
>Novels. We just finished Herland, and this next couple of weeks are doing
>Wanderground (Gearhart) and Suzie Charnas' Walk to the End of the World and
>Motherlines. We'll also be reading Dispossessed; Woman on the Edge of
>Time; Marraiges Between Zones 3, 4, 5; Fifth Sacred Thing; Handmaid's Tale;
>and Gate to Women's Country. I am actually really curious if this seems
>like a cliched list to people 'in the know'. The students also have to do
>a comparative study with an 'outside' book, most likely one of the ones I
>ended up deciding not to use for the class, or any sugegestions that I hear
>here.
>
>To respond to David's questions, in doing research for this class I found a
>good many articles in Extrapolation and SFS on Women's SF, but in books
>these authors were barely and rarely mentioned. Except, of course, in
>books focusing on Feminist SF. So my guess is that the SF 'experts' do not
>concede that this is either an important or genuine movement.
>
>However, I am also on the Utopia-L listserv, and the discussion there has
>led me to believe even more strongly that this genre is really where the
>cutting edge is--the questions being debated there seem old and tired and
>one sided, lacking the complexity and texture shown in some of these books.
> I think that to the degree that feminism has to engage humanism it is
>changing the way people look at the future and its possibilities, and it
>may idealistic of me, but isn't that what SF is about? And a really good
>SF story gives a through and convincing look at all the details which hold
>life together? Traditional SF has largely been responding to LeGuin (and
>others) when it even looks at social structure and gender roles...
>
>I'll stop there, since I'm still trying to get a feel for the list (and the
>genre), but I ma really looking forward to this list...
>
>peace
>Rudy
>
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