========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 00:21:12 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ Hello, I am doing a critical study of Parable of the Sower for a McNair scholar program project and am very interested in the development of the protagonist, particularly what you thought of her development into a self-empowered young woman from her beginnings as a teen in the novel... Jo Ann ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 00:04:46 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: BEAUTY In-Reply-To: <3349B718.3687@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Beauty is a wonderful book, one of Tepper's best, but the scene where the trash chutes get clogged by dead bodies gave me nightmares! Mike Levy On Mon, 7 Apr 1997, Nomi Liron wrote: > Has anyone else read Sherri Tepper's "Beauty?" It is a wonderful > rewriting of some old fairy tales in a sci fi setting. I felt it was > almost a magical book. Anyone else? > nomi > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 00:12:19 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ In-Reply-To: <19970407.202453.10174.3.avs5@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 7 Apr 1997, Anne V Stuecker wrote: > Hello, all. I just finished reading Octavia Butler's _Parable of the > Sower_ and would like to know everyone's thoughts or ideas on the book. > > Thanks. > > Anne Stuecker Washington, DC, USA > It's a fine novel, though very different from most of Butler's previous fiction. I just finished writing a paper on Parable and a somewhat similar novel by Jack Womack called Random Acts of Senseless Violence. Both books deal with teenaged girls on their own and surviving in near-future Americas that are going all to hell. I looked at both books in light of Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. Although I liked Parable of the Sower a lot, I'm still not very comfortable with Lauren's Earthseed religion. The concept is either very profound or very shallow--I haven't made up my mind yet. Question, does Butler want us to see Earthseed as right? Interesting side point. Butler said in a recent interview which appeared in Science Fiction Studies that Lauren does not have any psychic ability to feel other peoples' pain, which is how I (and I think most people) first read it. What she has is a well developed delusion that she can feel other peoples' pain. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 04:35:39 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Roberta Wolff Subject: Re: BEAUTY Yes, I read BEAUTY and I loved it. It is my sort of fantasy. In my book, that is a prose poem. Roberta's Cat-- onegreycat@msn.com greycat1@airmail.net Has anyone else read Sherri Tepper's "Beauty?" nomi ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 08:01:35 -0400 Reply-To: areuter@world.std.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Anne E. Reuter" Organization: iDirect Subject: Octavia Butler on race Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Laura Sells wrote: > And I also like how > she treats race, though I haven't thought it through quite clearly. I > wonder if anyone has any thoughts on that aspect of Butler's work? > Yes, that's what I like about Butler's books. First it's nice to see black people and black women in sci fi. Generally, we are invisible or just a balancing afterthought in a group scene. Race consciousness pervades the lives of racial minorities in any social system, unifying and dividing them in ways the dominant culture is largely unaware of. While many sci fi books are based on struggles between different races or species of individuals - from first contact novels to fantasies in which one group dominates another - few SF writers explore how being visibly identifiable with one group instead of another affects the consciousness and life decisions of the group members. And few SF writers explore the details of people's daily lives where two or more racially distinct groups live side by side, each occupying pretermined roles in their society. Some of Butler's earlier works, such as Wild Seed and Patternmaster, touch on this theme as well. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 08:06:08 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: sue hagedorn Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > And I also like how >she treats race, though I haven't thought it through quite clearly. I >wonder if anyone has any thoughts on that aspect of Butler's work? In the Afterword for "Bloodchild" she writes: "It amazes me that some people have seen "Bloodchild" as a story of slavery. It isn't. It's a number of other things, though. On one level, it's a love story between two very different beings. On another, it's a coming-of-age story in which a boy must absorb disturbing information and use it to make a decision that will affect the rest of his life. On a third level, "Bloodchild" is my pregnant man story." S. Hagedorn hagedors@vt.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 10:34:12 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stone Waters MD Subject: Re: delany Yes, absolutely, you can make great Sci-fi on small budget. But you have to concentrate on themes and issues and not special effects. Two films which come to mind that have feminist-female leads are 1. the original Terminator (low budget, and arguably one of the best sci-fi flicks ever made) and 2. the Alien movies. Stone Waters MD ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 11:04:35 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: lissa bloomer Subject: Re: THANK YOU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hello all. been out of town. nalo: what is Slipstream? -lissa if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. elisabeth bloomer instructor, english virginia tech ebloomer@vt.edu 540.231.2445 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 11:08:10 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: lissa bloomer Subject: Re: delany & feminism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ok, i know what allies are. then what's your definition of feminist? feminism? anyone? -lissa if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. elisabeth bloomer instructor, english virginia tech ebloomer@vt.edu 540.231.2445 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 11:17:04 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Robin Gordon Subject: Re: feminist heroes in SF films In-Reply-To: <01IHFBOLQ17EE0LL3Q@MtRoyal.AB.CA> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I think there are a lot of interesting questions that could flow from a feminist analysis of the Aliens trilogy. Unfortunately I have to admit I only remember the third, which I've seen repeatedly as it has a certain status amongst many lesbians. The character of Ripley is, in many ways, coded as lesbian in that final film. The shaved head, baggy clothes and take no prisoners attitude, the way she refuses to be intimidated by the men/criminals. her entire appearnace and demeanor run counter to dominant notions of what men find attractive in women, and particularly hollywood's idea of an attractive woman, and yet she carries so much raw sexual energy through the film. But the most interesting question, I think, relates to the fact that both the villain/alien and the hero are female. The motherhood themes are strong throughout the entire series, but less the nurturing mother and more a fierce mother with a drive to procreate and protect her young. The alien-mother-as-villain is not so unusual for hollywood, but it is unusual to see this villain go up against a female hero. The combination allows for the curious identification that the hero develops with the Alien, particularly as she becomes the alien, or at least the alien-host(ie. mother). I think Ripley is a good example of an sf amazon-hero, which goes back to the discussion about women and the traditional idea of a hero. Happily, this amazon escapes the two worst stories for amazons - either the amazon is the villain to be conquered by men as proof of their supremacy, or she is conquered by some over-powering innate heterosexual desire and succumbs to a man, discovering that he's what she really needed all along. The men in Aliens 3 are quite secondary. Robin Gordon -------------------------------------- "I view it as something of a nightmare that the sodomites are so brazen." Bigot Jesse Helms ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 12:32:20 -0200 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Antonio Marcos da Silva Pereira Subject: slipstream In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hi there - On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote: > hello all. been out of town. nalo: what is Slipstream? 1) afaik it's a label for work on the border between traditional contemporary fiction and sf. bruce sterling wrote about this in a text properly entitled "slipstream". which can be found at his directory on the well gopher. also, spinrad wrote about the term, but i'm not quite sure where. Antonio Marcos Pereira ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 12:27:12 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicola Griffith Subject: Octavia Butler Mike, I'm intrigued by your interesting side point. I've read PARABLE OF THE SOWER three times now (trying to figure out what other readers have liked about the novel--but that's another story). In the text there is nothing, as far as I can see, to indicate Lauren is anything but a reliable narrator: she says she has hyperempathy; she *has* hyperempathy (the ability to feel others' physical sensations--not just pain). At what point do we disbelieve what is written and believe instead the author? At what point and to what extent should the text stand on its own? I don't know if Butler does or does not want us to see Earthseed as "right." Lauren's religion is one of my (many) problems with the book: we see, beautifully articulated, the beginnings of Lauren's philosophy (and I think it is a philosophy to begin with, rather than religion); we understand how she gets from A to B, and then, phhtt, she's suddenly thinks humankind's future is among the stars. She makes a leap of faith that I can't follow--a leap of faith that's not prefigured or explained or believable. At least I didn't find it so. Perhaps I'm simply misreading the text. If anyone has any pointers I'd be happy to hear them. Meanwhile, if anyone is interested I can post or email a review I wrote for the _New York Review of SF_ when the novel first came out. And Mike: I read RANDOM ACTS OF SENSELESS VIOLENCE and thought it was a terrific novel. Heartbreaking. Nicola Nicola Griffith http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 14:07:20 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Mala Ghoshal (NC)" Subject: a bunch of things Comments: To: Tanya Wood In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII tanya--what did you focus on in your tiptree thesis? did you relate her work to any particular feminist theorists? re ecofeminism--i really like susan griffin's _woman and nature_. i've never read any butler but i plan to--what do you-all recommend starting with? nicola, i'd like to see your review of _parable of the sower_. has anyone looked at the haraway book that deals with _the female man_? in closing, this list makes my day. mala ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 11:24:14 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "L. Timmel Duchamp" Subject: sf movies Anybody seen "Cannibal Women of the Avocado Rainforest Jungle?" (At least I *think* that's the title-- but it could be "Amazon Women" or some other variant.) This is a film that was obviously made by feminists (academics, I feel certain) for feminists. It teems with a myriad details that anyone who isn't a feminist just don't get. (& there are plenty that would probably slide by feminists without at least graduate student experience.) I've watched videos of it numerous times, always with other people. A friend of mine who's a history professor shows it perhaps once a year at an all-women party of mixed students & faculty. Every time I see it I just howl-- & each viewing get more of the jokes. (Of course it also helps if you've read Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ or-- so I'm told-- seen _Lost Raiders of the Ark_ & _Apocalpyse Now_ --neither of which I've seen.) I usually don't like slapstick-type roll-in-the-aisles humor, but I love this movie. (Yeah, I'm the kind of person men are always telling to "lighten up.") I suppose its magic for me lies in its outrageous premise: that there are two rival groups of militant feminists occupying a huge tract of land ("jungle") in California that the CIA, the marines, & every kind of corporate & government sabatour is powerless to eliminate. (All the marines & CIA agents sent in get eaten-- with either clam dip or guacamole, depending on which feminist faction captures them.) I must say that I've yet to meet a male "fellow traveller" who appreciates this film. The ones I've seen trying to watch it give up because they think it's boring & silly. (Just the way I feel about most movies that are "comedies.") Interesting to hear that I'm not the only person in existence who enjoyed _Until the End of the World._ I got so much pleasure from it that I saw it a second time less than a week after having seen it the first time. Everyone I know who's seen this movie thinks it's badly structured & boring. It does have an unwieldly shape-- but my understanding of the film sees that as inevitable. I didn't take any notes on my thoughts about it, but I do remember talking at length (to whomever would listen) about the insights I felt that film gave me into why the noir form cannot accommodate "role-reversed" female protagonists. The unwieldly shape of the film is the result of its opening with explicit cyber-type noir & later shifting into end-of-the-world sf. I once had some idea for why Wenders might have sutured two such incompatible forms together into one, but it escapes me at this late date. My favorite scene was the moment the EMP strikes, in the small airplane, when the world goes silent & there's just the small, spiraling shadow of the plane on the stark Australian outback below, & a beautiful silence & light all around it, as though the world were holding its breath... Timmi Duchamp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 14:26:27 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: THANK YOU In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote: > hello all. been out of town. nalo: what is Slipstream? > > -lissa NH: Damn. Did I use the term? Probably. Not sure I can explain it, because I'm not sure what it means myself. I think it's work that won't be nailed down to genre categories, like Karen Joy Fowler's _Sarah Canary._ Is it a first contact story? Is it a story about a madwoman? No way to be sure. Anyone else have a more clear explanation? Or a correction? -nalo > "Would you trade your funk for what's behind the third door?" P-Funk, "Funkentelechy" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 13:24:57 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Octavia Butler In-Reply-To: <970408122628_-933372715@emout05.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Nicola, let me first say that it's a pleasure being in contact with you. I've loved both your novels (taught Ammonite last year in a course on SF and gender), On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Nicola Griffith wrote: > Mike, I'm intrigued by your interesting side point. I've read PARABLE OF THE > SOWER three times now (trying to figure out what other readers have liked > about the novel--but that's another story). In the text there is nothing, as > far as I can see, to indicate Lauren is anything but a reliable narrator: she > says she has hyperempathy; she *has* hyperempathy (the ability to feel > others' physical sensations--not just pain). At what point do we disbelieve > what is written and believe instead the author? At what point and to what > extent should the text stand on its own? You've misread Butler's text slightly (and in exactly the same way that I and evidently just about everyone else misreads it, according to Butler. ) As defined in the text if you look very carefully, hyperempathy isn't actually the ability to feel other peoples' sensations. It's the ability to convince yourself that you're feeling them. Thus, Lauren feels pain when her brother fakes hurting himself if she thinks his pain is real. Similarly, she won't feel even the worst pain if she doesn't consciously realize that the other person or animal is in pain. Same for other emotions. If you have a heartattack right in front of her she won't notice if you're stoic enough. > I don't know if Butler does or does not want us to see Earthseed as "right." > Lauren's religion is one of my (many) problems with the book: we see, > beautifully articulated, the beginnings of Lauren's philosophy (and I think > it is a philosophy to begin with, rather than religion); we understand how > she gets from A to B, and then, phhtt, she's suddenly thinks humankind's > future is among the stars. She makes a leap of faith that I can't follow--a > leap of faith that's not prefigured or explained or believable. At least I > didn't find it so. > I'm glad you feel this way about the "humanity's future is among the stars" stuff. I don't necessarily disagree with the idea (on a gut level I'd like to agree with it I have to admit) , but I don't see its necessary or logical connection to Earthseed as previously presented in the book. Maybe it's just your standard, life-long science fiction fan's thing. The basic idea is common to much SF, particularly to the more conservative stuff written by people like Poul Anderson and Larry Niven, oddly enough. > Perhaps I'm simply misreading the text. If anyone has any pointers I'd be > happy to hear them. Meanwhile, if anyone is interested I can post or email a > review I wrote for the _New York Review of SF_ when the novel first came out. I'll have to check your review. I've got the complete run of the NYReview of SF. Can you give me a citation? > And Mike: I read RANDOM ACTS OF SENSELESS VIOLENCE and thought it was a > terrific novel. Heartbreaking. > > Nicola Again, I'm glad we're in agreement.The New York Times Book Review gave Random Acts the rare "honor" of a mainline review outside of Gerald Jonas's sf ghetto, and then Scott Bradfield (one of those slipstream guys) panned the book and said Womack's language (which I loved) was unreadable. > > Nicola Griffith > http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/ > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 15:06:03 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: sf movies In-Reply-To: <199704081824.AA13206@halcyon.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NH: Toronto is a big town for film. In 1995 I attended an independent film festival there where I saw an independent feminist sf short called "Odds and Ends." Can't remember the director's name right now. It's a total spoof too, about a galaxy of Black lesbians at war with Zombies. I found it hilarious, down to the really cheesy special effects, but most people didn't share my view. And I don't know if "Daughters of the Dust" fits the definition of speculative fiction, with its pre-born baby ghost girl running as fast as she can to arrive in time to patch a rift between her parents, but that one has a special place in my heart too, as does "Jumping Jack Flash." I was too chicken to watch any of the Aliens movies, much to my chagrin. But horror leaves me sleepless and terrified for days. -nalo On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, L. Timmel Duchamp wrote: > Anybody seen "Cannibal Women of the Avocado Rainforest Jungle?" > (At least I *think* that's the title-- but it could be "Amazon > Women" or some other variant.) This is a film that was obviously > made by feminists (academics, I feel certain) for feminists. > It teems with a myriad details that anyone who isn't a feminist > just don't get. (& there are plenty that would probably slide > by feminists without at least graduate student experience.) I've > watched videos of it numerous times, always with other people. > A friend of mine who's a history professor shows it perhaps once > a year at an all-women party of mixed students & faculty. Every > time I see it I just howl-- & each viewing get more of the jokes. > (Of course it also helps if you've read Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ > or-- so I'm told-- seen _Lost Raiders of the Ark_ & _Apocalpyse > Now_ --neither of which I've seen.) I usually don't like slapstick-type > roll-in-the-aisles humor, but I love this movie. (Yeah, I'm the > kind of person men are always telling to "lighten up.") I suppose > its magic for me lies in its outrageous premise: that there are > two rival groups of militant feminists occupying a huge tract > of land ("jungle") in California that the CIA, the marines, & > every kind of corporate & government sabatour is powerless to > eliminate. (All the marines & CIA agents sent in get eaten-- > with either clam dip or guacamole, depending on which feminist > faction captures them.) I must say that I've yet to meet a male > "fellow traveller" who appreciates this film. The ones I've seen > trying to watch it give up because they think it's boring & silly. > (Just the way I feel about most movies that are "comedies.") > > Interesting to hear that I'm not the only person in existence > who enjoyed _Until the End of the World._ I got so much pleasure > from it that I saw it a second time less than a week after having > seen it the first time. Everyone I know who's seen this movie > thinks it's badly structured & boring. It does have an unwieldly > shape-- but my understanding of the film sees that as inevitable. > I didn't take any notes on my thoughts about it, but I do remember > talking at length (to whomever would listen) about the insights > I felt that film gave me into why the noir form cannot accommodate > "role-reversed" female protagonists. The unwieldly shape of the > film is the result of its opening with explicit cyber-type noir > & later shifting into end-of-the-world sf. I once had some idea > for why Wenders might have sutured two such incompatible forms > together into one, but it escapes me at this late date. My favorite > scene was the moment the EMP strikes, in the small airplane, when > the world goes silent & there's just the small, spiraling shadow > of the plane on the stark Australian outback below, & a beautiful > silence & light all around it, as though the world were holding > its breath... > > Timmi Duchamp > "Would you trade your funk for what's behind the third door?" P-Funk, "Funkentelechy" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 14:01:07 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Laura J. Perez" Subject: Re: sf movies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I have seen that "Amazon Women of the Avacado Jungle" or whatever the title is. I once saw it on an afternoon movie and couldn't stop laughing for days. I'm dying to see it again, but haven't been able to find it. I thought it was interesting that it seemed to be a really cheap B movie, but had such intellectual content...at least in some ways. >Anybody seen "Cannibal Women of the Avocado Rainforest Jungle?" > (At least I *think* that's the title-- but it could be "Amazon >Women" or some other variant.) This is a film that was obviously >made by feminists (academics, I feel certain) for feminists. >It teems with a myriad details that anyone who isn't a feminist >just don't get. (& there are plenty that would probably slide >by feminists without at least graduate student experience.) I've >watched videos of it numerous times, always with other people. > A friend of mine who's a history professor shows it perhaps once >a year at an all-women party of mixed students & faculty. Every >time I see it I just howl-- & each viewing get more of the jokes. > (Of course it also helps if you've read Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ >or-- so I'm told-- seen _Lost Raiders of the Ark_ & _Apocalpyse >Now_ --neither of which I've seen.) I usually don't like slapstick-type >roll-in-the-aisles humor, but I love this movie. (Yeah, I'm the >kind of person men are always telling to "lighten up.") I suppose >its magic for me lies in its outrageous premise: that there are >two rival groups of militant feminists occupying a huge tract >of land ("jungle") in California that the CIA, the marines, & >every kind of corporate & government sabatour is powerless to >eliminate. (All the marines & CIA agents sent in get eaten-- >with either clam dip or guacamole, depending on which feminist >faction captures them.) I must say that I've yet to meet a male >"fellow traveller" who appreciates this film. The ones I've seen >trying to watch it give up because they think it's boring & silly. > (Just the way I feel about most movies that are "comedies.") > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 15:14:31 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Tanya Wood Subject: Re: a bunch of things In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Mala, My thesis on Tiptree was entitled "The Female Man: The Feminism and Utopianism of James Tiptree, Jr." This was a few years ago now, and its extraordinary how the memory fades....But I did (oddly enough) use Harraway (haven't read her new book yet but will) who considered Tiptree one of her cyborg theorists, mostly on the basis of Tiptree's masquerade as a man, ignoring Tiptree's own conviction that male and female are indeliably biologically differentiated. But on the other hand Tiptree did have a diffcult relationship with her own female identity- apparently considering herself both inside and outside the female species. I also used essentialist feminist theorists like Mary Daly- although they differ radically in many ways they still share an underlying biologism.What stuck me about Tiptree's utopian writing is how it had to exclude men to suceed (as in "Houston, Houston, Do You Read"), and is basically untenable in the real world which includes men ("Your Faces, Oh My Sisters...").Gloom. gloom. Even in Up the Walls of the World, happy utopian striving inside the space entity os only possible because all the entities within are disembodied. Incidently, Harraway also considers Octavia Butler as a cyborg theorist, and writes about Butler at lenght in her "Primate Visions" (the two do indeed have an affinity- although there are also many differences between them- Haraway would not share Butler's conviction that males are inherently violent as seen in the Xenogenesis trilogy, for example). Cheers! Tanya. PS I take the points about the Bujold series. Serves me right for commenting on them when I've only read 2 books and the summaries at the end of these two books detailing the rest of the series. None of the summaries mentioned Cordelia at all.It really did seem to me that the heroine completely vanished- and obviously she does not. But I do think Cordelia is a heroine- even if she (quite rationally) tries to refuse the label. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 15:17:29 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Octavia Butler In-Reply-To: <970408122628_-933372715@emout05.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NH: I read _Parable of the Sower_ when it first came out. In it, as I remember, Lauren says that people call what she suffers from "hyperempathy," but it's in fact a misnomer, since what she feels is what she *imagines* other people to be feeling, not their actual sensations. I'm pretty sure that that's in the novel. I think Lauren goes on to say that for her, it boils down to much of a muchness: they feel pain, and she feels pain too, even though it's triggered by her imagination of their pain, and not by real empathy. I admire and respect Octavia Butler's writing, but find it *really* depressing, even though I'm not one to demand that my reading be "positive" or "uplifting" (I once subsisted on a pretty much steady diet of Tanith Lee). When I first heard about Butler, I devoured everything I could find by her in a matter of days, it seemed, then walked around in a grim fog for the next month. -nalo On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Nicola Griffith wrote: > Mike, I'm intrigued by your interesting side point. I've read PARABLE OF THE > SOWER three times now (trying to figure out what other readers have liked > about the novel--but that's another story). In the text there is nothing, as > far as I can see, to indicate Lauren is anything but a reliable narrator: she > says she has hyperempathy; she *has* hyperempathy (the ability to feel > others' physical sensations--not just pain). At what point do we disbelieve > what is written and believe instead the author? At what point and to what > extent should the text stand on its own? > > I don't know if Butler does or does not want us to see Earthseed as "right." > Lauren's religion is one of my (many) problems with the book: we see, > beautifully articulated, the beginnings of Lauren's philosophy (and I think > it is a philosophy to begin with, rather than religion); we understand how > she gets from A to B, and then, phhtt, she's suddenly thinks humankind's > future is among the stars. She makes a leap of faith that I can't follow--a > leap of faith that's not prefigured or explained or believable. At least I > didn't find it so. > > Perhaps I'm simply misreading the text. If anyone has any pointers I'd be > happy to hear them. Meanwhile, if anyone is interested I can post or email a > review I wrote for the _New York Review of SF_ when the novel first came out. > > And Mike: I read RANDOM ACTS OF SENSELESS VIOLENCE and thought it was a > terrific novel. Heartbreaking. > > Nicola > > Nicola Griffith > http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/ > "Would you trade your funk for what's behind the third door?" P-Funk, "Funkentelechy" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 16:57:08 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: lissa bloomer Subject: Re: SF movies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i'm trying to think of fem-sf movies... i saw "TankGirl" and loved it... but i wonder why so many of the sf women are girls and silly (or, as someone said, of the "eat shit" kind of aloofness)? (can't we say "eat shit" and be serious?) we can't forget (well, maybe we can) "Terminator" -- the woman is the one who, as alexander the great's mama says, "rocks the cradle and rules the world." the woman in the terminator has a couple of overly coined feminist responses... which, when i first heard them sounded great... ("you men don't know what it's like to CREATE"...) and she is, after all, the one who saves the day. plus, she has amazing biceps. i'm not sure we could call the movie very literary, though. not much to study and ponder-- "Alien" -- the last one, had a strange feminist twist. but i became quickly tired of the sigorney weaver character calling the big ol' baby-producing monster a bitch. (there's a strange part of me, perhaps in the margins of my feminism, that can't stand any strong woman being called a bitch -- alein, human-eating, or otherwise.) i think, though, that we'll be seeing some really powerful movies soon--reason being that movie producers are just now able to begin to handle feminist issues- let alone sf issues. "Thelma and Louise" and "Fried Green Tomatoes" put so many men into intellectual overload... just think what adding sf into that genre would do. so, instead, we have a ridiculous plethora of "that-woman-has-more -than-me-so-i'm-going-to-kill-her-and-her-family-and-take-over-her-life" genre...which may be science fiction (in it's implausability). and that's what i can't stand: the putting a woman in the place of a man idea; assuming that it's going to make a fem story-- gad. it's kind like the black barbie doll: "maybe if we color the plastic dark brown, it'll be an african-american doll." i think not. -lissa if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. elisabeth bloomer instructor, english virginia tech ebloomer@vt.edu 540.231.2445 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 17:05:47 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: lissa bloomer Subject: feminism & sf Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Robin Gordon wrote: >Happy Monday everyone. I would like to suggest that the tangential >discussion going on regarding the age old question "can men be >feminists"is a bottomless pit which threatens to consume this list. Of >course this is an, at times, interesting and potentially important >discussion, I'd like to suggest that this isn't really the place for it, >unless discussed with relation to sf (which is possible). While I can >only speak for myself I expect other women on this list who are >politically involved have been through this discussion more times than we >can count, like myself, and don't necessarily want to run through it again >here when there are so many interesting issues to discuss with relation to >the lists theme of sf and feminism. After reading Stone's post I could >have a lot to say in reaction, but just don't think this is the place. perhaps you can delete these posts and move onto the issues that you would like to read about -- because many of us who are new to these ideas would like to work through our thoughts. this is why i joined the list! i've been what you would call "politically involved" for the past 15 years... and i still find the subject of "what is feminism" -- no matter the tangentiality -- question wonderfully enlightening. i think that if we can't understand other's concerns and ideas on fem alone, how can we begin to complicate the issue by bringing sf into the picture? and surely, the realm of fem will change in the light of sf. -lissa bloomer if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. elisabeth bloomer instructor, english virginia tech ebloomer@vt.edu 540.231.2445 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 14:13:56 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "L. Timmel Duchamp" Subject: Daughters of Dust Nalo Hopkinson wrote: >And I don't know if "Daughters of the Dust" fits the definition of >speculative fiction, with its pre-born baby ghost girl running as fast as >she can to arrive in time to patch a rift between herparents, but that >one has a special place in my heart, too Yes, Julie Dash's "Daughters of Dust" is breathtaking. Its fantasy elements and highly stylized photography and dialogue allow the visible elaboration of the theme of the survival of The Race. The voice and anxiety of the pre-born baby creates a teleology spanning generations that reminds me most of Margaret Walker's _Jubilee_-- which resorts to Providence (i.e., God) for creating the teleological drive that represents, thematically, the collective accomplishment of survival (& ultimate defeat of genocide). & the ghosts of the slaves who drowned resonate with Toni Morrison's _Beloved_ (which the pre-born baby's voice also calls to mind-- though Morrison's ghostly baby is a dead one, not one anxious to be conceived & brought to life). In both "Daughters of Dust" and _Beloved_ the fantasy elements are crucial for articulating an abstraction it would be otherwise hard to put into words. As for whether it can be considered "speculative"-- I guess it depends on whether one is willing to consider novels like _Beloved_ "speculative." "Daughters of Dust" is literary in the way _Beloved_ is literary. People who consider "speculative" a ghetto will deny they're anything but an art film in the case of Dash's film, & a high literary novel in the case of _Beloved._ Timmi Duchamp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 17:39:48 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: lissa bloomer Subject: Butler's "Kindred" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" nalo: did _Kindred_ depress you? just taught it in freshman english under my "escape" theme. it was the students' favorite of all. (taught it with Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and Angelou's "..Caged Bird Sings" and Lowry's "The Giver") one of my students (an 18 yr old black female) wrote to me in a journal: "It seems to me that the only female hero this patriarchal world could take would be a science fiction female hero. Because she simply does not exist." wheew. now THAT is depressing. is this what you mean? -lissa bloomer if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. elisabeth bloomer instructor, english virginia tech ebloomer@vt.edu 540.231.2445 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 17:50:27 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Butler's "Kindred" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NH: I don't remember _Kindred._ It's probably on my bookshelves; I'll have a look and see if it was one of the ones I read. No, I think I meant that so many of Butler's worlds seem so loveless, or if there is love, it's compelled by biology, against the characters' better judgement. They go into it kicking, screaming, resenting and hating the other person. That depressed hell out of me. Not all her stories are like that, by any means, but that was the overweening impression I came away with at the time. But as to your student's comment, women heroes/role models/triumphant (whatever you want to call them) do exist, and not only in fiction. -nalo On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote: > nalo: did _Kindred_ depress you? just taught it in freshman english under > my "escape" theme. it was the students' favorite of all. (taught it with Le > Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and Angelou's "..Caged Bird > Sings" and Lowry's "The Giver") > > one of my students (an 18 yr old black female) wrote to me in a journal: > "It seems to me that the only female hero this patriarchal world could take > would be a science fiction female hero. Because she simply does not exist." > > wheew. now THAT is depressing. is this what you mean? > > -lissa bloomer > > > > > > if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. > > elisabeth bloomer > instructor, english > virginia tech > ebloomer@vt.edu > 540.231.2445 > "Would you trade your funk for what's behind the third door?" P-Funk, "Funkentelechy" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 18:06:28 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Harman Subject: Re: BEAUTY Though I haven't read Beauty, there are a number of anthologies edited by Teri Windling and Ellen Datlow which are also retellings of fairy tales. Most are published by Tor Books, which also published a series of novel-length books edited by Teri Windling under the rubris "The Fairy Tale Series." One of these, "Briar Rose" by Jane Yolen, is a chilling retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story set in Poland during the Holocaust. The anthologies are, by and large, spectacular, particularly "The Armless Maiden." Barbara ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 18:03:53 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anne V Stuecker Subject: Re: Octavia Butler Nicola Griffith writes: > Meanwhile, if anyone is interested I can post or email a >review I wrote for the _New York Review of SF_ when the novel first >came out. Please do. I like what you have to say. Anne Stuecker Washington, DC, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Always remember the marketeer's philosophy: "If someone won't buy it, no one can have it." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 18:03:54 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anne V Stuecker Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ sue hagedorn writes: >In the Afterword for "Bloodchild" she writes: > > "It amazes me that some people have seen "Bloodchild" as a >story of slavery. It isn't." Wow, my professor's all wrong (Yes! I love it when that happens.). I read Bloodchild in an anthology that doesn't have this Afterword. Can you tell me where you found it? Anne Stuecker Washington, DC, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Always remember the marketeer's philosophy: "If someone won't buy it, no one can have it." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 18:03:54 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anne V Stuecker Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ Thanks, all, for replying to my posting. Here are my thoughts on Laura Sells' comments: 1) Please tell me more about Haraway's "affinity groups." 2) >I was somewhat disappointed in the "seed" >metaphor that Butler used, though. I totally agree. Besides, the use of the word "God" tends to scare me. It's too loaded. At one point, Lauren corrects 2 of her group who are arguing about whether Earthseed's "God" is male or female and Lauren points out that "Change has no sex," but I feel like that's a cop out on the real issue of the use of the word "God." I think I will analyze one of the Earthseed verses for a paper I'm writing, but as a whole I don't think the verses form a coherent basis for this spirituality. Anne Stuecker Washington, DC, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Always remember the marketeer's philosophy: "If someone won't buy it, no one can have it." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 18:03:54 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anne V Stuecker Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ Michael Marc Levy writes: >Although I liked Parable of the Sower a lot, I'm still not very >comfortable with Lauren's Earthseed religion. The concept is either >very profound or very shallow--I haven't made up my mind yet. I agree. If it is a matter of profundity, can anyone explain to me more about how and why it is so? >Question, does Butler want us to see Earthseed as right? Tomorrow I'll ask my professor what he thinks (I have no idea) and get back to you. >What she has is a well developed delusion that she can feel >other peoples' pain. Thanks for including that comment. That clears up some things for me. However, it's too bad that sometimes we must resort to asking the author when we can't figure something out. Anne Stuecker Washington, DC, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Always remember the marketeer's philosophy: "If someone won't buy it, no one can have it." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 18:03:53 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anne V Stuecker Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ Jo Ann Rangel writes: >very interested in the development of the >protagonist, particularly what you thought of her development into a self-empowered >young woman from her beginnings as a teen in the novel... My first thoughts on this regard Lauren as leader. Q: How was she able to convince 8 other adults to join her new religion? A: By promising them companionship and food on their dangerous journey. Would the religion have been strong enough to stand alone as a means to attract followers? Besides this aspect of Lauren's leadership, how about the fact that her authority was never questioned, except by latecomer Mora? I am reminded of Marge Piercy's first SF book (the title currently eludes me -- it's about teenagers who want to recreate the country as a commune) in which there are constant power struggles and control issues. Why do we see none of this in _Parable_? As _Parable_ is the first Butler I've read, I'd like to ask if all of her stories tend to be as underdeveloped. Or, is the underdevelopment a key point that I'm missing? I was also really bothered by the fact that Lauren seemed to have a pre-fab response to every newcomer's questions about Earthseed as well as about other things. For example, after Zahra has sex with Harry for the first time, Zahra asks Lauren if she's jealous. Lauren's immediate response is "I'm as human as you are...But I don't think I would have yielded to temptation out here with no prospects, no idea what's going to happen. The thought of getting pregnant would have stopped me cold" (183). First of all, is this woman supposed to be superhuman? Her cool rationality turns me off, and I have a hard time seeing an 18-year-old (or even someone older) saying this. Personally, I would have first said, "yes," even if I did continue with the above response. Secondly, how many of us can instantly rattle off such an eloquent and compact response to such an emotional question? Anne Stuecker Washington, DC, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Always remember the marketeer's philosophy: "If someone won't buy it, no one can have it." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 18:50:30 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicola Griffith Subject: Parable of the Sower--thanks Nalo and Mike, thanks for the correction. How embarrassing to read it wrongly not just once but twice. Aaargh. (However, if so many other readers also made this mistake, it makes me wonder if perhaps Butler should have been just a wee bit clearer.) Mike, I don't have the citation for the NYRSF review--all I have is the review itself on disk. I'll post it for you and Mala. (I'll label it clearly so that those who aren't interested can just delete the file.) You'll see that my misreading has led to a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the novel. Oh, well. Chalk it up to those of those bloody "learning experiences." Sigh. Nicola Nicola Griffith http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 18:49:31 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicola Griffith Subject: Review: _Parable of the Sower_ (from NYRSF) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="PART.BOUNDARY.0.4227.emout11.mail.aol.com.860539608" --PART.BOUNDARY.0.4227.emout11.mail.aol.com.860539608 Content-ID: <0_4227_860539608@emout11.mail.aol.com.7364> Content-type: text/plain For those who asked, here is my review of _Parable_. I know now that I misread the text with regard to the hyperempathy question, so *please* don't point it out to me. Any other feedback, though, would be welcome. Nicola Nicola Griffith http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/ --PART.BOUNDARY.0.4227.emout11.mail.aol.com.860539608 Content-ID: <0_4227_860539608@emout11.mail.aol.com.7365> Content-type: text/plain; name="PARABLE.ASC" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable A gospel or a parable does not have to follow the same rules as a novel= in order to be successful. The point of the parable is the moral, not t= he tale itself. Read as a parable, Butler's latest book is powerful, tho= ught-provoking, and possessed of a definite agenda--keep adapting or die.= As a novel, however, it is curiously contradictory. It is 2024. Lauren Oya Olamina is about to turn fifteen. As is us= ual with the protagonists of science fiction Lauren is precocious, withou= t her biological mother, and different from everyone else. Her real moth= er took a designer drug called paracetco which damaged Lauren, leaving wi= th the trait of "hyperempathy." (More on which later--which is pretty mu= ch what Butler does: introduce the idea, then drop it like a hot potato u= ntil a lot later in the book.) Hyperempathy is not the only thing that m= akes her different. She is a self-conscious prophet, the originator of a= belief system she names Earthseed, a credo based on the ability to adapt= to change: =0D All that you touch You Change. =0D All that you Change Changes you. =0D The only lasting truth Is Change. =0D God Is Change. =0D The world *is* changing. California is running out of water; unemploymen= t is producing terrible poverty; the largely illiterate and homeless popu= lation is turning to crime and drugs, while those still fortunate enough = to have jobs are barricading off their communities. When they have to le= ave home to go work, they travel at dawn, when the desperate and the drug= -crazed are still asleep, and they carry guns they are not afraid to use.= While much of this is extrapolated beautifully from the present day= --the squeezing of the middle class: teachers, preachers and academics lo= sing out to drug-using criminals and anarchists, corrupt and ineffective = emergency services, and the corporate rich--there are some puzzling gaps.= For example, poverty has reduced the community to two computers, three = televisions and one "window," but everyone has radios and phones: Butler = sidesteps the probability that thirty years from now, a radio will *be* a= television will *be* a phone will *be* an interactive multimedia audio v= isual system. There is a Noah's Ark feel to things--everyone either pair= s up (hetero)sexually, or dies--and a curious 1950s attitude to gender ro= les and expectations. Lauren's bad boy younger brother, Keith, has defin= ite and contemptuous views of women, though we never find out where these= views might come from in a society where the parents are both equally we= ll-educated, the eldest sister is smart as a whip, and there is no televi= sion to pump received ideas of women's frailties into the impressionable = adolescent's mind. But all this is, ultimately, beside the point because the point of = PARABLE OF THE SOWER is Lauren's growth and maturation as a prophet, the = formulation and codification of her beliefs into _Earthseed: The Book of = Life_. Although nominally divided into four parts, PARABLE can be more eas= ily seen as two sections: the first, which includes the first three parts= of the book, when Lauren aged fifteen to seventeen and still living with= her family, covers the private origination and development of Earthseed = principles; the second details her flight from the destroyed neighborhood= , her adaptation of a prophet persona, and the formation of the nucleus o= f her Earthseed community. Initially, the formulation of Lauren's ideas, and the ideas themsel= ves, make sense. Lauren, like many science fictional readers and protago= nists, knows that Things Are Gonna Change For The Worse. She sees the gr= owing unemployment, the increasing scarcity of water, the growing futilit= y of politicians and emergency services, and understands that total break= down is inevitable. The only way to survive is to accept the change, rem= ain adaptable, learn to live with a different world. We learn along with= Lauren that "Intelligence is ongoing, individual adaptability," and that= "Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals." We do = not disagree. But it is when she makes a conceptual leap, "The Destiny o= f Earthseed/Is to take roots among the stars," that we lose the thread. = It is at this point, we suspect, that what has once been to Lauren a meth= od of organizing her world actually becomes a religion. We are asked to = take it on faith. Lauren, unlike the heroines of such adventures as EMERGENCE and FAL= SE DAWN, is not alone in a hostile world where the Big Bang or the Horrid= Disease have already happened and the reconstruction can begin. She is = still in the middle of on-going change, and she is not free to do as she = wants/thinks best; there is her family to consider. Although she can see= clearly enough where it will lead, her family and friends are in denial;= ignore it and it will go away. Again, the story of Noah's Ark springs to mind, but instead of a bo= at, Lauren prepares a backpack. (The contents are lovingly described for= all of us who have dreamed and planned and longed for such an opportunit= y to battle adversity and win.) But this is not a simplistic adventure n= ovel for juveniles and Butler does not take the easy path. What Lauren k= nows conflicts with how she feels. She loves her family; she is only a t= eenager. Torn, she prepares the backpack then does nothing but write mor= e Earthseed verses. When Lauren is seventeen, Keith--aged fourteen--goes rogue: he leav= es what he perceives as the restrictive, sheeplike community and runs wit= h the wolves, those whose only rule appears to be survival of the fittest= =2E He survives quite well, for a while, paying furtive visits to the fa= mily home when his father is absent. It is here and in other close exami= nations of non-sexual relationships that Butler shows her extraordinary a= bility to delineate subtleties, detailing Lauren's gradual realization th= at her brother is a sociopath, a murderer--that she does not, in fact, li= ke him--while at the same time retaining the sense of love and family tha= t binds them. Perfectly done. But then Keith meets some leaner and meaner wolves and is tortured = and killed. And Lauren's father goes missing--probably murdered out of h= and by the drug-eating, fire-setting gangs--and Lauren senses the imminen= ce of disaster. Still she does nothing: her family needs her. When she is just eighteen, the community is finally overwhelmed: de= stroyed by a gang of drug-eating pyromaniacs who rape, then kill, then pl= under. The only survivors are Lauren, a boy her age called Harry, and Za= hra--the youngest wife of the community's polygynist. It is here that th= e book seems to lose its depth. Butler constantly raises issues or ideas, then drops them. For exa= mple, we are initially told that Lauren's hyperempathy--her ability or cu= rse to feel what she *thinks* others feel (her brother Keith once made he= r bleed by squirting himself with red ink)--allows her to share both plea= sure and pain, and we get a ten page burst of Lauren feeling the pain of = others, but then we hear nothing about it until the second half of the bo= ok. When Butler remembers about it, the effects of the hyperempathy are = peculiarly two dimensional. Lauren feels only the pain from others' phys= ical wounds and the pleasure from others' sexual activity. No details ab= out the vicarious enjoyment of food, the suffering of others' fear and so= on. Lauren decides she must travel as a man. No details on the more or= dinary difficulties she might face as a result, and then when Harry inadv= ertently reveals she's a woman, there doesn't seem to be any fallout. Mu= ch is made of there not being anywhere safe to settle in the California a= rea, and then the fledgling community promptly settles in northern Califo= rnia. The only time Butler reaches the kind of truth and clarity apparent= in the first half of the book is in certain beautifully drawn interactio= ns between people who have to learn about when to trust and when to suspe= nd that trust. But these incidents, no matter how illuminatingly observe= d, are not enough to sustain one hundred and fifty pages of a novel. Aft= er Lauren has formulated her religion and the Robledo neighborhood is des= troyed, the book reads almost as if Butler has lost interest. But while the second half of the book has a tendency towards fairly= typical skiffy After The Disaster novels, in the first half of PARABLE B= utler takes some of the givens of science fiction--change, preparedness, = survival of the fittest--and produces daring, bold and intellectually fas= cinating meta science fiction. With the devastatingly simple prose of he= r teenage protagonist, she does something none of the New Testament gospe= ls (or any other religious text I can think of, offhand) dares: she detai= ls not only the beliefs of a prophet but the birth of those beliefs. She= attempts to meld reason and religion. She almost succeeds.= --PART.BOUNDARY.0.4227.emout11.mail.aol.com.860539608-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 19:53:29 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: BEAUTY In-Reply-To: <970408180521_547288770@emout04.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The Datlow/Windling collections are: _Snow White, Blood Red_ _Black Thorn, White Rose_ _Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears_ I've really enjoyed these too (though I sometimes wish that the editors didn't 'out' the original tale at the intro to each story so that I could guess what the inspiration is. Sometimes it's less than obvious, or it's a tale I don't know). The series has provided me with revenge on some tales that just made me bristle, or has re-interpreted them in ways that are very satisfying. _The Armless Maiden and Other Tales of Childhood's Survivors_ is a chilling collection, edited solely by Terri Windling. Windling's essay at the end of it chronicles her own history of being an abused child, and how she got from there to where she is now. And is it Jack Zipes who has a book that analyzes folk tales? Title: _Don't Bet on the Prince._ Hard to resist a title like that! -nalo On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Barbara Harman wrote: > Though I haven't read Beauty, there are a number of anthologies edited by > Teri Windling and Ellen Datlow which are also retellings of fairy tales. Most > are published by Tor Books, which also published a series of novel-length > books edited by Teri Windling under the rubris "The Fairy Tale Series." One > of these, "Briar Rose" by Jane Yolen, is a chilling retelling of the Sleeping > Beauty story set in Poland during the Holocaust. The anthologies are, by and > large, spectacular, particularly "The Armless Maiden." > > Barbara > "Would you trade your funk for what's behind the third door?" P-Funk, "Funkentelechy" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 19:56:40 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Parable of the Sower--thanks In-Reply-To: <970408184223_-1536489333@emout01.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Nicola Griffith wrote: > Nalo and Mike, thanks for the correction. How embarrassing to read it > wrongly not just once but twice. Aaargh. > You'll see that my misreading has led to a certain amount of dissatisfaction > with the novel. Oh, well. Chalk it up to those of those bloody "learning > experiences." Sigh. NH: :) Don't you just hate those? -nalo "Would you trade your funk for what's behind the third door?" P-Funk, "Funkentelechy" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 20:14:18 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ Hi, That was an intersting take on the issue of spirituality and the "Earthseed" philosophy...we must remember though that as readers and critics of this type of literature each interpretation may be vastly different from the author's intent...it is not a cop out to not assign a gender to "God" it could very well simply be Lauren's interpretation of her personal spirituality as she perceives it at that particular time in the novel. Look at the recent events with the Heaven's Gate cult they believed in asexuallity as a means to fufill an aspect of their personal search for spirituality from within their group...I know it is an unusual aspect to bring up but as a real life example versus the spirituality quest Lauren finds for herself, I believe more than ever than no one interpretation is the perfect one. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 17:53:56 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: Re: BEAUTY Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm a HUGE Tepper fan. However, did anyone else have problems with her total and absolute condemnation of horror writers to Hell? Which she then followed with an incredibly horrorific scene in _Sideshow_? If every author has her ups and downs, _Beauty_ had a little of both. I think _A Plague of Angels_ and _Shadow's End_ were good Tepper without being great Tepper. However, I was very happy with _Gibbon's Decline and Fall_, and would love a discussion on what choice readers feel was made at the end. And I think her current book, _The Family Tree_, may end up being my favorite. Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 22:02:58 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ In-Reply-To: <19970408.170042.12150.3.avs5@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Although Parable of the Sower has its strengths, I think the Xenogenesis trilogy is Butler's masterpiece--Dawn, Imago, and Adulthood Rites. It's just been reissued in paperback in the U.S. by the way and--surprise, surprise--they actually put obviously black characters on the covers (which wasn't the case when the books first came out). Actually, I don't think Butler's written a book that isn't worth reading. Kindred, Clay's Ark, the early Patternmaster series are all worthwhile, although, as has been noted, rather grim. To tie into another thread, the Xenogenesis series also has a strong ecofeminist theme. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 22:11:00 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ In-Reply-To: <19970408.170042.12150.8.avs5@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Anne V Stuecker wrote: > sue hagedorn writes: > > >In the Afterword for "Bloodchild" she writes: > > > > "It amazes me that some people have seen "Bloodchild" as a > >story of slavery. It isn't." > > Wow, my professor's all wrong (Yes! I love it when that happens.). > > I read Bloodchild in an anthology that doesn't have this Afterword. Can > you tell me where you found it? > > > Anne Stuecker Washington, DC, USA > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As Nicola Griffith said in an earlier post, more or less, how far can we trust an author when her statements about a story seem contradicted by the story itself? "Bloodchild" is about a human being forced to act as womb/first meal for an intelligent alien insect, but it's not about slavery? Well maybe not entirely, but... Actually this image of forced interspecies or inter-racial procreation occurs over and over again in Butler's work. It's the basic premis of Xenogenesis after all, which concerns a species whose primary biological imperative is to interbreed with other species whether they want to or not. It's also a concern in Kindred, where a 20th century African American woman discovers that she has a white ancestor, and also plays a role in the Patternmaster series. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 23:32:40 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anne V Stuecker Subject: _Parable of the Sower_ Here are several more criticisms I have of Butler's novel: 1) There is too much unrealistic dialogue. How else can I describe it? When I read a book (I try to refrain from "novel" because a novel-length SF piece isn't really a novel) I like to be able to image the characters' behavior and speech as being real and actually happening. I had a hard time doing that with this book. I already wrote of this a little bit when I discussed Lauren's pre-fab responses to people's intricate questions. 2) What is the deal with this planned marriage to Bankole? Lauren admits that she doesn't trust him fully, and then several lines later she reaffirms their marriage plans. Is this believable to anyone else? 3) I found myself wishing something really bad would happen to them while they were on their long and supposedly dangerous journey. Only one person died the whole time, and the group easily survived a fire at the end. It seemed to me like there would have been many more hardships to endure in such a situation (at least, one in the real world), but they were never out of food or water, they had no major medical incidents, and no one they invited to travel with them betrayed them. 4) The funeral at the end, involving the use of trees as memorials, reminded me of the same ending of Kim Stanley Robinson's _Pacific Edge_. This similarity is not a bad thing, necessarily, but since I just read _PE_ I found it rather repetitive. I liked the book because it made me really think about survivalism and defense, but I also have a lot of problems with it. Anne Stuecker Washington, DC, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't mistake my kindness for a weakness. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 03:47:53 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Roberta Wolff Subject: Re: BEAUTY Mary Elizabeth Hart wrote: I'm a HUGE Tepper fan. However, did anyone else have problems with her total and absolute condemnation of horror writers to Hell? Which she then followed with an incredibly horrorific scene in _Sideshow_? Yes! Roberta's Cat-- onegreycat@msn.com greycat1@airmail.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 09:08:36 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Quilter Subject: Moderator commenting re: list purpose & feminism In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well ... ahem. Moderator here. Just want to remind everyone that the list is about discussion of feminism with relation to SF. Not feminism per se. A little bit of tangentiality is cool, and I don't want to stifle debate, but this is a list for discussion of feminist sf, fantastic & utopian literature. There are plenty of resources available for discussion of feminism in general -- UseNet groups such as soc.feminism for instance -- and if someone wanted to post a list of other resources for discussion of feminism that would be great. In the meantime, I think we can respect that this list is open to a wide variety of people, some of whom will want to work through issues of feminism to get back to SF. Let's give a bit of latitude to people who want to discuss these issues. My principal reason for not having this be an entirely open arena for discussion of feminism per se is wanting to avoid anti-feminists coming on to the list and wasting the rest of our time. That doesn't seem to be happening. So let's be tolerant. It will also help if messages are CLEARLY labelled in the subject line. If you reply to a message, please check the subject line -- it may no longer be appropriate. If not, change it to: "New Topic; was re: old topic" or something like that. That will facilitate people deleting what they don't want to read. ------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Welcome to Feminist SF/Fantasy & Utopia ! Welcome to FeministSF - a list for fans, writers, activists and scholars to discuss feminist science fiction. Your list owner is Laura Quilter (lauramd@uic.edu). To unsubscribe, mail a message to: listserv@listserv.uic.edu and in the body of the message type: unsubscribe feministsf If you have any problems contact the list-owner. For more information about Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy & Utopian literature, please check out the femsf web pages at http://www.uic.edu/~lauramd/femsf/ -------------------------------------------------- ABOUT THE FEMINIST SF, FANTASY & UTOPIA LISTSERVE Interested in talking to other people about the works of Ursula Le Guin, Marge Piercy, Suzy McKee Charnas, Elisabeth Vonarburg, Joanna Russ, and many others? Want to find out more about these authors, and other writers like them? The Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy & Utopia ListServe is a space for discussion of this literature. It is a mailing list, which means that every email will go to all subscribers mailboxes. It is a primarily unmoderated list, which means that I will not be selecting or censoring comments. People can ask whatever questions they want about the topic, with one broad exception. Because I have been on many listserves relating to feminism which have inspired anti-feminists to harass other members, or engage the entire listserve in discussions about the nature, purpose, etc., of feminism, I wish to make it clear from the outset that this listserve is for discussion of the literature. Discussion of feminism as a philosophy belong on a feminist discussion group. Discussion of feminism, as it pertains to literature or particular works of literature, is perfectly appropriate. I will remove people from the listserve who behave in an inappropriate manner after one warning. These rules are subject to change when we see how they work! This list began 3/2/97. -------------------------------------------------- Subscribing and Unsubscribing Use the online subscription request to subscribe only or send a message to: listserv@listserv.uic.edu and in the body of the message type: subscribe feministsf Your Name or unsubscribe feministsf Conversing with Fellow Participants To send a note to the discussion list and all its participants: send a message to: feministsf@listserv.uic.edu and in the body of the message type: Whatever your message is -------------------------------------------------- Please save this message for future reference, especially if this is the first time you subscribe to an electronic mailing list. If you ever need to leave the list, you will find the necessary instructions below. Perhaps more importantly, saving a copy of this message (and of all future subscription notices from other mailing lists) in a special mail folder will give you instant access to the list of mailing lists that you are subscribed to. This may prove very useful the next time you go on vacation and need to leave the lists temporarily so as not to fill up your mailbox while you are away! You should also save the "welcome messages" from the list owners that you will occasionally receive after subscribing to a new list. To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to the list, just send mail to FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU. This is called "sending mail to the list", because you send mail to a single address and LISTSERV makes copies for all the people who have subscribed. This address (FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU) is also called the "list address". You must never try to send any command to that address, as it would be distributed to all the people who have subscribed. All commands must be sent to the "LISTSERV address", LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU. It is very important to understand the difference between the two, but fortunately it is not complicated. The LISTSERV address is like a FAX number that connects you to a machine, whereas the list address is like a normal voice line connecting you to a person. If you make a mistake and dial the FAX number when you wanted to talk to someone on the phone, you will quickly realize that you used the wrong number and call again. No harm will have been done. If on the other hand you accidentally make your FAX call someone's voice line, the person receiving the call will be inconvenienced, especially if your FAX then re-dials every 5 minutes. The fact that most people will eventually connect the FAX machine to the voice line to allow the FAX to go through and make the calls stop does not mean that you should continue to send FAXes to the voice number. People would just get mad at you. It works pretty much the same way with mailing lists, with the difference that you are calling hundreds or thousands of people at the same time, and consequently you can expect a lot of people to get upset if you consistently send commands to the list address. You may leave the list at any time by sending a "SIGNOFF FEMINISTSF" command to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU. You can also tell LISTSERV how you want it to confirm the receipt of messages you send to the list. If you do not trust the system, send a "SET FEMINISTSF REPRO" command and LISTSERV will send you a copy of your own messages, so that you can see that the message was distributed and did not get damaged on the way. After a while you may find that this is getting annoying, especially if your mail program does not tell you that the message is from you when it informs you that new mail has arrived from FEMINISTSF. If you send a "SET FEMINISTSF ACK NOREPRO" command, LISTSERV will mail you a short acknowledgement instead, which will look different in your mailbox directory. With most mail programs you will know immediately that this is an acknowledgement you can read later. Finally, you can turn off acknowledgements completely with "SET FEMINISTSF NOACK NOREPRO". Following instructions from the list owner, your subscription options have been set to "MIME" rather than the usual LISTSERV defaults. For more information about subscription options, send a "QUERY FEMINISTSF" command to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU. Contributions sent to this list are automatically archived. You can get a list of the available archive files by sending an "INDEX FEMINISTSF" command to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU. You can then order these files with a "GET FEMINISTSF LOGxxxx" command, or using LISTSERV's database search facilities. Send an "INFO DATABASE" command for more information on the latter. This list is available in digest form. If you wish to receive the digested version of the postings, just issue a SET FEMINISTSF DIGEST command. Please note that it is presently possible for other people to determine that you are signed up to the list through the use of the "REVIEW" command, which returns the e-mail address and name of all the subscribers. If you do not want your name to be visible, just issue a "SET FEMINISTSF CONCEAL" command. More information on LISTSERV commands can be found in the LISTSERV reference card, which you can retrieve by sending an "INFO REFCARD" command to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU. - updated 3/12/97 On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote: > Robin Gordon wrote: > > >Happy Monday everyone. I would like to suggest that the tangential > >discussion going on regarding the age old question "can men be > >feminists"is a bottomless pit which threatens to consume this list. Of > >course this is an, at times, interesting and potentially important > >discussion, I'd like to suggest that this isn't really the place for it, > >unless discussed with relation to sf (which is possible). While I can > >only speak for myself I expect other women on this list who are > >politically involved have been through this discussion more times than we > >can count, like myself, and don't necessarily want to run through it again > >here when there are so many interesting issues to discuss with relation to > >the lists theme of sf and feminism. After reading Stone's post I could > >have a lot to say in reaction, but just don't think this is the place. > > perhaps you can delete these posts and move onto the issues that you would > like to read about -- because many of us who are new to these ideas would > like to work through our thoughts. this is why i joined the list! i've been > what you would call "politically involved" for the past 15 years... and i > still find the subject of "what is feminism" -- no matter the tangentiality > -- question wonderfully enlightening. i think that if we can't understand > other's concerns and ideas on fem alone, how can we begin to complicate the > issue by bringing sf into the picture? and surely, the realm of fem will > change in the light of sf. > > -lissa bloomer > > > > > if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. > > elisabeth bloomer > instructor, english > virginia tech > ebloomer@vt.edu > 540.231.2445 > Laura M. Quilter / lauramd@uic.edu Electronic Services Librarian University of Illinois at Chicago http://www.uic.edu/~lauramd/ "If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution." -- Emma Goldman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 09:16:37 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Quilter Subject: "The Gothic, The Human, & The Inhuman." Comments: To: feministsf@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Mon, 7 Apr 1997 16:10:14 -0600 > From: TERRY L. TAYLOR, CO-EDITOR, H-ALBION > To: Multiple recipients of list H-ALBION > Subject: CFP: "The Gothic, The Human, & The Inhuman." > > From: SMTP%"aschmidt@toto.csustan.edu" > "Arnold Schmidt" 7-APR-1997 15:50:54.41 > > PLEASE CROSS-LIST > > Call For Papers and Panels on > "The Gothic, The Human, & The Inhuman." > > I invite anyone interested in gothic themes to submit abstracts > for individual papers or panels which explore the gothic in relation to > "Constructions of the Human." Broadly, topics might include but are not > limited to gothic influences on identity in gender, race, or religion as > seen in gothic and horror fiction, television and films, the fine arts, or > poetry. > > More specific topics might treat "Frankenstein," "The Monk," > "Dracula," or other gothic novels and/or their adaptations; gothic poetry > (Young's "Night Thoughts" or other "Graveyard Poets," gothic ballads); the > gothic and the fine arts (Dore, Fuseli's "Nightmare"), roots of the gothic > (medieval archictecture, the slave and captivity narratives); postmodern > conceptions of the gothic (Sedgwick, et al); the female gothic > (Wollstonecraft's "Maria," Bronte's "Jane Eyre"); the Southern gothic > (O'Connor, Faulkner, etc.); the anti-gothic (Jackson's "The Lottery," > Stephen King's "Christine"); or the comic gothic ("Rocky Horror Picture > Show," "Young Frankenstein," "The Munsters," "The Adams Family.") > > For more information, please see the general CFP below. > > CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE HUMAN: > CONFLICTS IN CULTURE, IDENTITY, TECHNOLOGY > > First Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference > CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, STANISLAUS October 17-19, 1997 > > We invite participants to explore "Constructions of the Human" in > American, British, and/or World literature from any disciplinary > perspective. Applicants working in such areas as Literature, Philosophy, > History, Sociology, Psychology, Law, the Sciences, and the Fine Arts > should submit abstracts of approximately 250 words for papers of 15 > minutes. > > Students might consider some aspect of the Human in relation to > Cyborg Theory, Film Theory, Technology and the Machine, Images of the > City, Identity, Gender/Sexuality, Reproductive Technology, The Monstrous, > Alterity, Class, Labor and Leisure, Authority, Childhood, the Sentimental, > Ethnicity, Personal/Public, and Literary vs. Nonliterary. > > Panels are especially welcome. > > A volume of essays arising from this conference is planned for virtual > publication. > > Conference Location: CSU, Stanislaus, in Northern California, is > situated midway between San Francisco and Yosemite. A day trip to > Yosemite for participants is planned. > > DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: April 18, 1997. > > > Send abstracts to: > > Interdisciplinary Conference Committee > English Department > c/o The Graduate Journal > California State University, Stanislaus > 801 W. Monte Vista Avenue > Turlock, CA 95382 > > Please direct questions and inquiries to: > > e-mail - gradjou@toto.csustan.edu > fax - (209) 667-3720 voice - (209) 667-3361 > > OR > Susan Campbell-Hartzell - schartze@toto.csustan.edu > schart@mlode.com > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 11:16:05 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "L. Timmel Duchamp" Subject: Reading "errors" Nicola, when you talking about your "bloody learning experience," & Mike, when you talk about Butler's authorial unreliability, you may be both talking about how arbitrary a reader's relationship is to any fiction text. Readers often make mistakes of "fact" (i.e., missing material in the text that makes explicit a certain interpretation-- as in the case of Lauren's "hyperempathy"-- which I did pick up on in my reading, as a very telling detail that stuck in my mind-- or even changing the details in their memory, to accord with their own preconceptions & on-going [rather than after-the-fact] interpretation), & authors-- in an act of reading their own work, not writing it, though obviously "reading" is a necessary part of the total process of "writing"-- often insist on a simplicity of a single level-- the one they consciously intended-- to their work, denying that anything could be in the text but what they consciously intended. (Eudora Welty sticks in my mind as an author who becomes enraged at readers seeing anything but the surface of her stories.) I seriously wonder if anyone reads the same piece of fiction in the same way anyone else does. I'd be willing to bet any issue of _Locus_ you might pick up would manifest such errors in its reviews. (I catch such errors there constantly: & of course this holds true for other publications, & not just _Locus_.) It's not necessarily carelessness (though if the reviewer took the time to re-read the piece being reviewed, at least some of the mistakes might be caught-- often in deep puzzlement, that s/he could have been so grossly in error). It's just that all sorts of things-- from previous reading experiences, previous conceptions of the author's work, & all sorts of personal experiences in the life of the reader-- kick in when we read, sometimes even from the very first sentence. (Which is why I don't think the author has the responsibility to hit the reader over the head with a fact: showing, not telling, is always appropriate, except in political tracts.) In my experience, even when three people who are socially close and share the same political attitudes read the same book, they discover when they talk to one another about it that they've read three different books. [I don't say "completely" different books, but *substantially* different books. They almost never remember all of the same details. They weight themes differently. They are disappointed or excited for different reasons.] & then, in the process of discussion, the person who has the most forceful & structured articulations of what s/he read ends up shaping the other two readers' memories of what *they* read.) I myself have been through this process-- with the same two other people-- with many, many books. It might not be totally off-the-wall to hypothesize that people develop a consensus about what any given piece of fiction is about strictly through public discussion (meant broadly). If so, public discussion then becomes the lens through which a particular work is read. And "public discussion," of course, includes lists like this one. Timmi Duchamp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 08:02:29 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: sue hagedorn Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" --surprise, >surprise--they actually put obviously black characters on the covers >(which wasn't the case when the books first came out). Yes--It's very interesting, too, that when I had a class of freshmen read Dawn, they were at first oblivious to any mention of race (that book illustrator too obviously had not read the book itself)--when it was pointed out to them, they changed some of their perceptions about the story line. That helped me make a point (my "theme" was "What Does it Mean to be Human?")--but I was a bit surprised at the reaction. (I guess I've been reading SF too long--since my first Ace double back in the '50s!) Sue ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 07:45:56 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: _Parable of the Sower_ In-Reply-To: <19970408.222922.20046.0.avs5@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Anne V Stuecker wrote: > When I read a book (I try to refrain from "novel" because a > novel-length SF piece isn't really a novel) NH: Anne, can you talk about this part a little more? -nalo "Starchild here. Put a glide in your stride, and a dip in your hip, and come on over to the Mothership." P-Funk, "Mothership Connection" ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 07:43:03 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Michael Marc Levy wrote: > As Nicola Griffith said in an earlier post, more or less, how far can we > trust an author when her statements about a story seem contradicted by > the story itself? NH: I see this happening often, with all kinds of artmaking. Sometimes the artist is not the best person to ask for an analysis of her work; a lot of it happens on an unconscious level. -nalo -nalo "Starchild here. Put a glide in your stride, and a dip in your hip, and come on over to the Mothership." P-Funk, "Mothership Connection" ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 10:45:52 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edrie Sobstyl Subject: Re: BEAUTY Comments: To: Maryelizabeth Hart In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII It's great to be on a list where people recognize the greatness of Tepper!! I'm currently working on an article on _Women's Country_, and hope to post the citation to the list if/when I get one. To respond to Maryelizabeth's post, there's a certain irony in Tepper condemning horror writers to Hell - since she is herself a horror writer and a damn good one! She has two novels (sorry can't remember the titles, they're on the home shelf) under her own name and one published pseudonymously as E. E. Horlak called _Still Life_. All three of them left me unable to sleep for quite some time. So it's fitting that she writes such horrific scenes as those in _Side Show_ and elsewhere, as she definitely places herself in the text. Just as in _Women's Country_, the sentiment is clear: we *are* in Hell!! Edrie Sobstyl School of Arts and Humanities JO 31 University of Texas at Dallas P.O. Box 830688 Richardson Tx 75083-0688 USA (972) 883-2365 esobstyl@utdallas.edu On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Maryelizabeth Hart wrote: > I'm a HUGE Tepper fan. However, did anyone else have problems with her > total and absolute condemnation of horror writers to Hell? Which she then > followed with an incredibly horrorific scene in _Sideshow_? > > If every author has her ups and downs, _Beauty_ had a little of both. I > think _A Plague of Angels_ and _Shadow's End_ were good Tepper without > being great Tepper. However, I was very happy with _Gibbon's Decline and > Fall_, and would love a discussion on what choice readers feel was made at > the end. And I think her current book, _The Family Tree_, may end up being > my favorite. > > > Maryelizabeth > Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 > 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 > San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX > http://www.mystgalaxy.com > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 12:20:19 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: _Beauty_ and more Tepper (long) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tepper's horror, written under her own name, rather than the one novel already mentioned as E.E. Horlak (_Still Life_) included two novels -- _The Bones_ and _Blood Heritage_ -- and a stunning vampire novella, "The Gardener", published in _Night Visions 6_, aka _The Bone Yard_. Her SF novels include (more or less chronologically): _The Revenants_ _King's Blood Four_* _Necromancer Nine_* _Wizard's Eleven_* _The Song of Mavin Manyshaped_* _The Flight of MM_* _The Search of MM_* _Jinian Footseer_* _Devrish Daughter_* _Jinian Star-Eye_* * a trio of trilogies set in the same fantastic world _The Awakeners_ (_Northshore, Vol. I_; _Southshore, Vol. II_) _Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore_ _Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods_ _Marianne, the Matchbox, and the Malachite Mouse_ _After Long Silence_ _The Gate to Women's Country_ _Beauty_ _Grass_ \ _Raising the Stones_ loose trilogy _Sideshow_ / _A Plague of Angels_ _Shadow's End_ _Gibbon's Decline and Fall_ _The Family Tree_ She also writes mysteries under two psuedonyms: The Jason Lynx mysteries by A.J. Orde: _A Little Neighborhood Murder_ _Death and the Dogwalker_ _Death for Old Time's Sake_ _Dead on Sunday_ (aka _Looking for the Aardvark_) _A Long Time Dead_ The Shirley McClintock mysteries by B.J. Oliphant: _Dead in the Scrub_ _The Unexpected Corpse_ _Deservedly Dead_ _Death and the Delinquent_ _Death Served up Cold_ Not that I'm an obsessive completist, or anything. But I thought folks might like to know. A lot of people I speak with feel she is too strident, and that her message gets in the way of her writing.(At least with works post _Gate..._) Any thoughts? Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 13:23:43 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nomi Liron Organization: Bay Area Frog Kingdom/Royal Palace Subject: Tepper's feelings against homosexuality MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am a great fan of Tepper, but one thing that really bothers me is her implied stance against homosexuality. It is really apparent in passages in "Gate to Women's Country" where "gay syndrome" is explained as having originated from abnormal hormone levels during pregnancy. In the new society the women build and create from the ashes of the old, "gay syndrome" was identified and corrected at birth. I have generally found Sci Fi writers to be more open to alternative forms of sexuality, so the sentiment puzzles me. Does anyone else have difficulties with this issue? drink water, nomi ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 16:41:32 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edrie Sobstyl Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ Comments: To: sue hagedorn In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sue, what a joy to find someone else teaching _Dawn_ in a class on what it means to be human!! I tried it out for the first time last semester and it was a rousing success. The bookstore bought up the last of the "old" covers with the buxom white brunette featured prominently (of course with jumpsuit open to reveal cleavage), and many of my (145) students also missed the mention of race. Since race and sex are problematized throughout the course (along with class), this object lesson made my claims more striking to the students. A number of students who dreaded being "forced" to read sf, which they expressed a hatred for without having read before, had their minds changed and began to devour the rest of the trilogy, and a number of African-American women students were particularly pleased, delighted, and inspired to have been introduced to Butler. Any other comments on *teaching* Butler? edrie *********************************** Edrie Sobstyl School of Arts and Humanities JO 31 University of Texas at Dallas P.O. Box 830688 Richardson Tx 75083-0688 USA (972) 883-2365 esobstyl@utdallas.edu On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, sue hagedorn wrote: > --surprise> >surprise--they actually put obviously black characters on the covers > >(which wasn't the case when the books first came out). > > Yes--It's very interesting, too, that when I had a class of freshmen read > Dawn, they were at first oblivious to any mention of race (that book > illustrator too obviously had not read the book itself)--when it was > pointed out to them, they changed some of their perceptions about the story > line. That helped me make a point (my "theme" was "What Does it Mean to be > Human?")--but I was a bit surprised at the reaction. (I guess I've been > reading SF too long--since my first Ace double back in the '50s!) > > Sue > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 16:46:20 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edrie Sobstyl Subject: Re: Tepper's feelings against homosexuality In-Reply-To: <334BFACF.37B9@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi Nomi, I am currently working through the anti-homosexual stance of _Women's Country_ in my article, although it's not central to my discussion. I would like to recommend Wendy Pearson's article "After the (Homo)Sexual: A Queer Analysis of Anti-Sexuality in Sheri S. Tepper's _The Gate to Women's Country_" published in Science-Fiction Studies Volume 23 1996 pp. 199-226 for a thorough discussion. edrie *********************************** Edrie Sobstyl School of Arts and Humanities JO 31 University of Texas at Dallas P.O. Box 830688 Richardson Tx 75083-0688 USA (972) 883-2365 esobstyl@utdallas.edu On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Nomi Liron wrote: > I am a great fan of Tepper, but one thing that really bothers me is > her implied stance against homosexuality. It is really apparent in passages > in "Gate to Women's Country" where "gay syndrome" is explained as having > originated from abnormal hormone levels during pregnancy. In the new society > the women build and create from the ashes of the old, "gay syndrome" was > identified and corrected at birth. > I have generally found Sci Fi writers to be more open to alternative > forms of sexuality, so the sentiment puzzles me. > Does anyone else have difficulties with this issue? > > drink water, nomi > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 12:21:05 +0200 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jason Griffin Subject: Re: Reading "errors" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit L. Timmel Duchamp wrote: > > Nicola, when you talking about your "bloody learning experience," > & Mike, when you talk about Butler's authorial unreliability, > you may be both talking about how arbitrary a reader's relationship > is to any fiction text. Readers often make mistakes of "fact" > (i.e., missing material in the text that makes explicit a certain > interpretation-- as in the case of Lauren's "hyperempathy"-- which > I did pick up on in my reading, as a very telling detail that > stuck in my mind-- or even changing the details in their memory, > to accord with their own preconceptions & on-going [rather than > after-the-fact] interpretation), & authors-- in an act of reading > their own work, not writing it, though obviously "reading" is > a necessary part of the total process of "writing"-- often insist > on a simplicity of a single level-- the one they consciously intended-- > to their work, denying that anything could be in the text but > what they consciously intended. (Eudora Welty sticks in my mind > as an author who becomes enraged at readers seeing anything but > the surface of her stories.) I seriously wonder if anyone reads > the same piece of fiction in the same way anyone else does. I'd > be willing to bet any issue of _Locus_ you might pick up would > manifest such errors in its reviews. (I catch such errors there > constantly: & of course this holds true for other publications, > & not just _Locus_.) It's not necessarily carelessness (though > if the reviewer took the time to re-read the piece being reviewed, > at least some of the mistakes might be caught-- often in deep > puzzlement, that s/he could have been so grossly in error). It's > just that all sorts of things-- from previous reading experiences, > previous conceptions of the author's work, & all sorts of personal > experiences in the life of the reader-- kick in when we read, > sometimes even from the very first sentence. (Which is why I > don't think the author has the responsibility to hit the reader > over the head with a fact: showing, not telling, is always appropriate, > except in political tracts.) In my experience, even when three > people who are socially close and share the same political attitudes > read the same book, they discover when they talk to one another > about it that they've read three different books. [I don't say > "completely" different books, but *substantially* different books. > They almost never remember all of the same details. They weight > themes differently. They are disappointed or excited for different > reasons.] & then, in the process of discussion, the person who > has the most forceful & structured articulations of what s/he > read ends up shaping the other two readers' memories of what *they* > read.) I myself have been through this process-- with the same > two other people-- with many, many books. > > It might not be totally off-the-wall to hypothesize that people > develop a consensus about what any given piece of fiction is about > strictly through public discussion (meant broadly). If so, public > discussion then becomes the lens through which a particular work > is read. > > And "public discussion," of course, includes lists like this one. > > Timmi Duchamp People a book is to be enjoyed, have fun. When I read a book buy Margerat Weis I don't sit there thinking about why she wrote about something. Or with Robert Johnson's book one of the Lightbringer trilogy who brings in the theme of vampires..OOO Gothic and vapirism. It's just a book for crying out loud, somebodies imagination. When I was at school one of my subjects was English, of course we studied poetry and mostly South African poets since I live in South Africa. One day we had a interview with one of the poets Sipho Sipambla. About 80% of the teachers interpretations of the poems made him either laugh your sigh. Humans read too much into things. That's all I can say. We take ourselves to seriously and must learn to laugh at ourselves. Try it sometime it might be refreshing. Jay Dragonheart. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 12:27:05 +0200 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jason Griffin Subject: Re: Tepper's feelings against homosexuality MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Nomi Liron wrote: > > I am a great fan of Tepper, but one thing that really bothers me is > her implied stance against homosexuality. It is really apparent in passages > in "Gate to Women's Country" where "gay syndrome" is explained as having > originated from abnormal hormone levels during pregnancy. In the new society > the women build and create from the ashes of the old, "gay syndrome" was > identified and corrected at birth. > I have generally found Sci Fi writers to be more open to alternative > forms of sexuality, so the sentiment puzzles me. > Does anyone else have difficulties with this issue? > > drink water, nomi Nomi I must say it depends greatly on individuals. I for one am uncomfortble with gays[ doesn't mean I'll go gay bashing], it's just the way I am but I'm fine with lesbians. I have noticed that a lot, most people are fine with homosexuality in the opposite sex. I agree though usually authors are a little more open but then it also depends on the section of SF aimed at. Jay ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 17:31:41 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Quilter Subject: Re: Tepper's feelings against homosexuality In-Reply-To: <334BFACF.37B9@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This is interesting to me too. Actually, in her most recent work (FAMILY TREE) she has one character go off on a tirade about discrimination (just as casually as she mentions the gay thing in GTWC). The character rants about all the various forms of discrimination and treating people as inferior, and she includes homosexuality as a form of discrimination. The only thing in Tepper's works that I've ever considered homophobic was that passage in GTWC. And what I've concluded was that GTWC was a thought experiment in the grand style. It was NOT her ideal utopia. She posited some people, a situation, and decisions they might take. I think it is reasonable to guess that people who found a specific cause for homosexuality might eliminate that. Is that just or even a good idea? I don't think so and for personal reasons certainly hope no such thing ever comes to pass. But it's a possible decision. The leaders of Women's Country made a lot of decisions that *I* find ethically questionable. I think Tepper does, too, which is why the matriarch figure (using the term loosely) calls the leaders "the damned few." Of course, one could also assume that she is, or has been, somewhat "homophobic," but believes (at least now) that economic / political discrimination against queers is wrong. On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Nomi Liron wrote: > I am a great fan of Tepper, but one thing that really bothers me is > her implied stance against homosexuality. It is really apparent in passages > in "Gate to Women's Country" where "gay syndrome" is explained as having > originated from abnormal hormone levels during pregnancy. In the new society > the women build and create from the ashes of the old, "gay syndrome" was > identified and corrected at birth. > I have generally found Sci Fi writers to be more open to alternative > forms of sexuality, so the sentiment puzzles me. > Does anyone else have difficulties with this issue? > > drink water, nomi > Laura M. Quilter / lauramd@uic.edu Electronic Services Librarian University of Illinois at Chicago http://www.uic.edu/~lauramd/ "If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution." -- Emma Goldman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 02:37:24 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Harman Subject: Re: BEAUTY Jack Zipes is a local (Minnesotan) who teaches at the University of Minnesota. "Don't Bet on the Prince" sounds like one of his. He also did a collection of all the different variations on Little Red Riding Hood. Though I don't remember the title, I'm sure it was provocative as well. Thanks for the correction on "The Armless Maiden." I have not made it to the end of the book yet (chilling indeed!) so was not aware of Windling's more personal association. Barbara ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 19:07:54 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: BEAUTY In-Reply-To: <970409023723_-1603209112@emout09.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Barbara Harman wrote: > Jack Zipes is a local (Minnesotan) who teaches at the University of > Minnesota. "Don't Bet on the Prince" sounds like one of his. He also did a > collection of all the different variations on Little Red Riding Hood. NH: I'd really be interested in reading this, if anyone knows the title. I'll try looking it up on my public library database too. Though > I don't remember the title, I'm sure it was provocative as well. Thanks for > the correction on "The Armless Maiden." I have not made it to the end of the > book yet (chilling indeed!) so was not aware of Windling's more personal > association. NH: Oops. Sorry, Barbara, and anyone else for whom I may have revealed too much too soon. -nalo "Starchild here. Put a glide in your stride, and a dip in your hip, and come on over to the Mothership." P-Funk, "Mothership Connection" ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 16:13:46 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Wigod Subject: Re: Tepper's feelings against homosexuality In-Reply-To: <334B6EF9.E52@griffin.co.za> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Nomi I must say it depends greatly on individuals. I for one am >uncomfortble with gays[ doesn't mean I'll go gay bashing], it's just the >way I am but I'm fine with lesbians. I have noticed that a lot, most >people are fine with homosexuality in the opposite sex. I agree though >usually authors are a little more open but then it also depends on the >section of SF aimed at. > >Jay Hahaha! Forgive me for posting off-topic, but I just couldn't let this one slide. "People" aren't fine with homosexuality in the opposite sex - MEN are ok with _women_ having sex with each other, and only because they envision lesbian sex to be the type they see in straight guy pornography - you know - lots of peach satin and long red nails and wishing "if only a man would join us" kinda crap. I think the reason men feel threatened by male homosexuality is because they know better than anyone how sexually agressive men can be (this is not entirely their fault, BTW - a lot of it is pure socialization - ever been to a lesbian bar? You get to watch dozens of women standing around wishing someone would ask them to dance! :-D) - it never _occurs_ to them that women could be sexually agressive at all. So men get creepy when they think _they_ could get hit on with the same fervor they hit on women with! I don't think most straight men take lesbianism very seriously - there's a tendency to think "if they just met the right guy." The concept of lesbianism has historically been so difficult for men to wrap their minds around that, while there are thousands of anti-sodomy laws on the books throughout the world, there are very few anti-lesbian-sex laws. Getting off my soapbox now.........with a promise to reply on-topic next time! Laura ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 19:22:16 -0400 Reply-To: Joel VanLaven Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joel VanLaven Subject: Re: Tepper's feelings against homosexuality In-Reply-To: <334BFACF.37B9@earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Nomi Liron wrote: > I am a great fan of Tepper, but one thing that really bothers me is > her implied stance against homosexuality. It is really apparent in passages > in "Gate to Women's Country" where "gay syndrome" is explained as having > originated from abnormal hormone levels during pregnancy. In the new society > the women build and create from the ashes of the old, "gay syndrome" was > identified and corrected at birth. > I have generally found Sci Fi writers to be more open to alternative > forms of sexuality, so the sentiment puzzles me. > Does anyone else have difficulties with this issue? > > drink water, nomi > Yes. I too have some problems with Tepper in that regard among others. I really apreciate some of her ideas and like her writing style sometimes as well. However, she seems harsh and angry. She repeatedly comes back to religion as an all-encompassing evil. I'm not much of a supporter of most organized religions, but I feel like she takes it a bit too far. I had noticed mostly a distinct lack of homosexuality in her work. (though _Gibbon's_Decline_and_Fall_ has a little bit). I suppose we must read her writing with salt and wariness as we should everything. About sexuality and feminism. I think my personal feminist philosophy might best be described as "Queer Theory." I am of the opinion that we must examine and quite probably replace the societal distinctions that we now make. What is more, I think that as a society and as individuals we must always be conciously examining everything that we can. I don't think we can ever rest on our laurels. I don't think that Sexuality and Gender mean much. Also, they are very tightly tied together. Is there even such a thing as sexuality? In a world where gender is motly irrelevant would there even be questions about sexuality? In my experience there has rarely (perhaps never) been a time when someone's specific sexuality and/or sex/gender mattered much except as determined by society. There are a myriad different kinds of people, actually the same number as there are people. The person who is perfectly normal in every way is the real freak. It seems like many books that explore Queer ideas almost have to be sci-fi (that or non-fiction). How better to explore these ideas than imagining worlds where things are different. On a side note, has anyone else read much David Brin? I love his books. In many ways they seem feminist/queer. (Though perhaps not with as much of a focus on that aspect as other writers). In particular, _Glory_Season_ is an interesting look into feminist issues without being overly utopian or overly critical. (In my opinion). In some of his other books he refers to humans as "fems" and "mels" (women and men). This breaks the male domination of the general term for human (can't remember what he used for that). I thought that was neat. Love the list, just too much a bad writer to say much (sigh). -- Joel VanLaven ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 20:32:31 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: lissa bloomer Subject: Zipes Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" yes, the book is called _Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England_ by Jack Zipes. Routledge... ISBN 0-415-90263-0 for those of you who want to order it. his other one you guys mentioned is _The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood_ (1983). -lissa if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. elisabeth bloomer instructor, english virginia tech ebloomer@vt.edu 540.231.2445 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 21:02:43 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Andrea L. Klein" Subject: Tepper's essentialism, was Re: homosexuality MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Joel VanLaven wrote: > > Yes. I too have some problems with Tepper in that regard among others. > I really apreciate some of her ideas and like her writing style sometimes > as well. me too, but not for the reasons you detail below. I enjoyed reading _The Gate to Women's Country_. I found it well-crafted and thought-provoking. The reaction I had was perhaps a knee-jerk reaction against essentialism. The ending truths (which I won't go into here because those who haven't read it should discover them within the book not without) seemed strikingly different from the assumptions that seem to underlie the other fem sf I've read. Namely, it seems most fem sf assumes a social constructionist attitude towards gender roles (i.e. that our society is responsible for the bulk of the differences between men and women--we consciously and unconsciously educate the sexes differently). Tepper, however, was so laden with natural differences, genetic differences, b/n men and women that I had trouble buying her premise. Perhaps I am spoiled by _The Female Man_ and _The Wanderground_ but I found the "natures" of the women in the matriarchy less believable...(would they really be pining for the men so much? and if they would, wouldn't some be pro-active enough to "rectify" the situation on a societal level?) However, I did find it thought-provoking and an interesting switch in ideology--and that's all I really want of any well-written novel. Andrea > However, she seems harsh and angry. She repeatedly comes back > to religion as an all-encompassing evil. I'm not much of a supporter of > most organized religions, but I feel like she takes it a bit too far. I > had noticed mostly a distinct lack of homosexuality in her work. (though > _Gibbon's_Decline_and_Fall_ has a little bit). I suppose we must read her > writing with salt and wariness as we should everything. > > -- Joel VanLaven > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 21:06:34 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Zipes In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NH: Thanks, Lissa! -nalo On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote: > yes, the book is called _Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist > Fairy Tales in North America and England_ by Jack Zipes. Routledge... ISBN > 0-415-90263-0 for those of you who want to order it. > > his other one you guys mentioned is _The Trials and Tribulations of Little > Red Riding Hood_ (1983). > > -lissa > > > > > if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. > > elisabeth bloomer > instructor, english > virginia tech > ebloomer@vt.edu > 540.231.2445 > "Starchild here. Put a glide in your stride, and a dip in your hip, and come on over to the Mothership." P-Funk, "Mothership Connection" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 01:39:27 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Roberta Wolff Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ As a voracious reader, and sometimes writer, it occurs to me that if one must spend a great deal of time figuring out what the author meant, then perhaps the author did not tell the story. Or the sometimes a cigar is simply a cigar syndrome. Roberta's Cat-- onegreycat@msn.com greycat1@airmail.net ---------- From: For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature on behalf of Nalo Hopkinson Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 1997 6:43 AM To: FEMINISTSF@listserv.uic.edu Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Michael Marc Levy wrote: NH: I see this happening often, with all kinds of artmaking. Sometimes the artist is not the best person to ask for an analysis of her work; a lot of it happens on an unconscious level. -nalo ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 21:24:28 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Quilter Subject: Tepper & Brin Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > However, she seems harsh and angry. She repeatedly comes back >to religion as an all-encompassing evil. I'm not much of a supporter of >most organized religions, but I feel like she takes it a bit too far. I >had noticed mostly a distinct lack of homosexuality in her work. (though >_Gibbon's_Decline_and_Fall_ has a little bit). I suppose we must read her >writing with salt and wariness as we should everything. Yes, sometimes she's not very subtle. And I think her work varies in quality. I was, for instance, very disappointed in SHADOW'S END and A PLAGUE OF ANGELS. But really enjoyed BEAUTY, GRASS, GATE, some of the True Games books, and some of the Marianne books. Also I thought GIBBON'S DECLINE AND FALL was better in comparison to the SHADOW'S END and A PLAGUE OF ANGELS, but parts of it were forced. Just finished THE FAMILY TREE which I think I like better than anything since BEAUTY. Yes, she is very *anti* to some types of religions - she really seems to have it in for fundamentalist patriarchal religions, like Xtianity and Islam. Can't say I blame her. THE FAMILY TREE, however, has a Gaea/pagan religion in it, and it's treated *very* positively. Re: "we must read her writing with salt and wariness as we should everything" -- I wish I could bottle that idea and give it away to people for free! Critical thinking -- if all of my fellow librarians would embrace that concept I wouldn't have to spend so much time arguing against censorware, etc. Arrggh. Sorry for the off-topic rant. > On a side note, has anyone else read much David Brin? I love his books. >In many ways they seem feminist/queer. (Though perhaps not with as much of >a focus on that aspect as other writers). In particular, _Glory_Season_ >is an interesting look into feminist issues without being overly utopian >or overly critical. (In my opinion). In some of his other books he refers >to humans as "fems" and "mels" (women and men). This breaks the male >domination of the general term for human (can't remember what he used for >that). I thought that was neat. I like Brin as a story-teller and think he's equitable in his treatments of men and women, for the most part. But a lot of people seem to find him anti-feminist, and had problems with GLORY SEASON, finding parts of it even sexist. In my opinion, he probably is more-or-less a feminist by the same terms that most people are: they think people should be treated equally. But he may not consider himself a feminist, and I don't think he regards gender & gender issues as a serious issue, or considers them very much in his work. I think GLORY SEASON was an exercise in world-building more than a creation of a feminist utopia, but he certainly drew some of his ideas from utopian works that were consciously feminist. Laura M Quilter lauramd@uic.edu Electronic Services Librarian University of Illinois at Chicago http://www.uic.edu/~lauramd/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 22:17:52 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Heh. As a voracious reader, and sometimes critic, I *like* trying to figure out what the author meant. If it's so obvious that I don't have to think about it, then I wonder why they didn't just write an essay... But it's interesting that you conflate "what the author meant" (meaning) with "story"... meaning is action? >As a voracious reader, and sometimes writer, it occurs to me that if one must >spend a great deal of time figuring out what the author meant, then perhaps >the author did not tell the story. > >Or the sometimes a cigar is simply a cigar syndrome. > > >Roberta's Cat-- onegreycat@msn.com > greycat1@airmail.net Heather "This is not an e-mail." hmaclean@kent.edu http://kent.edu/~hmaclean/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 23:12:51 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Tepper & Brin In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII "Censorware?" I worked in public libraries in Toronto for nine years, but never heard of this. Sounds nasty. What is it? -nalo "Starchild here. Put a glide in your stride, and a dip in your hip, and come on over to the Mothership." P-Funk, "Mothership Connection" ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 23:18:30 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: Re: fear/monsters (gender diffs) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sorry it's taken so long, mala--this has been hell week... >heather, what differences did you find in fear between male and female >characters? > mala The differences between male and female-authored monsters were amazingly distinct. Without fail, all the male-authored monsters represented some aspect of traditional society that came under critique within the story. Additionally, the authors used "typical" means of evoking a fear-response from the reader: emphasis on non-human traits, and an "us-versus-them" type of mentality. *None* of the female-authored monsters were intended to evoke fear or disgust on the part of the reader (though they did on the part of other characters). Also (and this is what blew my mind), they *all* contained a pronounced male-female duality, a sort of bi-genderedness. Aditionally, in 2 of the stories the female-authored monster was the protagonist; in the 3rd, the object of love of the protagonist. In the male-authored stories, the monster was never the protagonist. I don't know if the women intended their bi-gendered monsters so that any reader could identify with being a misfit or not--it's tempting, but ultimately futile, to read it that way. But the bi-genderedness in a non-fearful setting is an interesting means of reverting the figure of monster to its original latin meaning, as a sign of wonder. It would be indeed "wonder-ful" if men and women could meet in a single locus, discuss, then go their separate ways (as one of the characters in a Canadian story says, as well as Luce Irigaray, a French feminist critic...). Heather =) hmaclean@kent.edu http://kent.edu/~hmaclean/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 23:07:09 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Reading "errors" In-Reply-To: <199704091816.AA22268@halcyon.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, L. Timmel Duchamp wrote: > Nicola, when you talking about your "bloody learning experience," > & Mike, when you talk about Butler's authorial unreliability, > you may be both talking about how arbitrary a reader's relationship > is to any fiction text. Readers often make mistakes of "fact" > (i.e., missing material in the text that makes explicit a certain > interpretation-- as in the case of Lauren's "hyperempathy"-- which > I did pick up on in my reading, as a very telling detail that > stuck in my mind-- or even changing the details in their memory, > to accord with their own preconceptions & on-going [rather than > after-the-fact] interpretation), & authors-- in an act of reading > their own work, not writing it, though obviously "reading" is > a necessary part of the total process of "writing"-- often insist > on a simplicity of a single level-- the one they consciously intended-- > to their work, denying that anything could be in the text but > what they consciously intended. (Eudora Welty sticks in my mind > as an author who becomes enraged at readers seeing anything but > the surface of her stories.) I seriously wonder if anyone reads > the same piece of fiction in the same way anyone else does. I'd > be willing to bet any issue of _Locus_ you might pick up would > manifest such errors in its reviews. (I catch such errors there > constantly: & of course this holds true for other publications, > & not just _Locus_.) It's not necessarily carelessness (though > if the reviewer took the time to re-read the piece being reviewed, > at least some of the mistakes might be caught-- often in deep > puzzlement, that s/he could have been so grossly in error). It's > just that all sorts of things-- from previous reading experiences, > previous conceptions of the author's work, & all sorts of personal > experiences in the life of the reader-- kick in when we read, > sometimes even from the very first sentence. (Which is why I > don't think the author has the responsibility to hit the reader > over the head with a fact: showing, not telling, is always appropriate, > except in political tracts.) In my experience, even when three > people who are socially close and share the same political attitudes > read the same book, they discover when they talk to one another > about it that they've read three different books. [I don't say > "completely" different books, but *substantially* different books. > They almost never remember all of the same details. They weight > themes differently. They are disappointed or excited for different > reasons.] & then, in the process of discussion, the person who > has the most forceful & structured articulations of what s/he > read ends up shaping the other two readers' memories of what *they* > read.) I myself have been through this process-- with the same > two other people-- with many, many books. > > It might not be totally off-the-wall to hypothesize that people > develop a consensus about what any given piece of fiction is about > strictly through public discussion (meant broadly). If so, public > discussion then becomes the lens through which a particular work > is read. > > And "public discussion," of course, includes lists like this one. > > Timmi Duchamp > I suspect that you're correct, Timmi. You know, I've always been a bit skeptical of reader-response theory, but what you're suggesting above is a pretty good defense of its legitimacy. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 23:14:41 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Reading "errors" In-Reply-To: <334B6D90.2949@griffin.co.za> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > > People a book is to be enjoyed, have fun. When I read a book buy > Margerat Weis I don't sit there thinking about why she wrote about > something. Or with Robert Johnson's book one of the Lightbringer trilogy > who brings in the theme of vampires..OOO Gothic and vapirism. It's just > a book for crying out loud, somebodies imagination. > > When I was at school one of my subjects was English, of course we > studied poetry and mostly South African poets since I live in South > Africa. One day we had a interview with one of the poets Sipho Sipambla. > About 80% of the teachers interpretations of the poems made him either > laugh your sigh. Humans read too much into things. > That's all I can say. We take ourselves to seriously and must learn to > laugh at ourselves. Try it sometime it might be refreshing. > > Jay > Dragonheart. > Yes indeed, Jay, people do read books to enjoy them, but they also read them for a number of other reasons which are equally valid. And many people who read for enjoyment find a significant part of that enjoyment through the process of examining a book closely to see what makes it tick. If that isn't your cup of tea, fine, but don't deny us our pleasure, okay? Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 23:22:11 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Nalo Hopkinson wrote: > On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Michael Marc Levy wrote: > > > As Nicola Griffith said in an earlier post, more or less, how far can we > > trust an author when her statements about a story seem contradicted by > > the story itself? > > NH: I see this happening often, with all kinds of artmaking. Sometimes > the artist is not the best person to ask for an analysis of her work; a > lot of it happens on an unconscious level. > > -nalo > I'm reminded of an interview I did with the children's fantasy writer Natalie Babbitt for a book I was writing about her work. My wife, Sandy Lindow, who took part in the interview suggested that the plot of Babbitt's most recent picturebook, Nellie, A Cat on Her Own, sounded very similar to Babbitt's own life and that the cat's name--Nellie--sounded similar to Natalie. Babbitt's immediate response was to look blank and then say that she thought that the name similarity was probably coincidental because it was a last minute substitution. All the time she'd been writing the book, she'd been planning on calling the cat by a different name, Nettie. After she said that, we all sort of looked at each other for a minute, then Babbitt, with a bemused expression on her face, said something along the lines of "Oh my! You don't suppose..." And then we all laughed. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 23:27:34 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, sue hagedorn wrote: > --surprise, > >surprise--they actually put obviously black characters on the covers > >(which wasn't the case when the books first came out). > > Yes--It's very interesting, too, that when I had a class of freshmen read > Dawn, they were at first oblivious to any mention of race (that book > illustrator too obviously had not read the book itself)--when it was > pointed out to them, they changed some of their perceptions about the story > line. That helped me make a point (my "theme" was "What Does it Mean to be > Human?")--but I was a bit surprised at the reaction. (I guess I've been > reading SF too long--since my first Ace double back in the '50s!) > > Sue > The white character on the cover of the original edition of Butler's Dawn was not a result of the artist's failing to read the book, or failing to notice that the protagonist was actually Afican American. It was a conscious editorial decision designed to increase sales, based on the belief that having an African American on the cover of an SF novel would cost more sales by white book buyers than it would pick up sales by African American book buyers. Sad, but true. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 01:31:34 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NH: :) Yeah, like that. -nalo On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Michael Marc Levy wrote: > On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Nalo Hopkinson wrote: > > > On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Michael Marc Levy wrote: > > > > > As Nicola Griffith said in an earlier post, more or less, how far can we > > > trust an author when her statements about a story seem contradicted by > > > the story itself? > > > > NH: I see this happening often, with all kinds of artmaking. Sometimes > > the artist is not the best person to ask for an analysis of her work; a > > lot of it happens on an unconscious level. > > > > -nalo > > > I'm reminded of an interview I did with the children's fantasy writer > Natalie Babbitt for a book I was writing about her work. My wife, Sandy > Lindow, who took part in the interview suggested that the plot of > Babbitt's most recent picturebook, Nellie, A Cat on Her Own, sounded very > similar to Babbitt's own life and that the cat's name--Nellie--sounded > similar to Natalie. Babbitt's immediate response was to look blank and > then say that she thought that the name similarity was probably > coincidental because it was a last minute substitution. All the time > she'd been writing the book, she'd been planning on calling the cat by a > different name, Nettie. After she said that, we all sort of looked at > each other for a minute, then Babbitt, with a bemused expression on her > face, said something along the lines of "Oh my! You don't suppose..." > And then we all laughed. > > Mike Levy > "Starchild here. Put a glide in your stride, and a dip in your hip, and come on over to the Mothership." P-Funk, "Mothership Connection" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 01:59:27 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NH: sparked by both sue's and Michael's comments: sue, I had much the same reaction as your students to Samuel Delany's work. Read much of it completely oblivious to the race issues. Then realised he was Black, and was in some cases addressing race. I re-read more carefully; big difference! And as to the publishers' choices of cover art, I seem to remember reading somewhere that some publisher had determined that if they put non-White people on their covers, White readers would assume the books 'weren't for them' and wouldn't buy them. I don't believe that that's true of all White readers, or even necessarily the majority of them, and even if it's so, I think it's because the publishing industry has fostered that behaviour. Interestingly, non-White readers (again, this is all my vague memory of something I read once) didn't limit their reading to books with people of their own race on the covers. Hmm, I wonder why that might be? [Tongue in cheek, for those of you whose terminals don't have the emotion chip.] I did once buy the Timescape pbk edition of Alfred Bester's _Golem 100,_ knowing nothing about Alfred Bester, solely because there was a Black woman on the cover who had - gasp! - African features, down to the onion butt (which was easy to see, because she was wearing nothing but see-through panties and a gold headband). I bought it, hardly daring to hope that the woman on the front was actually the protagonist, and that the book would actually be good; that would have been too much; identification and literary excellence all occuring in one package. Well, I was in for a surprise. The two main characters are a Black woman and a South Asian man. The book was surprising, energetic, and experimental, blending text and visual art. I'm glad I own it. (And I just noticed that the cover artist is a woman -- Rowena.) Wonder if Warner could be interested in re-issuing the Neveryona series with Butler-like covers? :) -nalo On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Michael Marc Levy wrote: > On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, sue hagedorn wrote: > > > --surprise, > > >surprise--they actually put obviously black characters on the covers > > >(which wasn't the case when the books first came out). > > > > Yes--It's very interesting, too, that when I had a class of freshmen read > > Dawn, they were at first oblivious to any mention of race (that book > > illustrator too obviously had not read the book itself)--when it was > > pointed out to them, they changed some of their perceptions about the story > > line. That helped me make a point (my "theme" was "What Does it Mean to be > > Human?")--but I was a bit surprised at the reaction. (I guess I've been > > reading SF too long--since my first Ace double back in the '50s!) > > > > Sue > > > > The white character on the cover of the original edition of Butler's Dawn > was not a result of the artist's failing to read the book, or failing to > notice that the protagonist was actually Afican American. It was a > conscious editorial decision designed to increase sales, based on the > belief that having an African American on the cover of an SF novel would > cost more sales by white book buyers than it would pick up sales by > African American book buyers. Sad, but true. > > Mike Levy > "Starchild here. Put a glide in your stride, and a dip in your hip, and come on over to the Mothership." P-Funk, "Mothership Connection" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 10:50:03 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Robin Gordon Subject: Re: Tepper's feelings against homosexuality In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII After the mention of the homophobic passage in The Gate To Women's Country yesterday I ran home and flipped through the whole book again, which I read quite a while before I came out, and never remembered any mention of queers. Of course I was at the time annoyed with the biological determinism. Looking at the book again her treatment of homosexuality quite threw me. Not only does she posit a simple biological cause for homosexuality (by the way I HATE this word), mentioned the elimination of queers without even a hint that this was a form of genocide and inappropriate, but she also manages to mingle the issues of pedophilia and homosexuality. This is, of course, a classic form of homophobia, particularly against gay men, one that villifies queers and queerness by association with crimes against children. And, of course, one exposed as a lie by respected research. Yes, Tepper is creating a world, and every element of that world does not necessarily reflect her own world view, it is a thought experiement. However raising such an important and contentious issue as the origin of queerness and the genocide of queers without even batting a literary eye is terribly irresponsible. Absolutely no discussion, let alone criticism, of the elimination of queers occurs in Gate. And neither the passage in question nor the "history" it refers to are important to the rest of the novel. It is gratuitous, AND handled badly. The only need for the passage on queers in Gate is to support the underlying theory of heterosexuaity in the book, the undeniable, instinctual, animal need for heterosexual sex which the characters exhibit and much of the plot turns on. And of course the ways in which many of the characters decisions and actions are driven by their uncontrollable heterosexual urges relates back to the biological essentialism of the book. On the flip side I stronly recommend a story called Coccoon which deals with the question If there was a biological cause of homosexuality discovered what would happen. It's a sophisticated and complex look at the question in a near future society. I think it's by Greg Bear, but someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'm certainly interested in what other people think of this. Robin Gordon -------------------------------------- "I view it as something of a nightmare that the sodomites are so brazen." Bigot Jesse Helms ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 10:50:27 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "L. Timmel Duchamp" Subject: "Cocoon" Robin, "Cocoon" is by Greg Egan. It first appeared in the May, 1994 issue of _Asimov's' SF_. It's been reprinted in Dozois's _Year's Best_ Vol 12. Timmi Duchamp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 15:09:42 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: lissa bloomer Subject: Frankenstein book Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" dear all: i'm looking for two books. two books that i've never read. i'm teaching a class where i'd like to use a comparable book to _Frankenstein_ ... i'd like it to be both sci-fi and fem AND not extraordinarily difficult (like, say, Le Guin's _Dispossessed_)(*gasp*)... my theme (or, as we silly english teachers like to call it, "body of discourse") is going to be called something along the lines of "Beauty and the Beast" -- i think i'm going to use _Beowulf_ together with _Grendel_ ... the second book i'm looking for is for a class on family... i'd like to, again, use a sci-fi fem book that i haven't read before: one that has an unusual family... i may be using _Fried Green Tomatoes_ and _Momaday_ and _I am One of You Forever_ any ideas? thanks, -lissa bloomer if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. elisabeth bloomer instructor, english virginia tech ebloomer@vt.edu 540.231.2445 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 15:46:33 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stone Waters MD Subject: Re: Tepper's feelings against homosexuality I think it would be unfair to condem Tepper as anti-gay based merely on her description a "the gay sundrome" caused by a hormonal imbalance that was fixed at birth. I don't recall the "gay syndrome" was a big part of the book, but I read it a long time ago and may have forgotten. So we should give Tepper a break here. Interestingly, there has been some evidence to suggest homosexuality (among a wide variety of "conditions") may have an underlying genetic cause. Either way, I feel sci-fi writers (fantasy writer's are excused here) have a responsibility to represent the scientific fund of knowledge accurately and honestly.This includes feminist theory. If a scifi writer, feminist or otherwise, crosses the blurry line of plausibe speculation that is based on a reasonable/believable extrapolation of scientific fact, it is no longer scifi but fantasy or something else. Stone Waters MD ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 15:57:18 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joslyn Grassby Organization: National Library of Canada Subject: Comparable book to Frankenstein (sf , fem, and interesting family) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit lissa bloomer wrote: > > dear all: > > i'm looking for two books. two books that i've never read. > > i'm teaching a class where i'd like to use a comparable book to > _Frankenstein_ ... i'd like it to be both sci-fi and fem AND not > extraordinarily difficult (like, say, Le Guin's _Dispossessed_)(*gasp*)... > lissa, a few titles that come to mind (away from the book shelves): Clay's Ark Octavia Butler More than Human Theodore Sturgeon Plague of Change L. Warren Douglas (a bit removed) Remnant Population Elizabeth Moon Courtship Rite Donald Kingsbury Joslyn Grassby ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 18:05:03 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Martha Bartter Subject: Re: Frankenstein book In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 15:09 4/10/97 -0500, you wrote: >dear all: > >i'm looking for two books. two books that i've never read. > >i'm teaching a class where i'd like to use a comparable book to >_Frankenstein_ ... i'd like it to be both sci-fi and fem AND not >extraordinarily difficult (like, say, Le Guin's _Dispossessed_)(*gasp*)... > Have you considered _Dracula_? It's later than _Frankenstein_, not very difficult, and has at least ONE strong woman character. > >my theme (or, as we silly english teachers like to call it, "body of >discourse") is going to be called something along the lines of "Beauty and >the Beast" -- i think i'm going to use _Beowulf_ together with _Grendel_ >... > Still sounds like _Dracula_ to me. (More fantasy than sf, perhaps?) >the second book i'm looking for is for a class on family... i'd like to, >again, use a sci-fi fem book that i haven't read before: one that has an >unusual family... i may be using _Fried Green Tomatoes_ and _Momaday_ and >_I am One of You Forever_ > >any ideas? Judith Moffett's _Pennterra_, if you can get it. Boy are the families DIFFERENT! > >thanks, > >-lissa bloomer > > > > >if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. > >elisabeth bloomer >instructor, english >virginia tech >ebloomer@vt.edu >540.231.2445 > Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 18:06:04 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Martha Bartter Subject: Re: Tepper's feelings against homosexuality In-Reply-To: <970410154521_50690803@emout07.mail.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 15:46 4/10/97 -0400, you wrote: >I think it would be unfair to condem Tepper as anti-gay based merely on her >description a "the gay sundrome" caused by a hormonal imbalance that was >fixed at birth. I don't recall the "gay syndrome" was a big part of the >book, but I read it a long time ago and may have forgotten. So we should give >Tepper a break here. It's always a mistake, I think, to hold an author personally responsible for what her characters say and do in a story. (It's frequently done, but it's neither fair nor honest.) Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 13:39:26 -1000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Daniel L Krashin Subject: Re: Tepper's feelings against homosexuality -Subject: Re: Tepper's feelings against homosexuality - ->Nomi I must say it depends greatly on individuals. I for one am ->uncomfortble with gays[ doesn't mean I'll go gay bashing], it's just the ->way I am but I'm fine with lesbians. [snip] ->Jay - - -Hahaha! Forgive me for posting off-topic, but I just couldn't let this one -slide. "People" aren't fine with homosexuality in the opposite sex - MEN -are ok with _women_ having sex with each other, and only because they -envision lesbian sex to be the type they see in straight guy pornography - -you know - lots of peach satin and long red nails and wishing "if only a -man would join us" kinda crap. [snip] - -Laura Hi, my name is Dan Krashin, I'm a psychiatry resident at an Army hospital in Hawaii and part-time sf writer. I guess I'd call myself an "ally" like Sam Delany. I wanted to make a couple comments on the subject. 1) "How I feel about homosexuality" is a very flame-prone issue. Let's try to be tolerant of each other's missteps. I personally have found it interesting to read the posts of so many SF readers who are either lesbian or woman-centric (i.e., preferentially reading books by female authors). The SF world seems very different from that perspective. 2)I think Jay has a point, at least his experience jibes with mine. (I would add that eventually one of my friends noticed this and pointed out, "If you get along with gay women but avoid gay men, you're still homophobic." And I have tried to get over this dumb prejudice.) But I have had some good lesbian friends -- it's sort of the ultimate platonic friendship... Ind I think some women feel this way, too. Think of "fag hags." (Not a PC term, I realize.) 3)Responding to Laura's post, I would point out that sexological research shows that almost *every* heterosexual male has a strong response to seeing two women together. This obviously has much to do with male appetites, and nothing much to do with lesbian women. But why so intolerant of a sexual fantasy? 4)To turn this post back on-topic, I remember a story from a couple years ago where the protagonist was a scientist who happened to be lesbian, who was investigating a prenatal treatment of babies that would prevent (among other things) homosexuality. The moral conflict in the story got kind of lost among a lot of corporate intrigue, as I recall, but it raised some interesting points. I don't think this kind of speculation is necessarily anti-homosexual. Maybe it was kind of a cheap shot in the context of _Gate_, though. Has anyone every read a story where they learn how to prevent heterosexuality? Thanks for your attention, Dan (This is what happens when my patients don't show up!) *I do not speak for the U.S. Government, nor do they for me, but we're stil great friends* ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 23:06:24 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Frankenstein book In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 10 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote: > dear all: > > i'm looking for two books. two books that i've never read. > > i'm teaching a class where i'd like to use a comparable book to > _Frankenstein_ ... i'd like it to be both sci-fi and fem AND not > extraordinarily difficult (like, say, Le Guin's _Dispossessed_)(*gasp*)... > > > my theme (or, as we silly english teachers like to call it, "body of > discourse") is going to be called something along the lines of "Beauty and > the Beast" -- i think i'm going to use _Beowulf_ together with _Grendel_ > ... > > the second book i'm looking for is for a class on family... i'd like to, > again, use a sci-fi fem book that i haven't read before: one that has an > unusual family... i may be using _Fried Green Tomatoes_ and _Momaday_ and > _I am One of You Forever_ > > any ideas? > > thanks, > > -lissa bloomer How about Theodore Roszak's Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein, which won the Tiptree last year, or would that one be too tough? Alternately, how about Marge Piercy's He, She, and It, which has an obvious Frankenstein parallel? Amy Thomson's Virtual Girl might also work, though it probably is out of print. Another possibility is Shariann Lewitt's Memento Mori, which just came out in trade paperback. For the family book, I'm very fond of the family in Slonczewski's Daughter of Elysium, although that's probably too difficult AND out of print. One very good family sf novel that just came out in trade paperback is Stephanie Smith's Other Nature. Most of the feminist f & sf books that I can think of that concentrate on families, specifically concentrate on bad families--child abuse issues and such--like Susan Palwick's Flying in Place. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 00:47:57 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Harman Subject: Re: Frankenstein book Or, how about Jigsaw Woman by Kim Antieau? A definitely feminist take on the Frankenstein idea, with historical, specifically herstory, overtones. Barbara ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 08:29:40 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: sue hagedorn Subject: Re: Frankenstein book In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> the second book i'm looking for is for a class on family... i'd like to, >> again, use a sci-fi fem book that i haven't read before: one that has an >> unusual family... i may be using _Fried Green Tomatoes_ and _Momaday_ and >> _I am One of You Forever_ >> >> any ideas? >> >For the family book, I'm very fond of the family in Slonczewski's >Daughter of Elysium, Joan Slonczewski's Door Into Ocean is also very provocative and might still be available. I also second the "nomination" of More than Human--VERY interesting treatment of a gestalt "family." Sue Hagedorn ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 08:15:05 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Martha Bartter Subject: Re: Frankenstein book In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 23:06 4/10/97 -0500, you wrote: >On Thu, 10 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote: > >> dear all: >> >> i'm looking for two books. two books that i've never read. >> >> i'm teaching a class where i'd like to use a comparable book to >> _Frankenstein_ ... i'd like it to be both sci-fi and fem AND not >> extraordinarily difficult (like, say, Le Guin's _Dispossessed_)(*gasp*)... >> >> >> my theme (or, as we silly english teachers like to call it, "body of >> discourse") is going to be called something along the lines of "Beauty and >> the Beast" -- i think i'm going to use _Beowulf_ together with _Grendel_ >> ... >> >> the second book i'm looking for is for a class on family... i'd like to, >> again, use a sci-fi fem book that i haven't read before: one that has an >> unusual family... i may be using _Fried Green Tomatoes_ and _Momaday_ and >> _I am One of You Forever_ >> >> any ideas? >> >> thanks, >> >> -lissa bloomer > > >How about Theodore Roszak's Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein, which won >the Tiptree last year, or would that one be too tough? Alternately, how >about Marge Piercy's He, She, and It, which has an obvious Frankenstein >parallel? Amy Thomson's Virtual Girl might also work, though it probably >is out of print. Another possibility is Shariann Lewitt's Memento Mori, >which just came out in trade paperback. > >For the family book, I'm very fond of the family in Slonczewski's >Daughter of Elysium, although that's probably too difficult AND out of >print. One very good family sf novel that just came out in trade >paperback is Stephanie Smith's Other Nature. Most of the feminist f & sf >books that I can think of that concentrate on families, specifically >concentrate on bad families--child abuse issues and such--like Susan >Palwick's Flying in Place. > >Mike Levy > Another book that concentrates on families (bad, that is) -- _The Beginning Place_ by Ursula K. LeGuin. Very Jungian, but not at all difficult reading -- and it's IN PRINT! Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 09:22:58 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Robin Gordon Subject: Re: Alternate family In-Reply-To: <970410224552_-133829086@emout14.mail.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I particularly liked the family in Vonda McIntyre's Starfarers, which I think would be very accessible to a general audience. Although it's the first of a trilogy I'm sure it could be read alone for a class. I thought it was a gentle handling of a poly-family which includes two men who are equally sexually and emotionally bonded with each other as they are with the woman in the family, and the woman who was in the family but has died. Robin Gordon -------------------------------------- "I view it as something of a nightmare that the sodomites are so brazen." Bigot Jesse Helms ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 09:50:05 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Robin Gordon Subject: Tepper, queers, and the responsibility of an author In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.19970410180809.2127e68e@academic.truman.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I want to respond both to the points about the homophobia in The Gate to Women's Country, and the question of an author's responsibility for the politics of their work generally. On Thu, 10 Apr 1997, Martha Bartter wrote: > At 15:46 4/10/97 -0400, you wrote: > >I think it would be unfair to condem Tepper as anti-gay based merely on her > >description a "the gay sundrome" caused by a hormonal imbalance that was > >fixed at birth. I don't recall the "gay syndrome" was a big part of the > >book, but I read it a long time ago and may have forgotten. So we should give > >Tepper a break here. > > It's always a mistake, I think, to hold an author personally responsible > for what her characters say and do in a story. (It's frequently done, > but it's neither fair nor honest.) > > Martha Bartter First, I encourage anyone who's interested to actually look at the passage at issue in Gate, it's at p. 76 (of my Spectra edition). As I said before my two problems with it, in the context of the novel as a whole are (1) the passing and uncritical reference to a queer genocide, and (2) the way in which she sloppily mixes the issues of the sexual abuse of children with homosexuality, a classic form of homophobia. While the 'science' of this "gay syndrome" is flawed I won't go into that, it's only slight more flawed than the biology is destiny science of the book as a whole. I maintain that this passage, in context, is homophobic and irresponsible. That's not to say that Tepper understood the importance of what she was saying (but if she didn't she should have) or that she can't have grown in other work since then. I haven't read anything else of hers so I don't know. Imagine a passing reference to a selective breeding process which wiped out all people who are jewish or black. Imagine the reference suggested that this was necessary because that population was prone to violence or sex crimes. Imagine the author just dropped it in, the only character who makes reference to it does so in a way that suggests the positive evolution of the human race, in a book that as a whole suggests that selective breeding might not be such a bad thing, and NO character in the book ever says anything else about the issue. I would never suggest that a reader should ascribe the beliefs of any character in a piece of fiction to the author. But I do strongly believe that authors are responsible for the political messages contained in their works, read as a whole. If a book, taken as a whole, suggests a certain philosophy, supports a certain religion, advocates or treats favourably certain political beliefs, then the author is responsible for putting that message out into the public domain. This is part of what I love about science fiction, the way author's philosophies can be explored and discussed in imaginative ways. But an author, upon being criticized, cannot be shielded by simply saying "it's fiction." The very topic of this list, feminist scifi, suggests that we all understand the political importance of literature. solidarity, Robin Gordon ------------------------ "I am the wall with the womanly swagger." Judy Grahn ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 10:39:13 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Harman Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_ In regard to the various comments about whether or not cover artists who are illustrating books have actually *read* what they are illustrating: probably not. Illustrators are selected by a committee of editorial and managing editors, usually on the basis of their portfolio style, having been preselected by the publisher's design team or senior designer, usually via an art rep. It is the editors (who presumably *have* read the book) who give direction to the illustrator, though they sometimes select from already available material. If the illustrator had to read everything he/she illustrates, the illustration would never get done and he/she would never earn a living. Having worked from both directions (as writer and artist), I think I am pretty accurate about this. So--next time you wonder "what was that *illustrator* THINKING" think again! Ask instead, what editor thought THAT was a good selling point for this book? And, if you think it is hard to get your words published, try getting your images printed! (just a small divergence) Barbara ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 09:00:39 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: Re: Frankenstein book Comments: To: ebloomer@mail.vt.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Lissa: It might be a little off what you're looking for, but Nancy Holder and Melanie Tem's _Making Love_ involves not only a created man as a partner to the protagonist, but her brother creating a family in the same manner. Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 11:59:34 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Hope Cascio Subject: Re: Octavia Butler Hi, all. I'm brand new to the list, brand new to women's studies (just heard about Third Wave last week... USA Today doesn't report these things!?) so please bear with me. I joined up because I'm incurably into sf, and was dying to hear some feminist perspectives on what's been traditionally male-dominated (okay, that was a big "duh!", as in, what isn't, right?) Has anyone read "The Evening and the Morning and the Night," a short story by Octavia Butler? I'd be interested to hear people's impressions/interpretations of gender roles as they relate to characters with the disease at the Institute, and the "other" as people with the disease. (Sorry I don't have the anthology in front of me, or I'd name the disease... it's just this story's been on my mind since I saw all the posts about Octavia.) Hope Cascio ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 12:10:29 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Hope Cascio Subject: Re: BEAUTY I think retold fairy tales are fascinating, too. There's one, "Ever After," which I'm almost certain is by Nancy Kress, is a retelling of "Cinderella" with a vampire spin... that is, the fairy godmother is a vampire, and she turns the ingenue into one, too. Had some interesting things to say... vampires can't have their own children, so they take other people's: this is directly compared to the priesthood. A priest shows the protagonist (the fairy godmother) compassion, and in turn, she shows compassion for a woman who's pretty much spent her life trying to reveal the godmother for what she really is. Neat, evil little power plays, bittersweet. If anyone's read it, I'd love to hear what you have to say about it. Hope Cascio ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 12:37:20 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Hope Cascio Subject: Re: Reading "errors" In a message dated 97-04-09 18:55:18 EDT, you write: << People a book is to be enjoyed, have fun. When I read a book buy Margerat Weis I don't sit there thinking about why she wrote about something. >> I don't completely agree. I used to just read for pure pleasure and escapism, until I came to college and "learned how to interpret what I'm reading." At first it felt so artificial, but now I feel like I can get so much more out of something. I never could have attempted most poetry, for instance, before I learned to interpret, and now I can actually get something from Adrienne Rich. So it's a construct, but so's the literature. I can still read ocassionally for the escape, but I much prefer to read something I can think about later, like while I'm driving or doing the dishes. And I'll reread things I've enjoyed to see if there's more to it than the lovely escape. Hope Cascio ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 12:57:52 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Reading "errors" In-Reply-To: <970411123701_-500754546@emout10.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NH: This sounds pretty much like my trajectory too. I used to read to not have to think, just look at pretty pitures in my mind's eye, but I couldn't get away with that for long; the type of reading that I enjoy exercises the mind; it *makes* you think, and I enjoy it. -nalo On Fri, 11 Apr 1997, Hope Cascio wrote: > In a message dated 97-04-09 18:55:18 EDT, you write: > > << People a book is to be enjoyed, have fun. When I read a book buy > Margerat Weis I don't sit there thinking about why she wrote about > something. >> > > I don't completely agree. I used to just read for pure pleasure and escapism, > until I came to college and "learned how to interpret what I'm reading." At > first it felt so artificial, but now I feel like I can get so much more out > of something. I never could have attempted most poetry, for instance, before > I learned to interpret, and now I can actually get something from Adrienne > Rich. So it's a construct, but so's the literature. I can still read > ocassionally for the escape, but I much prefer to read something I can think > about later, like while I'm driving or doing the dishes. And I'll reread > things I've enjoyed to see if there's more to it than the lovely escape. > > Hope Cascio > "Starchild here. Put a glide in your stride, and a dip in your hip, and come on over to the Mothership." P-Funk, "Mothership Connection" ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 13:15:38 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Ruth Ann Jones Subject: Re: Octavia Butler Hope asked: >Has anyone read "The Evening and the Morning and the Night," a short >story by Octavia Butler? Oh my God, yes! I read it about three weeks ago -- had bronchitis, couldn't sleep because I was coughing too much, and had a 102 temperature so I probably wasn't thinking very clearly -- so I lay in bed half the night reading that whole "Bloodchild" anthology. Then I had horrible nightmares afterward!! (Is this an illustration of reader-response theory? --that the immediate circumstances you're in when you encounter a text shape the reading experience? ) >I'd be interested to hear people's >impressions/interpretations of gender roles as they relate to characters >with the disease at the Institute, and the "other" as people with the >disease. (Sorry I don't have the anthology in front of me, or I'd name the >disease... I think it was called Duryea-Gode Disease - DGD. The business about women with highest levels of the pheronome (those who had inherited the disease from both parents) being able to influence the behavior of those with lower levels (women who inherited the disease from only one parent, and all men, I think it was?) and yet not being able to tolerate the presence of one of the other high-pheronome women -- by the end of the story I was thinking of them as the Alpha Females. They seemed to be heading in the direction of creating female-led communities, which would eventually become economically self-sufficient because of the enhanced mental abilities of the members. It was really a chilling combination of utopia and dystopia, since the communities had to be created to protect the people suffering from a horribly grim disease. --Ruth Ann ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 14:28:52 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicola Griffith Subject: Apologies My apologies to the person who either (a) sent me a personal email or (b) posted to this list something about a (my?) review of Butler's _PotS_. I deleted it instead of reading it. Sigh. So, whoever you are, will you send/post it again? Many thanks. Nicola Nicola Griffith http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 14:58:36 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joel VanLaven Subject: Re: Reading "errors" In-Reply-To: <970411123701_-500754546@emout10.mail.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 11 Apr 1997, Hope Cascio wrote: > In a message dated 97-04-09 18:55:18 EDT, you write: > > << People a book is to be enjoyed, have fun. When I read a book buy > Margerat Weis I don't sit there thinking about why she wrote about > something. >> > > I don't completely agree. I used to just read for pure pleasure and escapism, > until I came to college and "learned how to interpret what I'm reading." At > first it felt so artificial, but now I feel like I can get so much more out > of something. I never could have attempted most poetry, for instance, before > I learned to interpret, and now I can actually get something from Adrienne > Rich. So it's a construct, but so's the literature. I can still read > ocassionally for the escape, but I much prefer to read something I can think > about later, like while I'm driving or doing the dishes. And I'll reread > things I've enjoyed to see if there's more to it than the lovely escape. For me, I see the change from non-critical to critical thinking to be a gradual one that sort of mirrors my evolutionary maturity. I think that when I was younger I had so little experience and my mind was so empty that I was ecstatic to fill it. I internalized what I read with an astounding level of naivete and trust. Now it seems like I have a respectable amount of stuff in my mind. So, simple ravenous internalization is not adequate. My body of experience, ideas, and values protects itself from being replaced. I still read to expand my thoughts, self-image, and body of experience (one reason I love sci-fi and books with main characters different than me e.g. a female protagonist) but in order to keep in some semblance of unity of thought and being and to keep from being cluttered, I must think longer and with more wariness than I once did. I see the process as an ongoing continuous one. I just hope that I never become anywhere close to "full". One thing I think I have also noticed is that I must always weigh everything with that same wariness, what I am reading and what I believe. So, reading can do another thing for me. It can help me to examine myself. When I read a book where "I" am a woman in a world populated completely by women that really sings to me and "fits," in order to internalize it I must in some ways reduce my self-image from a male to a human and I must somehow reduce my image of humanity from a bipolar, hetero-sexist one to a more gender-less one. (or do some other sort of hacking and/or rationalization) So, I read feminist science fiction for pleasure and in a sort of spiritual search for self-actualization and enlightenment (they are related). I do agree that often I don't think about why the author wrote what they did. I often don't consider it that important to what something means to me. To assume that all or even most meaning in a written work is completely intended by the author is put the author at super-human levels. I do greatly admire many authors (especially my favorites) but not that much. -- Joel VanLaven ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 12:38:20 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nomi Liron Organization: Bay Area Frog Kingdom/Royal Palace Subject: Re: Alternate family MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robin Gordon wrote: > > I particularly liked the family in Vonda McIntyre's Starfarers, which I > think would be very accessible to a general audience. Although it's the > first of a trilogy I'm sure it could be read alone for a class. I thought > it was a gentle handling of a poly-family which includes two men who are > equally sexually and emotionally bonded with each other as they are with > the woman in the family, and the woman who was in the family but has died. > > Robin Gordon > > -------------------------------------- > "I view it as something of a nightmare > that the sodomites are so brazen." > Bigot Jesse HelmsRobin---This looks good. I'll look for it. Thanks for mentioning it! Nomi ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 06:08:46 +0200 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jason Griffin Subject: Re: Reading "errors" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hope Cascio wrote: > > In a message dated 97-04-09 18:55:18 EDT, you write: > > << People a book is to be enjoyed, have fun. When I read a book buy > Margerat Weis I don't sit there thinking about why she wrote about > something. >> > > I don't completely agree. I used to just read for pure pleasure and escapism, > until I came to college and "learned how to interpret what I'm reading." At > first it felt so artificial, but now I feel like I can get so much more out > of something. I never could have attempted most poetry, for instance, before > I learned to interpret, and now I can actually get something from Adrienne > Rich. So it's a construct, but so's the literature. I can still read > ocassionally for the escape, but I much prefer to read something I can think > about later, like while I'm driving or doing the dishes. And I'll reread > things I've enjoyed to see if there's more to it than the lovely escape. > > Hope Cascio Actually I agree with you but for books that you do study but my main point was some people read to much into a book which wasn't intended. I mean with Tepper maybe just doesn't like homosexuality or maybe likes it. But how can one really read into something that is written that deeply.....the author will end up laughing at you. I might be wrong but that's my veiws. Jay ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 06:10:36 +0200 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jason Griffin Subject: Re: Reading "errors" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Nalo Hopkinson wrote: > > NH: This sounds pretty much like my trajectory too. I used to read to not > have to think, just look at pretty pitures in my mind's eye, but I > couldn't get away with that for long; the type of reading that I enjoy > exercises the mind; it *makes* you think, and I enjoy it. > > -nalo > > On Fri, 11 Apr 1997, Hope Cascio wrote: > > > In a message dated 97-04-09 18:55:18 EDT, you write: > > > > << People a book is to be enjoyed, have fun. When I read a book buy > > Margerat Weis I don't sit there thinking about why she wrote about > > something. >> > > > > I don't completely agree. I used to just read for pure pleasure and escapism, > > until I came to college and "learned how to interpret what I'm reading." At > > first it felt so artificial, but now I feel like I can get so much more out > > of something. I never could have attempted most poetry, for instance, before > > I learned to interpret, and now I can actually get something from Adrienne > > Rich. So it's a construct, but so's the literature. I can still read > > ocassionally for the escape, but I much prefer to read something I can think > > about later, like while I'm driving or doing the dishes. And I'll reread > > things I've enjoyed to see if there's more to it than the lovely escape. > > > > Hope Cascio > > > > "Starchild here. Put a glide in your stride, and a dip in your hip, and > come on over to the Mothership." > P-Funk, "Mothership Connection" I also read for mental stimulation but the point is people read too much into something in a book. They don't take it at it's face value. Jay ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 06:15:44 +0200 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jason Griffin Subject: Re: Reading "errors" for Joel MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joel VanLaven wrote: > > On Fri, 11 Apr 1997, Hope Cascio wrote: > > > In a message dated 97-04-09 18:55:18 EDT, you write: > > > > << People a book is to be enjoyed, have fun. When I read a book buy > > Margerat Weis I don't sit there thinking about why she wrote about > > something. >> > > > > I don't completely agree. I used to just read for pure pleasure and escapism, > > until I came to college and "learned how to interpret what I'm reading." At > > first it felt so artificial, but now I feel like I can get so much more out > > of something. I never could have attempted most poetry, for instance, before > > I learned to interpret, and now I can actually get something from Adrienne > > Rich. So it's a construct, but so's the literature. I can still read > > ocassionally for the escape, but I much prefer to read something I can think > > about later, like while I'm driving or doing the dishes. And I'll reread > > things I've enjoyed to see if there's more to it than the lovely escape. > > For me, I see the change from non-critical to critical thinking to be a > gradual one that sort of mirrors my evolutionary maturity. I think that > when I was younger I had so little experience and my mind was so empty > that I was ecstatic to fill it. I internalized what I read with an > astounding level of naivete and trust. Now it seems like I have a > respectable amount of stuff in my mind. So, simple ravenous > internalization is not adequate. My body of experience, ideas, and values > protects itself from being replaced. I still read to expand my thoughts, > self-image, and body of experience (one reason I love sci-fi and books > with main characters different than me e.g. a female protagonist) but in > order to keep in some semblance of unity of thought and being and to keep > from being cluttered, I must think longer and with more wariness than I > once did. I see the process as an ongoing continuous one. I just hope > that I never become anywhere close to "full". One thing I think I have > also noticed is that I must always weigh everything with that same > wariness, what I am reading and what I believe. So, reading can do > another thing for me. It can help me to examine myself. When I read a > book where "I" am a woman in a world populated completely by women that > really sings to me and "fits," in order to internalize it I must in some > ways reduce my self-image from a male to a human and I must somehow reduce > my image of humanity from a bipolar, hetero-sexist one to a more > gender-less one. (or do some other sort of hacking and/or rationalization) > > So, I read feminist science fiction for pleasure and in a sort of > spiritual search for self-actualization and enlightenment (they are > related). I do agree that often I don't think about why the author wrote > what they did. I often don't consider it that important to what something > means to me. To assume that all or even most meaning in a written work is > completely intended by the author is put the author at super-human levels. > I do greatly admire many authors (especially my favorites) but not that > much. > > -- Joel VanLaven I must say I like your anwser Joel. Interesting and well thought out but my statement was for the point that sometimes people just read too much into a book. So I'm saying think but don't go too deep as one then tends to go into a complete realm of speculation of which an author might not have intended. Jay ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 13:26:35 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Harman Subject: Re: Reading "errors" For an interesting take on this, read "Night Woman" by Nancy Price. Though not science fiction, or speculative fiction (depending on which appelation you prefer), it is certainly feminist and a great read. The protagonist of the story, out of necessity in order to support herself and her children, writes her husband's novels for him. He is completely insane, but believes he is doing the writing and that she is only "assisting" him. She is confronted on an almost daily basis with interpretations of "his" novels in relation to his mental disorder (which is a well-known fact). I don't want to tell the remainder of the plot, but suffice to say it is extremely interesting and strongly feminist, and can be read as a direct caution by a writer against over-interpretation. I also recommend, by the same author, "An Accomplished Woman." Barbara ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 17:14:54 BST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: farah mendlesohn Subject: Re: Reading "errors" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII For me it is not so much reading not to think but what one thinks about. I do not find thinking about form terribly exciting, but if I didn't want to think about ideas, I certainly wouldn't read sf (hence after a hard day I am reading a romance). Farah Mendleson On Fri, 11 Apr 1997 12:57:52 -0400 Nalo Hopkinson wrote: > > NH: This sounds pretty much like my trajectory too. I used to read to not > have to think, just look at pretty pitures in my mind's eye, but I > couldn't get away with that for long; the type of reading that I enjoy > exercises the mind; it *makes* you think, and I enjoy it. > > -nalo > > On Fri, 11 Apr 1997, Hope Cascio wrote: > > > In a message dated 97-04-09 18:55:18 EDT, you write: > > > > << People a book is to be enjoyed, have fun. When I read a book buy > > Margerat Weis I don't sit there thinking about why she wrote about > > something. >> > > > > I don't completely agree. I used to just read for pure pleasure and escapism, > > until I came to college and "learned how to interpret what I'm reading." At > > first it felt so artificial, but now I feel like I can get so much more out > > of something. I never could have attempted most poetry, for instance, before > > I learned to interpret, and now I can actually get something from Adrienne > > Rich. So it's a construct, but so's the literature. I can still read > > ocassionally for the escape, but I much prefer to read something I can think > > about later, like while I'm driving or doing the dishes. And I'll reread > > things I've enjoyed to see if there's more to it than the lovely escape. > > > > Hope Cascio > > > > "Starchild here. Put a glide in your stride, and a dip in your hip, and > come on over to the Mothership." > P-Funk, "Mothership Connection" ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 16:46:23 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: _Parable of the Sower_ Hi, Yes, I see your point about waiting for something bad to happen to Lauren and/or members of her following, and the tension I felt through this part of the novel till the end was not satisfying in this regard...guess the way to put it is she promised the reader through the way she set up the first part of the novel via the displays of violence in the streets outside of their neighborhood, to mean that sometime the protagonists and/or the minor characters would suffer some sort of hardship and perhaps lose their lives or come very close to it and this did not materialize. I am reading Butler's other works as background material for the work I will be doing with her Parable book, and I found Clay's Ark to contain more twists and turns so to speak than Parable of the Sower displayed. Jo Ann Rangel ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 16:56:31 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: Reading "errors" Hi Timmi, Very well said. I just wanted to add that this is so far in my few days participating in this mail-list to have been very gratifying in the realm of provoking thought. And lately I must add my thoughts need to be throttled some mornings when the task of analysis lies before me...ONWARD!!! heh heh :) Jo Ann Rangel ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 17:11:44 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_re:question Hi, As a professor in training...any suggestions for what type of literature courses Butler's works would be a good choice to explore? What came to mind immediately was perhaps a literature course dealing with gender issues, noting the way in Parable how the people in Lauren's immediate circle seem to hold to 1950ish values about society in such a time that displays the society to be so dystopian through deterioration that society. Any thoughts would be welcome Jo Ann Rangel ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 17:15:32 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: Reading "errors" Hi, Yes while the reason for reading literature is overall to be entertained, and to provide a means of mental escape(which since getting to university has been a relief in trying times), some of us trying to make a go in academia sometimes have to wear not only the pleasure reader hat, but also her critical skills hat. I understand what you are saying though. Sometimes the time constraints in academia make us forego the former hat in order to make sure the latter hat is on tight and the analysis accomplished in said amount of limited time. Jo Ann Rangel (dreaming of her two week lull when she may read at leisure again!!!!!!) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 17:48:03 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: Frankenstein book Hi, A suggestion for your second class topic about family....immediately The Female Man by Joanna Russ came to mind due to the description of the society in the future dimension which if I had the book nearby it is in storage at the moment, I could tell you the details. Perhaps someone else can remember the character from the future who comes back to the Depression that never ended time of the United states? >From what I remember the woman from the future is the "father" of a family in one of the towns back home on her planet, and she has a wife and several children. Jo Ann Rangel ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 17:59:44 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: Frankenstein book Hi, Jigsaw Woman would be a good Frankenstein counterpart in a moden context, but as much as the book entertained me, it does has some flaws structually from what I recall when I read it last year for pleasure. But for the subject as a companion to Frankenstein it would make a good selection. Jo Ann Rangel ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 13:41:17 +0200 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jason Griffin Subject: Re: Reading "errors" Fo Jo Ann rangel MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ---------- > From: Jo Ann Rangel > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > Subject: Re: Reading "errors" > Date: 13 April 1997 11:15 > > Hi, > > Yes while the reason for reading literature is overall to be entertained, and > to provide a means of mental escape(which since getting to university has > been a relief in trying times), some of us trying to make a go in academia > sometimes have to wear not only the pleasure reader hat, but also her > critical skills hat. I understand what you are saying though. Sometimes the > time constraints in academia make us forego the former hat in order to make > sure the latter hat is on tight and the analysis accomplished in said amount > of limited time. > > Jo Ann Rangel > (dreaming of her two week lull when she may read at leisure again!!!!!!) Wow I must say I'm really impressed with you. I must say I agree It is nice to read intellectually and for leasure. Buy the way I luved the metaphor about the hat. Jay ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 22:00:28 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: lissa bloomer Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_re:question Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jo Ann Rangel wrote: >Hi, > >As a professor in training...any suggestions for what type of literature >courses Butler's works would be a good choice to explore? What came to mind >immediately was perhaps a literature course dealing with gender issues, >noting the way in Parable how the people in Lauren's immediate circle seem to >hold to 1950ish values about society in such a time that displays the society >to be so dystopian through deterioration that society. > >Any thoughts would be welcome > >Jo Ann Rangel aloha, jo ann. i have taught _Kindred_ a couple of times and had super super classes and papers on it. the story revolves around a young black woman in the 1970's who is pulled back into the time of slavery. there, she becomes a strange caregiver to her master's son... who, by the way of rape, is her great grandfather. the book opens the eyes to gender issues as well as the horrors of american history that so many young college students quickly dismiss as a thing of the past. butler, showing that this woman is intricately woven CONSTANTLY to her family's past, illustrates how we can't simply shirk history on the basis that "we weren't there" or "we didn't do it..." in the beginniig of the text, there's a very good critical essay by Robert Crossley... i think it's simply called "Introduction"... i've used this essay as a way to show students how one uses quoted material, how one can use a good annotated bibliography... plus, when i help the students begin to juggle 3 voices (their own, the text's, and a secondary source), i have the students use the Crossley essay and _Kindred_ as a nice introductory exercise. certainly NOT utopic... but Butler did call her book a "grim fantasy" -- rather than sci-fi... and Crossley wrote -- it's certainly NOT escapist. i'd love to know what you think if you read it and/or use it. -lissa bloomer if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. elisabeth bloomer instructor, english virginia tech ebloomer@vt.edu 540.231.2445 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 22:16:58 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: lissa bloomer Subject: Re: critical reading and island breezes Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hey all: a couple of years ago, one of my students (in my sci-fi class)(taught during summer school) blurted out, "why can't we just read this stuff for fun???!!!" i had to keep my cool, and restrain fantastical thoughts of a mac10convertedsemiautomaticmachinegun. i wanted to ask this person why the hell was she in college? instead, i'm happy to share, i tried to answer as best as possible... but i don't think i made a bit of difference, because, like several of you have written, it's a thing that takes time... maturity, interest, growing into the kind of critical lense one wishes to explore... what i did,as usual, was draw weird pictures on the blackboard. i drew the side cut of an island and suggested that when we read for fun, for entertainment only, we are only appreciating what is on the surface. (then, i dramatically drew the huge mass of land that triangulated out from the bottom of the island, under the little loopy waves.) i suggested that this island was built over layer and layer of super thoughts, sociohistorical implications, other texts, ideas, ideas, ideas. if we want to achieve a deep reading, we must dig or dive. hanging out on the island is great for a tan and the air and the nice breeze and the balmy whisper of the little palm tree (that is also drawn there in "little princian style").. but after a while, i'd imagine it'd get pretty darn boring. plus, there's that awful possibility of a wicked sunburn. ciao, lissa bloomer if you're wearing pants, thank my great great great grandmother. elisabeth bloomer instructor, english virginia tech ebloomer@vt.edu 540.231.2445 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 09:01:08 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Martha Bartter Subject: Re: Octavia Butler:_Parable of the Sower_re:question In-Reply-To: <970413170825_1951711798@emout18.mail.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 17:11 4/13/97 -0400, you wrote: >Hi, > >As a professor in training...any suggestions for what type of literature >courses Butler's works would be a good choice to explore? What came to mind >immediately was perhaps a literature course dealing with gender issues, >noting the way in Parable how the people in Lauren's immediate circle seem to >hold to 1950ish values about society in such a time that displays the society >to be so dystopian through deterioration that society. > >Any thoughts would be welcome > >Jo Ann Rangel > I used _Kindred_ to start off a "Survey of American Literature II" class... that's kind of post-Whitman to now in chronology. Went from _Kindred_ to _Huckleberry Finn_ -- the students enjoyed the introduction, and used it a lot to center all the Civil and Post-Civil war stuff. You don't have to create a "special" area for Butler, at least not that book. Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 14:42:26 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Tanya Wood Subject: The Female Man In-Reply-To: <970413174748_-932768925@emout05.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Jo-Ann, The name of the character is Janet, her wife is Vittoria, and Janet has absolutely no conception of "fatherhood" or indeed gender roles (until she visited Jeannine's depression era world, and Joanna's world which is roughly cognate with our own). Needless to say Janet gets a rude education! Also interesting from a family point of view is Jeannine's family, who can conceptualise J. only in terms of her male relationships.After all, Jeannine (if married) might one day get a kitchenette of her own. Russ gives a very biting, satirical analysis of "family values" while providing new models (still in the two parent mode through). Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time also reconceptualises ideas of the "family" by making reproduction technological. What do people think of Russ's conceptualisation of female subjectivity? One writer (Marilyn somebody, in her very good preface to the FM) suggested that the 4 J's together would constitute one unified female subject- an ideal which current conditions make impossible. Other critics see Russ as completely debunking any idea of stable subjectivity, utopian or otherwise. On the other hand, Russ's oxymoronic project to become a "female man" seems to reach towards females becoming human, suggesting (of course) that they are not human so far but also suggesting that humanity is something stable to be reached for. I find this book very hard to pin down (and hence extremely interesting). Tanya. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 14:29:48 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: The Female Man In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I taught The Female Man last semester in a course on science fiction and gender. Also did books or stories by LeGuin, Slonczewski, Bujold, Charnas, Arnason, Tiptree, Heinlein, Piercy, Griffith, C.L.Moore, McCaffrey, Delany, etc. Of all the stories we read, The Female Man was clearly the least successful, at least in terms of class participation. Most of the students hated it and/or were totally confused by it. In part this was simply because the novel is complex and hard to follow, but many felt that it was dated, that too many of its literary and historical allusions were obscure because they were so clearly tied to the 60s and 70s. I'd be interested to hear from others who have taught this book. Did you have a similar experience? Did you find successful avenues into the text? It might be worth mentioning that in a poll conducted at the end of the class the most popular stories were 1) McCaffrey's "The Ship Who Sang," 2) Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time, 3) Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, 4 LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness, and 5) Griffith's Ammonite tied with Bujold's Ethan of Athos. The McCaffrey and Heinlein stories, of course, were in there to show old-fashioned, sexist attitudes. Surprise! The least popular stories were 1)The Female Man, 2)Tiptree's "The Women Men Don't See," 3) Slonczewski's Door into Ocean, and 4) Arnason's Warlord of Saturn's Moons. The class, by the way, was about 1/2 women's studies majors and 75% female. Mike Michael M. Levy levym@uwstout.edu Department of English levymm@uwec.edu University of Wisconsin-Stout off. ph: 715-834-6533 Menomonie, WI 54751 hm. ph: 715-834-6533 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 14:22:49 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: Re: The Female Man -- ranked low Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Can I be depressed now? Reminds me of my best friend in college who quit her WS class because she felt "attacked." > >The class, by the way, was about 1/2 women's studies majors and 75% >female. How far into the future will we need to go to loose our awareness and absorbtion of "traditional" M/F roles? Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 17:44:00 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Hope Cascio Subject: Re: "Cocoon" I know I must have read this one: remind me of the plot of Greg Egan's "Cocoon"? Hope ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 18:13:37 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Hope Cascio Subject: Re: Frankenstein book Lissa, There's a really interesting family in "Geek Love" by Katherine Dunn. Not strictly sf, more like fantasy. About a carnival family that breeds its own sideshow freaks. The family dynamics, politics, expressions of religion and familial duty, are all incredibly interesting. Hope =========================================================================