========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 03:36:48 -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: what students read and what should we teach? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NH: Geez. I don't know that I could teach at all, not this stuff (used to teach aerobics, but somehow that's different, y'know? :) ). I'm only theorizing here, but I think I would hide a little, only teach work for its fem or race or language or whatever content in courses that specifically stated that as an objective. That way I'd have students who were there because they're interested. For more general courses, I'd probably still teach works about which I was passionate, but try to--and I don't even know if one can do this--cull the discussion out of whatever aspects of the work the students themselves found worthy of comment. I think that if I knew there would be resistance, I might try teaching short stories. A quick read so the students wouldn't be facing 300 pages of something they think they're sure to hate. I might also try to use what they're already reading to pull out the type of discussion that gets them thinking. Imagine a feminist take on _Jurassic Park!_ I might try different formats; for instance, I love the comic "Love and Rockets." I think younger people (I'm 36) would relate to the underground, teen-as-outsider feel of it, and while you're relating to that, you can't help but also think about the issues of sexuality it raises (the main characters are bi); you can't help but suck up something of the Latino perspective from which it's written. I might try to haul a vcr or a film projector into class and show some of the more underground, independent stuff, or do a class on the 'Alien' movies. And if they hated the things I loved, I think I would back off snail-like and go show them to someone who did love them. My friends all tend to be extremely bookish, though not necessarily about the same books that I am. And I think that ultimately, my passion for the work would only catch fire with a tiny group of students each year. But hell, maybe they'd remember the song and dance act with the vcr and the comics fondly, and maybe its effects would filter into their lives in unconscious ways. -nalo On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote: > in response to nalo -- and also a bunch of other stuff: > > eye-yi-yi. i have so much reading to do. egads. i've never heard of -Bone > Dance- so i'll give it a try. you know, this sounds really really really > terrible, and i promised myself 7 years ago when i first started teaching > that if i ever muttered the words i should quit immediately..........but... > here are the words... i'm beginning to tire of trying fem works in a > freshman comp class. i'm not complaining - i love my job and the students > -- i think i'm obsessively worrying as constructive procrastination since i > have papers to grade. however, it's just that it's first of all damaging to > my own persona, since it's hard to teach books that are so close to home, > so personal, and so religiously a part of my core beliefs. ya know? it's > hard for me to distance. for example, i used marilyn robinson's > _Housekeeping_ (which Marlene Barr would certainly call "feminist > fabulation", since Ruth and Sylvie both leave ((transcend)) the patriarchal > world for another) in 1105, and felt quite emotionally drained. i wanted > them all to love it as much as me, and when some didn't, it hurt. i want to > use _Momaday_ in a class, but i'm not sure i can well. there are, maybe, > 20 books that i'm not sure i could ever use in a classroom because they are > so close to me. (the kind of books that i want to match the paint of the > covers to paint my bedroom... the kind of books that smell of the bottom of > my sachel...) and, strangely enough, most, if not all, of these books are > feminist and of the sf ilk. and the more i read, the more i find i cannot > share in the freshman english classroom. too scared? yes. and it sucks. > that i have to, as nalo says, "bait and switch" is terrible. that if i use > Ursula Le Guin's "Carrier Bag of Fiction" in the classroom and then am > assumed a male-hating-radical-feminist-who > is-going-to-automatically-fail-all-men is too. > > how does one teach a feminist sci fi book????? how does one teach a book > that one loves without going insane? (( i know the "one should only teach > the books that one loves so that one will be motivated" answer... and i > know the "jesus, get some distance" answer.... and i know the "you must > share all the books, you selfish geek" answer....and the "you should be > teaching an optional class in an arts program" answer...and the "you need > to go pay for your voice and get your damn phd" answer...)) > > could you share your "delaney shelf" with anyone? ((and did you write that > you HEARD him SAY something? wow. did you meet him?))((Le Guin and Delany > are gods.)) > > > -lissa bloomer > > > > > > if you're not wearing pants, it's time to go home. > > elisabeth bloomer > instructor, english > virginia tech > ebloomer@vt.edu > 540.231.2445 > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 08:41:53 -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: Re: SF and Translation In-Reply-To: <199704211307.JAA09026@rizzo.infobahnos.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hi! On Mon, 21 Apr 1997, Sheryl Curtis wrote: > What I would like to know is if > any of you could give me authors and titles which would be appropriate. If > the material is feminist it would be even better, since the large majority > of translation students and translators are also women. Anyway, any help > will be appreciated. 1) for a very intriguing account of translation abd the problems involved in such a process you may check several titles by stanislaw lem ("solaris"; "fiasco"; some short stories), but i truly recommend you his "his master's voice". the book is about a group of scientists trying to crack a supposed message from the stars - the stretegies for making sense of the unknown are astonishing, and lem' s discussions / raves are, for me at least, always rewarding. also, you might want to take a look at delany' s "babel-17" - the story is about a poet / translator / interpreter, and delany' s discussion of whorfian themes in a space opera setting are an accomplishment (this novel keeps being one of my favorite among delany' s). there' s a sh by tiptree also, but i forgot its name... please reply me privately if you want me to check it for you. best Antonio Marcos Pereira ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 13:17:34 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edward James Subject: Re: Barr's works In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII" In answer to the query about Barr's whereabouts. . . I saw her in LOndon and Reading a couple of months back, on her way through from visiting professorship in Innsbruck to visitiing professorship in Cape Town (where she now is). I do not think she has her Virginia Tech job any more. . . Edward .............................................................................. Professor Edward James, Dept of History, Faculty of Letters and Social Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, READING RG6 6AA, UK http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~lhsjamse/home.htm Editor: FOUNDATION: THE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION Joint Editor: EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE .............................................................................. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 11:00:26 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Neil Rest Subject: Re: Barr's works In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>You might be interested in the essay "Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea: >>Rescuing the Damaged Child"which appeared in the January 1997 issue of The >>New York Review of SF. It was written by Sandra Lindow (who I have the great >>good fortune to be married to) and it discusses some of the connections >>between Le Guin's carrier bag theory, Carol Gilligan's theories of moral >>development, Le Guin's frequent use of child abuse in her fiction, and >>her attitudes towards abortion. > >woweee!!! sounds totally incredibly what i need to find. i need to hunt it >down and bag it. ha. NYRSF is on the Web. I'm not sure how much of the total published sccumulation is available. They're way cool in general; you may want to subscribe. (Oh, and check the letters following the piece on LeGuin; there's some reasonable stuff about balancing emphasis of the cited sources.) Neil Rest ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 17:56:06 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: feminist utopia/dystopia Comments: To: Emily@exo.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sat, 19 Apr 1997 10:06:00 -0800 Emily Hackbarth wrote: > > Apologies to anyone on the SFRA list as well who has already heard > > this. Le Guin's The Dispossesses is not a feminist utopia. Instead, > > it is a classic "when the revolution comes everything will be ok > > dearie". It is quite sexist and from a radical feminist point of > > view could be seen as ignoring the real difficulties in favour of > > trivial wrangling between masculinists. > > > > Farah > > > > Care to elaborate? > > Emily Hackbarth > emily@exo.com > http://exo.com/~emily/beadworker.html > "In a sheet of paper is contained the infinite." > Lu Chi Unfortunately, with great pleasure. The Dispossessed is set in a kibbutz like society (talk to some kibbutzim some day, many of the kibbutz are very patriarchal). The social debate is the classic one about can utopia cope and nurture the individual and the creative force; the creative force being defined as the desire to work as an individual not a team, with the need to lock oneself away from all distractions -- a classically male definition of creativity which wants to see individual genius not collective endeavour. We see much the same debate in Star Trek: This Side of Paradise. The argument usually runs that a peaceful world cannot be a creative world. Le Guin may later try to feminise the ideology by going back to the founder, but my sense is still a very masculinist ideology underlying it all which associats conflict with creativity. The bit in the story which really annoyed me was the stuff about child care. Shevek's mother is made to seem neglectful for leaving her child in a creche whilst she goes off to pursue her career. His father is given no such guilt trip for doing the same thing, and neither is Shevek who is happy to abandon his child to the care of his wife assuming that she will be happy with this arrangment. In addition, one of the *implied* faults of this utopia is its lack of beauty (it *is* a harsh world) but the loss seems to be focussed on the loss of feminity. Why? What was LeGuin trying to say? In the end, Shevek's wife (and I apologise deeply for not being able to remember her name, but she is *so* colourless) is subsumed beneath the personality and creativity of the great man. I can't see much difference for women before or after the revolution. Farah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:01:31 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: critical reading and island breezes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sat, 19 Apr 1997 15:34:15 -0500 Michael Marc Levy wrote: > Between them, Slonczewski and Moffett are sort of a two woman Quaker SF > sub-genre all by themselves, aren't they. Yes, we talked aobut > Slonczewski's Quakerism, and I brought in a colleague of mine who is a > Quaker (also a Zen Buddhist and a Jew simultaneously, but that's another > story) to discuss Quakerism and its rather successful history of passive > resistance. > > My favorite scene in Slonczewski's books, by the way, occurs in The Wall > Around Eden. In it a biker gang bent on trouble breaks into a church where a > group of Quakers are holding a meeting. By chance a severely retarded > young woman is standing near the back door holding a baby and, when the > bikers break in, she hands the baby to the head bad guy who's so totally > freaked out by the baby and not knowing what to do with it that it > totally defuses the dangerus situation. I don't know how believable the > scene is, but it works just great in the book. > I had forgotten this scene, but it is a classic piece of Quaker resistance. Don't just say "No", find something else to do. I know that this is a feminist discussion group but my passion is for pacifist fiction. Does anybody have more suggestions? My first two sf books when I was twelve were Brian Stableford's The Florians and Joe Haldeman's All My Sins Remembered, both with strong messages about the need to say no. > Farah, I wish I'd been able to take your history courses as history minor. > All we got to read were G.R. Elton, C.V. Wedgewood, Trevor-Roper and the like. > > Mike Levy ] Thanks for the complement! Today I found myself trying to explain a section from The Wanderground (not a book I like too much) to a group working on the American City. It took a while, but we got there. Farah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:06:12 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: Utopia/Dystopia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sat, 19 Apr 1997 21:14:02 -0400 Hope Cascio wrote: > From: Hope Cascio > > In a message dated 97-04-19 10:26:55 EDT, you write: > > << The Utopias conversation will go around in circles as long as we do > not ask, Utopia for whom? >> > > Mike Resnick's Kirinyaga stories illustrate your question. Kirinyaga is an > engineered planet for a traditional Kenyan utopia. Problem is, it's not > utopic for some people who live there, such as a little girl who is forbidden > access to education. > > Hope Cascio Thank you, another one for my reading pile! Farah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:11:04 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: feminist utopia/dystopia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sun, 20 Apr 1997 10:49:58 -0500 Heather Whipple wrote: > I am not on the SFRA list and don't know what was discussed there (are > many people on both lists? Is repetition a problem?) so I echo Emily's > request to Farrah for elaboration on the statement that _The Dispossessed_ > is unequivocally NOT feminist. While I wouldn't say it is a perfect > feminist utopia, it does question some sexist assumptions. It is > primarily interested in exploring anarchy and not feminism, but this comes > back to the point I raised in my earlier post, that it is not a simple > thing to determine what is feminist and what isn't (i.e. seems to me that > anarchy and some feminisms share some common goals). The book's subtitle, > "An Ambiguous Utopia," suggests that what may be revolutionary (or > feminist), for one person/planet may not be for another--as well as > addressing up front (so to speak) that it might not be utopia at all. > > TD explores structures of power, and while it also contains some > essentialism and does also portray a sexist society, I would still argue > that that focus on power relations and property politics does make it at > least partly feminist. I certainly don't see that Le Guin believes "when > the revolution comes everything will be ok"; her point is exactly the > opposite--that revolution needs to be an on-going process. The problems > on Anarres are precisely *because* people have become complacent. > > *************** > Heather Whipple > hwhipple@script.lib.indiana.edu My point is not that The Dispossessed has no feminist elements, but that it is not a feminist utopia. I still feel tho' that Le Guin speculates very poorly where women are concerned and that whilst I admire her work, she is very behindhand in this area compared to even many male writers. It simply isn't her strong point: she tends to take up others' ideas and use them well, but her political strengths are elsewhere. farah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:15:39 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: The Female Man & critical reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sun, 20 Apr 1997 14:57:19 -0500 lissa bloomer wrote: what is it, for you, (et al), that changes in a text > when you read for an assignment? > > -lissa > > > An interesting question, followed by why, when asked to review a book, do I sometimes go off the idea of reading it? Some of it I think is just the human reaction to being made to do something. Increasingly I try to let one essay a semester be a totally free choice, and I am always amazed by how creative some (not all) of my students can be. This year students asked to write about a pice of "religious" fiction have ranged from What Katy Did to Stranger in A Strange Land. Last year a student on my American City course used the game Sim City to explain town planning regs. Sometimes freeedom--if directed--can be helpful. Farah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:18:47 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: Barr's works MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sun, 20 Apr 1997 16:17:58 -0500 lissa bloomer wrote: > hi all: > > when i first joined this list, i joined it to find out about what i should > read. i have been reading and reading and reading.. and (no one in my > family knows yet, thank goodness) have spent most (if not all, as of this > morning) of my tax returns (big because of the december birth) on the sci > fi books that you all suggested. > > thus, i blame you all for my current economic status. > > however, i had to stop reading new texts to learn the questions. i found > two books by a former teacher, here at Va Tech: Marlene Barr. the texts: > _Lost in Space_ and _Feminist Fabulation_. > > i read them both, and now have fresh, inquisitive eyes to use when i return > to the fiction. > > my questions to you all are: has anyone else out there read Barr's books? > thoughts? > > and.... does anyone know where she went? i knew her for a whopping 2 > months, fell in love with her way of thinking, and *poof* she was outtahere > before i ever read her fantastic essays, hopefully she's not lost in > space. i'd love to talk to her about these essays. > > -lissa bloomer > > > > Last heard of, Marleen was in Austria. She isn't too thrilled with Virginia I gather, Farah. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:22:14 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: What do (student) readers want (or need)-- long MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII I really liked Timmi's comments (I cut them here simply because they were so long). The list very much corresponded to my reading history. What I only became aware of in my twenties, was how much my expression of my sexuality was shaped by what I had read in sf. Farah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:22:46 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: critical reading and island breezesRE: my own take on this MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sun, 20 Apr 1997 18:50:35 -0400 Nalo Hopkinson wrote: > > Lissa, for the record, I took your post as an expression of frustration, but > was mindful that it was not something you had said aloud to your > student. So no offense taken here. > > -nalo Ibid. Farah. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:25:27 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: critical reading and island breezes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sun, 20 Apr 1997 21:48:37 -0400 Joel VanLaven wrote: > > > i also find it a bit odd that more students at this big ol' technical > > university are not more into sf. ideas? one of my collegues suggests the > > old addage/idea: math is for boys, and reading is for girls. yechchchch. > > (so fem sf should be for everyone, under that ol stereotype, eh?) > > Yech indeed. It boggles my mind how this could be the case, even if > only in a societal context. Unfortunately, I see this often enough in my > own life. I just joined a sci-fi reading group at the local Borders. > There were three women, me, and the man that worked there that was in > charge of the group. Note that this was sci-fi in general, not even > feminist sci-fi. It seemes that one societal imbalance (women in > groups) overcame another (men and sci-fi). > > Perhaps that adage should be more like: reading is NOT for boys and math > is NOT for girls, so feminist sci-fi is for NO traditional people. > > -- Joel VanLaven I don't know what the figures look like in the US, but in the UK there is currently mass panic in some quarters because girls are now beating boys in the maths and science exams taken at 18 years old. And guess what, the rhetoric is *not* about how wonderful it is that girls are doing so well! Only a few more years to wait and it should all be filtering through to the colleges. Farah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:30:47 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: SF and Translation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Sheryl, could you clarify what appropriate would look like? Do you mean subject matter, length or style? Farah. On Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:07:29 -0400 Sheryl Curtis wrote: > From: Sheryl Curtis > Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:07:29 -0400 > Subject: SF and Translation > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > Hi: > > I'm fairly new to the list and although I enjoy reading you all, I don't > have much time to post. Now I'd like your help. I teach French to English > translation part-time at Concordia University. The course I generally teach > is the introductory course, so there is little focus on translation theory > or history, which is covered in other courses. In addition to the practical > work we do in the course, I generally make my students read one book on > translation theory. I have been thinking of trying something new next fall > and having them read science fiction books or short stories which discuss > translation. I am familiar with the first two Native tongue books and I > believe I read on this list a couple of weeks that there is a third one, for > which I would be grateful for a reference. What I would like to know is if > any of you could give me authors and titles which would be appropriate. If > the material is feminist it would be even better, since the large majority > of translation students and translators are also women. Anyway, any help > will be appreciated. > > Sheryl C. > Montreal, Quebec ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:36:10 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: Barr's works MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:55:48 -0500 lissa bloomer wrote: > From: lissa bloomer > Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:55:48 -0500 > Subject: Re: Barr's works > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > Mike Levy wrote of M. Barr: > > >She's a fine critic, though I wish she were a better prose stylist. > > > > hmm. well, she's a bit hard to follow, but after her 3rd essay, i found i > began to think like her writing. (eek?) i'm thinking that she may write > less linear than writers of the past. helene cixous suggests that many > women writers write cyclically and loopy --- curvy, if you will, which > mirrors our body consciousness. i like this idea! (though it suggests some > major problems, i know.) > > can you suggest another fem sci fi critic that works as a better prose stylist? > > -lissa bloomer > > Joanna Russ and Sarah Lefanu also see an article by Amanda Boulter on James Tiptree Jr. in a recent issue of Foundation. One of the best pieces of feminist sf criticism I have read in a while. Farah. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:34:43 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: what do students read? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:47:28 -0500 lissa bloomer wrote: > > >NH: Do you know what they do read? > > hi nalo et al, > in my questionnaire/contract i ask my students (freshpersons) what they > read... usually in a class of 25, 5 have never read a novel all the way > through, 15 of them (all young men) read Stephen King, Tom Clancy, and > Michael Crichton... and the young women (the 7-10 -- women are a minority > still here, though not by much) usually report texts that they read as > assignments (Hamlet, Macbeth, Jane Eyre, 1984, Scarlet Letter.... canon > stuff). of 25, about 5 seem to be avid readers. by the end of the semester, > i think i have changed that -- perhaps my proudest aspect of teaching. > > if i'm lucky, i'll get one student who has read sci-fi. and it's usually a > young male who reads Heinlein. (one of whom introduced me to the works of > Giger -- the artist for the movie "Alien")(perhaps the only visual artist > who could be labelled science fiction feminist???)(anyone know of > others???) > > i wish wish wish i had more students who came to the class as avid > readers-- and sci-fi readers. it's one of my goals to change this. > > -lissa bloomer > > > These days I find I am lucky if they have ever heard of Heinlein (the only one recently was a student who wanted to write on sf writers perceptions of the city and whose only suggestion was Heinlein -- I encouraged him to find another topic). William Gibson and Philip K. Dick are the most common, but most talk about tv. sf and I am starting to build a small Babylon 5 fan group amongst my students. (Plug time -- if anyone is interested, I am running a conference on Babylon 5, 13 and 14 December 1997 in York England, contact me off the list if you are interested). In Britain, if all else fails, mention Terry Pratchett. I realise he is not so popular in the states, but here students apply to college saying that they like reading "Jane Austen/Thomas Hardy *and* Terry Pratchett". You just know what were the set authors this year. Farah > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 14:38:26 -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: dissertations / papers on tiptree In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hi! 1) is there anyone out there who has written dissertations / papers on tiptree? could any of you who have done so plese get in touch with me via private email? thanks a lot, Antonio Marcos Pereira ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:49:36 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: what do students read? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Mon, 21 Apr 1997 22:54:53 -0400 Nalo Hopkinson wrote: > types.) Kim Stanley Robinson's _Pacific Edge._ I haven't read the rest > of the trilogy, and I don't know what the hell I'm waiting for. I find > his sheer wordcraft enchanting, and for the rest, (pace anyone whose > descriptions might be more accurate than mine) it's an eco-conscious > novel that paints the universe in a drop of water by detailing the > personal and political conflicts amongst the members of a small town > council in a utopic (California? I learned a different geography than > American). Sounds dry, but it's juicy. And, I think, humanist--is that > a word?--in that it speaks to feminism, and looks at ageism and sizeism Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy isn't chronological. The other two are dystopic alternative universes. (check bookshel for titles -- sorry). Farah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:57:39 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: what students read and what should we teach? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Tue, 22 Apr 1997 00:46:43 -0500 lissa bloomer wrote: > From: lissa bloomer > Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 00:46:43 -0500 > Subject: what students read and what should we teach? > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > in response to nalo -- and also a bunch of other stuff: > > eye-yi-yi. i have so much reading to do. egads. i've never heard of -Bone > Dance- so i'll give it a try. you know, this sounds really really really > terrible, and i promised myself 7 years ago when i first started teaching > that if i ever muttered the words i should quit immediately..........but... > here are the words... i'm beginning to tire of trying fem works in a > freshman comp class. i'm not complaining - i love my job and the students > -- i think i'm obsessively worrying as constructive procrastination since i > have papers to grade. however, it's just that it's first of all damaging to > my own persona, since it's hard to teach books that are so close to home, > so personal, and so religiously a part of my core beliefs. ya know? it's > hard for me to distance. for example, i used marilyn robinson's > _Housekeeping_ (which Marlene Barr would certainly call "feminist > fabulation", since Ruth and Sylvie both leave ((transcend)) the patriarchal > world for another) in 1105, and felt quite emotionally drained. i wanted > them all to love it as much as me, and when some didn't, it hurt. i want to > use _Momaday_ in a class, but i'm not sure i can well. there are, maybe, > 20 books that i'm not sure i could ever use in a classroom because they are > so close to me. (the kind of books that i want to match the paint of the > covers to paint my bedroom... the kind of books that smell of the bottom of > my sachel...) and, strangely enough, most, if not all, of these books are > feminist and of the sf ilk. and the more i read, the more i find i cannot > share in the freshman english classroom. too scared? yes. and it sucks. > that i have to, as nalo says, "bait and switch" is terrible. that if i use > Ursula Le Guin's "Carrier Bag of Fiction" in the classroom and then am > assumed a male-hating-radical-feminist-who > is-going-to-automatically-fail-all-men is too. > > how does one teach a feminist sci fi book????? how does one teach a book > that one loves without going insane? (( i know the "one should only teach > the books that one loves so that one will be motivated" answer... and i > know the "jesus, get some distance" answer.... and i know the "you must > share all the books, you selfish geek" answer....and the "you should be > teaching an optional class in an arts program" answer...and the "you need > to go pay for your voice and get your damn phd" answer...)) > > could you share your "delaney shelf" with anyone? ((and did you write that > you HEARD him SAY something? wow. did you meet him?))((Le Guin and Delany > are gods.)) > > > -lissa bloomer > > > I really do sympathise with the above, and it is not just feminism as such. My male colleagues think that teaching westerns is mainstream but teaching musicals would be feminine (Thoroughly Modern Millie is still one of the most popular films I have ever shown). I am currently having problems with a mature student. She is very good, very bright, but continuously saying that texts, both fiction and non-fiction are "too feminist". I keep pointing out that many other texts have other axes to grind but it is hard work. However, today I had an unexpected pleasure. As part of the course I am teaching on The American City, I set a passage from Sarah and Elizabeth Delany's Having Our Say. The class positively glowed... they loved the extract, both male and female students and have all bounced off to read more, and this despite the strong feminism that comes from both women in their different ways. Being told that they were related to Samuel Delany, whose short story they read the week before, sent some of them back to that. Sometimes it can really work. It is worth all the knocks. I currently have a third year student (in her fifties) who started off very hostile to feminism and has come to the point where she is reading feminist literature. The problem I think is not so much the freshman classes, but if you find yourself in a position where you are not teaching these students at a later date, so that one cannot either see or promote any change that may take place. Farah. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 18:58:53 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: Barr's works MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Tue, 22 Apr 1997 00:51:28 -0500 lissa bloomer wrote: > > if you're not wearing pants, it's time to go home. > Thank you, but I like my skirts, my make up and my long nails...why the insistence on yet *more conformity? Farah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 14:15:10 -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: teaching femsf was: what students read and what should we teach? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote: > how does one teach a feminist sci fi book????? how does one teach a book > that one loves without going insane? (( i know the "one should only teach > the books that one loves so that one will be motivated" answer... and i > know the "jesus, get some distance" answer.... and i know the "you must > share all the books, you selfish geek" answer....and the "you should be > teaching an optional class in an arts program" answer...and the "you need > to go pay for your voice and get your damn phd" answer...)) egads. I don't know. Might the feminist part of a feminist sf book just teach itself? I guess it depends on the book. In Butler's _Parable of the Sower_ I'd think you could talk about the play with gender roles without ever saying the word "feminist" (or perhaps "womanist" is more appropriate). But that response just plays to the preconception that feminist is a dirty word, despite the fact that most people--men and women--seem to agree with its basic premise of equality. I'm a teaching apprentice right now for a psychology of women course, though at a very liberal school with a lot of interested students enrolled in the class. It is still a concern, though, how to talk about the reality many women face--for example, today's topic was "wife abuse"--without seeming to demonize men or create a hostile environment for the men in the class. Suddenly the "science of psychology" (already a bit flimsy) seems utterly politicized--just as much feminist fiction seems to many to be too politicized to be good literature. So, for now, is it permissible and necessary to focus on the traditional criteria of good literature, and ignore the political components while including novels that span the political range? Might just their presence be enough to call the unstated ideologies of the other novels into the open--maybe thru character and plot comparisons? Or does that undermine the very novels that you are trying to present? As to teaching the books you love, Lissa, I can only share my experiences as a student. Generally, the professor's love is conveyed. Luckily, however, I have never had to take a course that I didn't choose--so perhaps I'd be one of your more receptive students rather than the hypothetical norm. I now share my professor's love and respect for Dante's Inferno, for example, which I probably never would have discovered on my own, nor understood even on the few surface levels that I now do. (sorry for the awful english!) But those professors also taught other books well, and perhaps more objectively. And, in the end, I value both aspects. The enthusiasm teaches me to love a text, and maybe a genre or field. The critical eye teaches me how to learn, how to read, how to judge. So I guess the perfect course, or at least the perfect education, would have both at various times. In any case, Lissa, please don't quit! A professor thinking about these kinds of things is the kind of professor I'd love to have. :) Andrea Klein ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 19:05:09 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: what students read and what should we teach? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Nalo's short story approach is the one I adopt. Very few of my students are literature specialists (we run two american studies strands, literature and history and for some unknown reason have trouble recruiting for the literature strand). I don't know if one has to have passion to teach. Sometimes I think things will be controversial, and they aren't and other times am really surprised by the shockability of my class. This term I have a group who have trouble uttering the word "prostitute". I have also found that, for me, what works once, is not guaranteed to work again. I have few "sure fire" winners to offer. However, I would suggest that if you are teaching sf as sf (rather than the way I do when it is simply interesting literature for a particular theme) I would recommend the first chapter of Edward James' Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century (Oxford Univ. Press) which talks about how to read sf. My class brought home to me today just how difficult it can be. I had totally forgottem Farah. On Tue, 22 Apr 1997 03:36:48 -0400 Nalo Hopkinson wrote: > From: Nalo Hopkinson > Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 03:36:48 -0400 > Subject: Re: what students read and what should we teach? > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > NH: Geez. I don't know that I could teach at all, not this stuff (used to > teach aerobics, but somehow that's different, y'know? :) ). I'm only > theorizing here, but I think I would hide a little, only teach work for > its fem or race or language or whatever content in courses that > specifically stated that as an objective. That way I'd have students who > were there because they're interested. For more general courses, I'd > probably still teach works about which I was passionate, but try to--and I > don't even know if one can do this--cull the discussion out of whatever > aspects of the work the students themselves found worthy of comment. I > think that if I knew there would be resistance, I might try teaching short > stories. A quick read so the students wouldn't be facing 300 pages of > something they think they're sure to hate. I might also try to use what > they're already reading to pull out the type of discussion that gets them > thinking. Imagine a feminist take on _Jurassic Park!_ I might try > different formats; for instance, I love the comic "Love and Rockets." I > think younger people (I'm 36) would relate to the underground, > teen-as-outsider feel of it, and while you're relating to that, you can't > help but also think about the issues of sexuality it raises (the main > characters are bi); you can't help but suck up something of the Latino > perspective from which it's written. I might try to haul a vcr or a film > projector into class and show some of the more underground, independent > stuff, or do a class on the 'Alien' movies. And if they hated the things > I loved, I think I would back off snail-like and go show them to someone > who did love them. My friends all tend to be extremely bookish, though > not necessarily about the same books that I am. And I think that > ultimately, my passion for the work would only catch fire with a tiny > group of students each year. But hell, maybe they'd remember the song and > dance act with the vcr and the comics fondly, and maybe its effects would > filter into their lives in unconscious ways. > > -nalo > > On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote: > > > in response to nalo -- and also a bunch of other stuff: > > > > eye-yi-yi. i have so much reading to do. egads. i've never heard of -Bone > > Dance- so i'll give it a try. you know, this sounds really really really > > terrible, and i promised myself 7 years ago when i first started teaching > > that if i ever muttered the words i should quit immediately..........but... > > here are the words... i'm beginning to tire of trying fem works in a > > freshman comp class. i'm not complaining - i love my job and the students > > -- i think i'm obsessively worrying as constructive procrastination since i > > have papers to grade. however, it's just that it's first of all damaging to > > my own persona, since it's hard to teach books that are so close to home, > > so personal, and so religiously a part of my core beliefs. ya know? it's > > hard for me to distance. for example, i used marilyn robinson's > > _Housekeeping_ (which Marlene Barr would certainly call "feminist > > fabulation", since Ruth and Sylvie both leave ((transcend)) the patriarchal > > world for another) in 1105, and felt quite emotionally drained. i wanted > > them all to love it as much as me, and when some didn't, it hurt. i want to > > use _Momaday_ in a class, but i'm not sure i can well. there are, maybe, > > 20 books that i'm not sure i could ever use in a classroom because they are > > so close to me. (the kind of books that i want to match the paint of the > > covers to paint my bedroom... the kind of books that smell of the bottom of > > my sachel...) and, strangely enough, most, if not all, of these books are > > feminist and of the sf ilk. and the more i read, the more i find i cannot > > share in the freshman english classroom. too scared? yes. and it sucks. > > that i have to, as nalo says, "bait and switch" is terrible. that if i use > > Ursula Le Guin's "Carrier Bag of Fiction" in the classroom and then am > > assumed a male-hating-radical-feminist-who > > is-going-to-automatically-fail-all-men is too. > > > > how does one teach a feminist sci fi book????? how does one teach a book > > that one loves without going insane? (( i know the "one should only teach > > the books that one loves so that one will be motivated" answer... and i > > know the "jesus, get some distance" answer.... and i know the "you must > > share all the books, you selfish geek" answer....and the "you should be > > teaching an optional class in an arts program" answer...and the "you need > > to go pay for your voice and get your damn phd" answer...)) > > > > could you share your "delaney shelf" with anyone? ((and did you write that > > you HEARD him SAY something? wow. did you meet him?))((Le Guin and Delany > > are gods.)) > > > > > > -lissa bloomer > > > > > > > > > > > > if you're not wearing pants, it's time to go home. > > > > elisabeth bloomer > > instructor, english > > virginia tech > > ebloomer@vt.edu > > 540.231.2445 > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 14:45:05 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sheryl Curtis Subject: Re: SF and Translation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Sheryl, > >could you clarify what appropriate would look like? Do you mean >subject matter, length or style? > >Farah. > > > Sorry about that. I guess by appropriate, I meant stuff dealing with translation as done by people and not some magical computer which manages to do everything flawlessly, but there's really no explanation as to how the thing got programmed. I'm also interested in material in which shows the conflicts which can arise when peoples not speaking the same language come into contact and how they deal with language issues. Native Tongue and the Lingster series look in part at the training of translators and that stuff is fine for my purpose since I am trying to show my students that bilingualism is just the first step towards becoming a translator. If there is any more material along those lines I would be interested in knowing about it. I guess I'm also interested in material on how ordinary people, as opposed to trained translators and language experts, deal with language barriers when they come into contact. Sorry if this sounds a little diorganized, I'm having a stressful day and am now off to take my 7-yr-old to the doctor. Thanks for any help. S. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 14:47:41 -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: Re: critical reading and island breezes In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > On Sun, 20 Apr 1997 21:48:37 -0400 Joel VanLaven wrote: > > Perhaps that adage should be more like: reading is NOT for boys > and math > > is NOT for girls, so feminist sci-fi is for NO traditional people. > > > > -- Joel VanLaven > > > I don't know what the figures look like in the US, but in the UK there is > currently mass panic in some quarters because girls are now beating > boys in the maths and science exams taken at 18 years old. And > guess what, the rhetoric is *not* about how wonderful it is that girls > are doing so well! Only a few more years to wait and it should all be > filtering through to the colleges. > > Farah > Wish I had the stats, but apparently here in the US girls DO do better in high school math in terms of grades--girls have better GPAs generally--but still trail in the SATs. (For non-USers, the SATs are used as one of our main predictors for college success.) Amidst the constant debate over the validity of the SATs, the verbal section (as well as the math) keeps being reviewed for biases--ethnic, gender, class, whatever. In addition to other changes, the verbal section was revised to include more scientific readings in the reading comprehension in an attempt to equalize the genders (girls were and still do score higher, but the scores are now closer). I'm not sure what went/goes on with the math-section discussion--might it be gender-biased? I don't know. The above info comes from Matlin's psyc of women text. It might be loaded, I don't know. No better way to lie than with statistics. Hedges & Nowell (1995) assessed test scores b/n 1971 and 1992 and found that in large-scale surveys, high school boys score on average higher on the math sections, and/but show more variability in scores--that is, there are more males than females at both the high end of the spectrum and the low end. One limitation of Hedges & Nowell's approach is that the scores from the earlier years would be recording students who were not required to take a certain number of math classes. In 1970, Sells found that high schools were serving as a "critical filter," keeping many women from careers in math and science by not requiring math courses, rendering more women than men (who opted to continue the math) ineligible for college math and science (50% of Berkeley men had 4yrs of HS math, 8% of women). Thus, the girls in the earlier studies might have been less prepared for the tests--and the tests then reflected experience not ability. So, I don't know if the gender gap in math scores is narrowing or not, I'd presume it is. It definately is in terms of math and science courses in college. Anyway, sorry to be long-winded...thought some might be unfamiliar and interested. The point is simply that assumptions of biological differences are being questioned. Though that seems a redundant point to make to a feminist listserver. Andrea Klein ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:00:37 -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: Re: what students read and what should we teach? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, farah mendlesohn wrote: > The American City, I set a passage from Sarah and Elizabeth > Delany's Having Our Say. The class positively glowed... they loved > the extract, both male and female students and have all bounced off > to read more, and this despite the strong feminism that comes from > both women in their different ways. Being told that they were related > to Samuel Delany, whose short story they read the week before, sent > some of them back to that. Sometimes it can really work. I love Sadie and Bessie Delany too. _Having Our Say_ is beautifully done, mostly because it paints these women so fantastically. I had no idea they were related to Samuel Delany. How so? Andrea Klein ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:51:22 -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: teaching femsf was: what students read and what should we teach? In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Andrea L. Klein wrote: [snip] > I'm a teaching apprentice right now for a psychology of women course, > though at a very liberal school with a lot of interested students enrolled > in the class. It is still a concern, though, how to talk about the > reality many women face--for example, today's topic was "wife > abuse"--without seeming to demonize men or create a hostile environment > for the men in the class. Suddenly the "science of psychology" (already a > bit flimsy) seems utterly politicized--just as much feminist fiction seems > to many to be too politicized to be good literature. [snip] Only over-simplification demonizes men. I sincerely doubt that many rational, intelligent people think that all men are evil, violent, and misogynistic, however radical thier feminist viewpoint. It seems like many people are not able to handle anything more complicated than something like "Men are scum" or "Women aren't good at math." Even in _A_Door_Into_Ocean_ with it's all-female utopia, there were good men. (at least, I read it that way :). I think it is quite reasonable to isolate ourselves from the larger groups we are members of as long as we really truly take lessons learned from studies of the larger group and use them to work on ourselves as individuals. Women and men should be taught about ways in which women have become ensnared in the position of victim, and men have become victimizers in order that all can attempt to avoid being either part of such a relathionship and attempt to prevent such relationships in their society. As long as the teacher isn't sexist and/or over-simplifying (certainly doesn't sound like it in this case), if men take these things in an overly-simplistic way it is their own sexist and/or over-simplifying fault. So, in an open environment, I say go for it. If anyone takes it the "wrong way," deal with it and them then. In my opinion, they will need to learn to deal with complexity with openness and resilience anyway. In fact, I think that that is probably a better lesson to learn than almost any other. -- Joel VanLaven ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:26:49 -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: feminist utopia/dystopia In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 18:11 4/22/97 BST, you wrote: >On Sun, 20 Apr 1997 10:49:58 -0500 Heather Whipple wrote: >I echo Emily's >> request to Farrah for elaboration on the statement that _The >Dispossessed_ >> is unequivocally NOT feminist. While I wouldn't say it is a perfect >> feminist utopia, it does question some sexist assumptions. It is >> primarily interested in exploring anarchy and not feminism, but this >comes >> back to the point I raised in my earlier post, that it is not a simple >> thing to determine what is feminist and what isn't (i.e. seems to me >that >> anarchy and some feminisms share some common goals). The >book's subtitle, >> "An Ambiguous Utopia," suggests that what may be revolutionary >(or >> feminist), for one person/planet may not be for another--as well as >> addressing up front (so to speak) that it might not be utopia at all. >> >> TD explores structures of power, and while it also contains some >> essentialism and does also portray a sexist society, I would still >argue >> that that focus on power relations and property politics does make >it at >> least partly feminist. I certainly don't see that Le Guin believes >"when >> the revolution comes everything will be ok"; her point is exactly the >> opposite--that revolution needs to be an on-going process. The >problems >> on Anarres are precisely *because* people have become >complacent. >> >> *************** >> Heather Whipple >> hwhipple@script.lib.indiana.edu > > >My point is not that The Dispossessed has no feminist elements, but >that it is not a feminist utopia. I still feel tho' that Le Guin speculates >very poorly where women are concerned and that whilst I admire her >work, she is very behindhand in this area compared to even many >male writers. It simply isn't her strong point: she tends to take up >others' ideas and use them well, but her political strengths are >elsewhere. > >farah > I don't see _The Dispossessed_ as anyone's "utopia." Le Guin calls it "ambiguous," and I would agree. Certainly women don't get treated worse on Anarres than men do but men don't get treated very well. No individuality allowed (if it looks like a "propertarian" individuality). Very little humor. Conditions on Urras may be worse -- no one on Anarres starves unless they all do, for example, and the blatant antifeminism we see among the elite doesn't occur there either, but the rigidity of the thinking patterns and the demand that everyone conform to the collective ethic simply demonstrates the reverse of American individuality. And I think that's why Le Guin calls it "ambiguous." No extreme works very well -- we may be reaching the extreme of alienation that comes with individualism carried to the nth degree -- but the kind of collective pattern followed, say, in Japan or China, where "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down" is pretty hard on the non-conformists (and it doesn't take much to attain that designation). If we assume that a female utopia achieves gender equality in jobs and pay and respect and opportunity and general honor, then we must assume a utopia where motherhood (which is the woman's privilege) gets honored -- whether it's paid or not. So we can't call the US any kind of female utopia, no matter how much better things are for women than they were a few dozen years ago. If we insist that a female utopia allows women to treat men the way men have treated women for so long, we envision a reversal -- different in kind, but not in character -- from Le Guin's The Dispossessed. Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:31:10 -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: feminist utopia/dystopia In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 17:56 4/22/97 BST, you wrote: >On Sat, 19 Apr 1997 10:06:00 -0800 Emily Hackbarth wrote: > [snip] > >The bit in the story which really annoyed me was the stuff about child >care. Shevek's mother is made to seem neglectful for leaving her >child in a creche whilst she goes off to pursue her career. His father >is given no such guilt trip for doing the same thing, and neither is >Shevek who is happy to abandon his child to the care of his wife >assuming that she will be happy with this arrangment. > >In addition, one of the *implied* faults of this utopia is its lack of >beauty (it *is* a harsh world) but the loss seems to be focussed on >the loss of feminity. Why? What was LeGuin trying to say? > >In the end, Shevek's wife (and I apologise deeply for not being able >to remember her name, but she is *so* colourless) is subsumed >beneath the personality and creativity of the great man. I can't see >much difference for women before or after the revolution. > > >Farah > Takver -- I find her fascinating, and gave a paper on her once. I found, to my surprise, that at least one person in the audience saw her as a greedy (grease around the mouth) childlike person, with no personality. I saw her as a brave, vital, contributing member of the society -- who could say she had been wrong in a very important matter, and take long separations from Shevek when they became necessary. That's something I have experienced myself, and believe me, it's not easy, especially when you have full responsibility for the children. Yes, the kids are in a kibbutz-like situation, so she doesn't have to hold down a job AND do all the housework-baby-tending etc., but she DOES have to manage when everyone around her is shunning her and her kids, and giving them all a hard time. Utopia, indeed! And she does not give in under that kind of pressure, either. A brave strong woman. Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 13:43:34 -0800 Reply-To: Emily@exo.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Emily Hackbarth Organization: very little Subject: Re: SF and Translation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Sorry about that. I guess by appropriate, I meant stuff dealing > with translation as done by people and not some magical computer > which manages to do everything flawlessly, but there's really no > explanation as to how the thing got programmed. I'm also interested > in material in which shows the conflicts which can arise when > peoples not speaking the same language come into contact and how > they deal with language issues. Try _Hellspark_ by Janet Kagan. I know it's around here somewhere but I can't find it so here's what someone else had to say about it at amazon.com: "This book is one of my favorites. It is SO good, I wish there were many more books available by this author instead of only 1 or 2. It is one of the few books I know in a sub-genre of SF I think of as 'linguistic' fiction. Not only does this book introduce an interesting universe very unlike your run-of-the-mill galactic empire, but a whole host of unusual concepts and new ways of looking at the world as well as inter-personal relationships." And another one: "Kagan takes a hint of Uhura's Song -- when in Rome speak as the Roman's do -- and jumps off into a myriad of new cultures and belief systems. This work builds not just a new world, but a new universe, with all the little communication problems of today (body language, inflection, etc) and shows how important it can be to not just speak the language audibly, but also physically. At the same time, she tackles the question of "what is sentience?" One of my all time favorite books, one I've read again and again." What I do remember about it is that it's an awfully fun book with a very cool heroine. Emily Hackbarth emily@exo.com http://exo.com/~emily/beadworker.html "In a sheet of paper is contained the infinite." Lu Chi ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:56:41 CDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Mary Ann Beavis, IUS" Organization: The University of Winnipeg Subject: urban feminist utopias I am interested in any stories or interpretation dealing with feminist utopian visions of the city - does anyone know of any material in this area??? I would really appreciate your suggestions. Mary Ann Beavis Institute of Urban Studies The University of Winnipeg mary@coned.uwinnipeg.ca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:30:24 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Clarke girls Subject: Ursula LeGuin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi I was talking to an Anthropology grad student who like Ursula LeGuin because of the influences she got from her father who is a well-known Anthropologist... I didn't know this about her. Can anyone fill me in? Thanks Jacquie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 17:54:26 -0400 Reply-To: Joel VanLaven Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joel VanLaven Subject: Re: feminist utopia/dystopia In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.19970422152805.35779fba@academic.truman.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Martha Bartter wrote: [snip] > If we assume that a female utopia achieves gender equality in jobs and > pay and respect and opportunity and general honor, then we must assume > a utopia where motherhood (which is the woman's privilege) gets honored > -- whether it's paid or not. Really, motherhood is the woman's privilege? I will assume that you mean something more than just biological motherhood. Would you say that motherhood is also the woman's responsibility? Or, is it your opinion that women ought to have complete rights with respect to parenting and share the responsibility. I would like to suggest that that position is quite possibly very sexist. I would think that a society that really did honor parenting (I puposefully changed the wording) would probably restrict it to those best suited to it (like in herland) (of all sexes available). I would like to go on record here as having the opinion that women can take all the roles that men can and vice versa. In my opinion, women can be mathematicians, politicains, fathers, soldiers, sexist pigs, and rapists, just as men can be poets, feminists, mothers, pacificts, housewizes, and victims. We are all people. That overrides everything else. I will let no one, female, male, or other prevent me from raising children, cooking, sewing, knitting, reading what I want, to, playing with dolls, epsousing feminism, and so on, on the basis of my being male. When I even consider the possibility that I might be so restricted, my heart speeds up, I start breathing heavily, and my chest and throat constrict with agitation. Such activities have not been "honored" in the past. However, some of us rail at all restrictions and dividing distinctions. >... So we can't call the US any kind of female > utopia, no matter how much better things are for women than they were a > few dozen years ago. If we insist that a female utopia allows women to > treat men the way men have treated women for so long, we envision a > reversal -- different in kind, but not in character -- from Le Guin's > The Dispossessed. A female utopia? I personally am more interested in feminist utopias. And yes, I do think that there is a very large difference. Reverse sexism and I'll be fighting against it still, just as I hope many female feminists would. It certainly doesn't hurt to consider societies based on such reversals, and I even find doing so enjoyable, but I really don't consider them to be utopian. I consider them to be either dystopian or "ambiguous." Societies based on different sexes altogether like _A_Door_Into_Ocean_ or _Herland_ are different however, because in such societies there is no group being discriminated against. Anyway, that's how I feel, -- Joel ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 20:42:37 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicola Griffith Subject: Thank you Thanks to everyone for your congratulations (I've just got back to Seattle after a six day trip). I have to say it gave me a *massive* kick to climb up on the podium and accept a Nebula for a book all about sewage, and dykes disporting themselves. Tee hee. SLOW RIVER: the little book that could. Nicola Nicola Griffith http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 22:37:15 -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 and Translation In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NH: BTW, Sheryl; Suzette Elgin heads up something called "The Linguistics and Science Fiction Network," for those who are interested in both (I realise that linguistics is not translation). E-mail to: ocls@sibylline.com -nalo On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, farah mendlesohn wrote: > Sheryl, > > could you clarify what appropriate would look like? Do you mean > subject matter, length or style? > > Farah. > > > > On Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:07:29 -0400 Sheryl Curtis wrote: > > > From: Sheryl Curtis > > Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:07:29 -0400 > > Subject: SF and Translation > > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > > > Hi: > > > > I'm fairly new to the list and although I enjoy reading you all, I don't > > have much time to post. Now I'd like your help. I teach French to > English > > translation part-time at Concordia University. The course I > generally teach > > is the introductory course, so there is little focus on translation > theory > > or history, which is covered in other courses. In addition to the > practical > > work we do in the course, I generally make my students read one > book on > > translation theory. I have been thinking of trying something new > next fall > > and having them read science fiction books or short stories which > discuss > > translation. I am familiar with the first two Native tongue books and > I > > believe I read on this list a couple of weeks that there is a third > one, for > > which I would be grateful for a reference. What I would like to know > is if > > any of you could give me authors and titles which would be > appropriate. If > > the material is feminist it would be even better, since the large > majority > > of translation students and translators are also women. Anyway, > any help > > will be appreciated. > > > > Sheryl C. > > Montreal, Quebec > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 22:41:32 -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: what students read and what should we teach? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NH: His aunts. -nalo On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Andrea L. Klein wrote: > On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, farah mendlesohn wrote: > > > The American City, I set a passage from Sarah and Elizabeth > > Delany's Having Our Say. The class positively glowed... they loved > > the extract, both male and female students and have all bounced off > > to read more, and this despite the strong feminism that comes from > > both women in their different ways. Being told that they were related > > to Samuel Delany, whose short story they read the week before, sent > > some of them back to that. Sometimes it can really work. > > I love Sadie and Bessie Delany too. _Having Our Say_ is beautifully > done, mostly because it paints these women so fantastically. > I had no idea they were related to Samuel Delany. How so? > > Andrea Klein > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 11:31:30 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: dissertations / papers on tiptree MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Tue, 22 Apr 1997 14:38:26 -0200 Antonio Marcos da Silva Pereira wrote: > hi! > > 1) is there anyone out there who has written dissertations / papers on > tiptree? could any of you who have done so plese get in touch with me via > private email? > > thanks a lot, > > Antonio Marcos Pereira There are two articles on or dealing with Tiptree that I know of. My own, in Foundation 59 simply dealing with six American writers of whom Tiptree is one, and another (brilliant) article by Amanda Boulter in a later issue (I can't remember the issue). Are you writing a bibliography? Farah Mendlesohn ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 11:41:37 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: critical reading and island breezes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Tue, 22 Apr 1997 14:47:41 -0400 Andrea L. Klein wrote: > From: Andrea L. Klein > Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 14:47:41 -0400 > Subject: Re: critical reading and island breezes > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > > On Sun, 20 Apr 1997 21:48:37 -0400 Joel VanLaven wrote: > > > > Perhaps that adage should be more like: reading is NOT for boys > > and math > > > is NOT for girls, so feminist sci-fi is for NO traditional people. > > > > > > -- Joel VanLaven > > > > > > I don't know what the figures look like in the US, but in the UK there is > > currently mass panic in some quarters because girls are now beating > > boys in the maths and science exams taken at 18 years old. And > > guess what, the rhetoric is *not* about how wonderful it is that girls > > are doing so well! Only a few more years to wait and it should all be > > filtering through to the colleges. > > > > Farah > > > > Wish I had the stats, but apparently here in the US girls DO do better in > high school math in terms of grades--girls have better GPAs generally--but > still trail in the SATs. (For non-USers, the SATs are used as one of our > main predictors for college success.) Amidst the constant debate over the > validity of the SATs, the verbal section (as well as the math) keeps being > reviewed for biases--ethnic, gender, class, whatever. In addition to > other changes, the verbal section was revised to include more scientific > readings in the reading comprehension in an attempt to equalize the > genders (girls were and still do score higher, but the scores are now > closer). I'm not sure what went/goes on with the math-section > discussion--might it be gender-biased? I don't know. > > The above info comes from Matlin's psyc of women text. It might be > loaded, I don't know. No better way to lie than with statistics. > > Hedges & Nowell (1995) assessed test scores b/n 1971 and 1992 and found > that in large-scale surveys, high school boys score on average higher on > the math sections, and/but show more variability in scores--that is, there > are more males than females at both the high end of the spectrum and the > low end. > > One limitation of Hedges & Nowell's approach is that the scores from the > earlier years would be recording students who were not required to take a > certain number of math classes. In 1970, Sells found that high schools > were serving as a "critical filter," keeping many women from careers in > math and science by not requiring math courses, rendering more women than > men (who opted to continue the math) ineligible for college math and > science (50% of Berkeley men had 4yrs of HS math, 8% of women). Thus, the > girls in the earlier studies might have been less prepared for the > tests--and the tests then reflected experience not ability. So, I don't > know if the gender gap in math scores is narrowing or not, I'd presume it > is. It definately is in terms of math and science courses in college. > > Anyway, sorry to be long-winded...thought some might be unfamiliar and > interested. The point is simply that assumptions of biological > differences are being questioned. Though that seems a redundant point to > make to a feminist listserver. > > Andrea Klein Thanks, I think similar things happen here in science. I have a very memorable experience when I was fourteen of girls being asked to switch to biology because too many people wanted to do physics. BUT all of the twelve girls who had originally opted for physics were in the top set. It would have made far more sense for the boys in the lower sets to have been moved into general science making room that way. Inevitably, all but five girls dropped out. Farah ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 11:43:56 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: what students read and what should we teach? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:00:37 -0400 Andrea L. Klein wrote: > From: Andrea L. Klein > Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:00:37 -0400 > Subject: Re: what students read and what should we teach? > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, farah mendlesohn wrote: > > > The American City, I set a passage from Sarah and Elizabeth > > Delany's Having Our Say. The class positively glowed... they loved > > the extract, both male and female students and have all bounced off > > to read more, and this despite the strong feminism that comes from > > both women in their different ways. Being told that they were related > > to Samuel Delany, whose short story they read the week before, sent > > some of them back to that. Sometimes it can really work. > > I love Sadie and Bessie Delany too. _Having Our Say_ is beautifully > done, mostly because it paints these women so fantastically. > I had no idea they were related to Samuel Delany. How so? > > Andrea Klein They are his great aunts. Their brother Sam (the underdaker) was Samuel Delany's grandfather I think. I was rather suspcious when I read the book because Delany is not that common a name and the location was right, so I asked him to confirm and he did. Although I am not sure that he was too chuffed to be asked about his aunts' book rather than his own at an sf convention. farah ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 11:46:37 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: feminist utopia/dystopia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:26:49 -0500 Martha Bartter wrote: > From: Martha Bartter > Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:26:49 -0500 > Subject: Re: feminist utopia/dystopia > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > At 18:11 4/22/97 BST, you wrote: > >On Sun, 20 Apr 1997 10:49:58 -0500 Heather Whipple wrote: > > >I echo Emily's > >> request to Farrah for elaboration on the statement that _The > >Dispossessed_ > >> is unequivocally NOT feminist. While I wouldn't say it is a perfect > >> feminist utopia, it does question some sexist assumptions. It is > >> primarily interested in exploring anarchy and not feminism, but this > >comes > >> back to the point I raised in my earlier post, that it is not a simple > >> thing to determine what is feminist and what isn't (i.e. seems to me > >that > >> anarchy and some feminisms share some common goals). The > >book's subtitle, > >> "An Ambiguous Utopia," suggests that what may be revolutionary > >(or > >> feminist), for one person/planet may not be for another--as well as > >> addressing up front (so to speak) that it might not be utopia at all. > >> > >> TD explores structures of power, and while it also contains some > >> essentialism and does also portray a sexist society, I would still > >argue > >> that that focus on power relations and property politics does make > >it at > >> least partly feminist. I certainly don't see that Le Guin believes > >"when > >> the revolution comes everything will be ok"; her point is exactly the > >> opposite--that revolution needs to be an on-going process. The > >problems > >> on Anarres are precisely *because* people have become > >complacent. > >> > >> *************** > >> Heather Whipple > >> hwhipple@script.lib.indiana.edu > > > > > >My point is not that The Dispossessed has no feminist elements, but > >that it is not a feminist utopia. I still feel tho' that Le Guin speculates > >very poorly where women are concerned and that whilst I admire her > >work, she is very behindhand in this area compared to even many > >male writers. It simply isn't her strong point: she tends to take up > >others' ideas and use them well, but her political strengths are > >elsewhere. > > > >farah > > > I don't see _The Dispossessed_ as anyone's "utopia." Le Guin calls > it "ambiguous," and I would agree. Certainly women don't get treated > worse on Anarres than men do but men don't get treated very well. > No individuality allowed (if it looks like a "propertarian" individuality). > Very little humor. Conditions on Urras may be worse -- no one on > Anarres starves unless they all do, for example, and the blatant > antifeminism we see among the elite doesn't occur there either, but > the rigidity of the thinking patterns and the demand that everyone > conform to the collective ethic simply demonstrates the reverse of > American individuality. And I think that's why Le Guin calls it > "ambiguous." No extreme works very well -- we may be reaching the > extreme of alienation that comes with individualism carried to the > nth degree -- but the kind of collective pattern followed, say, in > Japan or China, where "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down" > is pretty hard on the non-conformists (and it doesn't take much to > attain that designation). > > If we assume that a female utopia achieves gender equality in jobs and > pay and respect and opportunity and general honor, then we must assume > a utopia where motherhood (which is the woman's privilege) gets honored > -- whether it's paid or not. So we can't call the US any kind of female > utopia, no matter how much better things are for women than they were a > few dozen years ago. If we insist that a female utopia allows women to > treat men the way men have treated women for so long, we envision a > reversal -- different in kind, but not in character -- from Le Guin's > The Dispossessed. > > > Martha Bartter > Truman State University The Dispossessed may be an amibguous utopia, but the ambiguity discussed is not its limitations in gender equality. I am beginning to sound hostile to the book which is not the intention, I just wouldn't teach or represent it as a feminist text. Farah ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 11:48:29 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: feminist utopia/dystopia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:31:10 -0500 Martha Bartter wrote: > From: Martha Bartter > Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:31:10 -0500 > Subject: Re: feminist utopia/dystopia > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > At 17:56 4/22/97 BST, you wrote: > >On Sat, 19 Apr 1997 10:06:00 -0800 Emily Hackbarth wrote: > > > [snip] > > > >The bit in the story which really annoyed me was the stuff about child > >care. Shevek's mother is made to seem neglectful for leaving her > >child in a creche whilst she goes off to pursue her career. His father > >is given no such guilt trip for doing the same thing, and neither is > >Shevek who is happy to abandon his child to the care of his wife > >assuming that she will be happy with this arrangment. > > > >In addition, one of the *implied* faults of this utopia is its lack of > >beauty (it *is* a harsh world) but the loss seems to be focussed on > >the loss of feminity. Why? What was LeGuin trying to say? > > > >In the end, Shevek's wife (and I apologise deeply for not being able > >to remember her name, but she is *so* colourless) is subsumed > >beneath the personality and creativity of the great man. I can't see > >much difference for women before or after the revolution. > > > > > >Farah > > > Takver -- I find her fascinating, and gave a paper on her once. I > found, to my surprise, that at least one person in the audience saw > her as a greedy (grease around the mouth) childlike person, with no > personality. I saw her as a brave, vital, contributing member of the > society -- who could say she had been wrong in a very important matter, > and take long separations from Shevek when they became necessary. > > That's something I have experienced myself, and believe me, it's not > easy, especially when you have full responsibility for the children. > Yes, the kids are in a kibbutz-like situation, so she doesn't have to > hold down a job AND do all the housework-baby-tending etc., but she > DOES have to manage when everyone around her is shunning her and her > kids, and giving them all a hard time. Utopia, indeed! And she does > not give in under that kind of pressure, either. A brave strong woman. > > Martha Bartter > Truman State University Do you still have this paper? Have you published it anywhere? I would very much like to read it as you seem to have focussed on some of the issues I found so problematic. Farah ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 08:40:36 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sheryl Curtis Subject: Re: SF and Translation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi Nalo: Would you be able to give me a reference for this essay. I've read most of EV's stuff a, but I didn't even know about this. Thanks. S. >NH: Hi, Sheryl. The Elgin books would have been the first I would have >recommended. There's also Samuel Delany's _Babel 17,_ although Suzette >Elgin told me that he gets some of his linguistic principles wrong in >that one. And I don't know that any of her books are *about* >translation, but Quebecer Elisabeth Vonarburg writes in both French and >English. I know that she has an essay about the difference between >writing the same text in two languages vs. translating it from one >language to the other. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 14:03:24 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edward James Subject: Re: Ursula LeGuin In-Reply-To: <335D3C00.66E2@sk.sympatico.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII" On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Clarke girls wrote: > Hi > > I was talking to an Anthropology grad student who like Ursula LeGuin > because of the influences she got from her father who is a well-known > Anthropologist... I didn't know this about her. Can anyone fill me in? > > Thanks > Jacquie > Not only was her father, A.L. Korover, an anthropologist, but so was her mother: see her lovely book _Isihi, Last of His Tribe_. If you want to understand how Le Guin (LE GUIN, please, not LeGuin!) has been PROFOHNDLY influenced by that, you need to read the fascinating article by Robert Maslen in the Summer 1996 issue of FOUNDATION (no. 67). Even Ursula K. liked it! Edward James .............................................................................. Professor Edward James, Dept of History, Faculty of Letters and Social Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, READING RG6 6AA, UK http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~lhsjamse/home.htm Editor: FOUNDATION: THE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION Joint Editor: EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE .............................................................................. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 14:21:41 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edward James Subject: Re: dissertations / papers on tiptree In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII" On Wed, 23 Apr 1997, farah mendlesohn wrote: > On Tue, 22 Apr 1997 14:38:26 -0200 Antonio Marcos da Silva Pereira > wrote: > > > hi! > > > > 1) is there anyone out there who has written dissertations / papers > on > > tiptree? could any of you who have done so plese get in touch with > me via > > private email? > > > > thanks a lot, > > > > Antonio Marcos Pereira > > > There are two articles on or dealing with Tiptree that I know of. My > own, in Foundation 59 simply dealing with six American writers of > whom Tiptree is one, and another (brilliant) article by Amanda Boulter > in a later issue (I can't remember the issue). > > Are you writing a bibliography? > > Farah Mendlesohn > The article in Foundation by Amanda Boulter was extracted from a University of Sussex doctorate. So there IS a thesis on Tiptree. And the recent PhD by Justine Arbelestier at the University of Sydney had quite a lot on Tiptree too. The FOUNDATION article is in no 63, Spring 1995. It _is_ brilliant. There's a good offer on back issues at the moment: check out my Web site! Edward James .............................................................................. Professor Edward James, Dept of History, Faculty of Letters and Social Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, READING RG6 6AA, UK http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~lhsjamse/home.htm Editor: FOUNDATION: THE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION Joint Editor: EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE .............................................................................. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 14:29:19 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edward James Subject: Re: Ursula LeGuin In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII" On Wed, 23 Apr 1997, Edward James wrote: > On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Clarke girls wrote: > > > Hi > > > > I was talking to an Anthropology grad student who like Ursula LeGuin > > because of the influences she got from her father who is a well-known > > Anthropologist... I didn't know this about her. Can anyone fill me in? > > > > Thanks > > Jacquie > > > > > Not only was her father, A.L. Korover, an anthropologist, but so was her > mother: see her lovely book _Isihi, Last of His Tribe_. If you want to > understand how Le Guin (LE GUIN, please, not LeGuin!) has been PROFOHNDLY > influenced by that, you need to read the fascinating article by Robert > Maslen in the Summer 1996 issue of FOUNDATION (no. 67). Even Ursula K. > liked it! > > Edward James > Sorry: I am a bad proofreader: that should be A.L. KROEBER, and it should be ISHI. I apologise for being snotty about LeGuin: maybe that was a typo too! Edward ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 10:35:05 -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: Re: Ursula LeGuin In-Reply-To: <335D3C00.66E2@sk.sympatico.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hi! On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Clarke girls wrote: > I was talking to an Anthropology grad student who like Ursula LeGuin > because of the influences she got from her father who is a well-known > Anthropologist... I didn't know this about her. Can anyone fill me in? 1) the "k" in "ursula k. leguin" stands for "kroeber". if you have attended at least anthropology 001 you'll be already filled in with that. :) Antonio Marcos Pereira ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 09:41:40 -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: SF and Translation In-Reply-To: <199704231240.IAA05978@rizzo.infobahnos.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NH: I'm hunting it down now, Sheryl. Can't find a thing in the morass that is my apt. But I'm checking with SFCanada; think I read it in one of their publications. -nalo On Wed, 23 Apr 1997, Sheryl Curtis wrote: > Hi Nalo: > > Would you be able to give me a reference for this essay. I've read most of > EV's stuff a, but I didn't even know about this. Thanks. > > S. > > >NH: Hi, Sheryl. The Elgin books would have been the first I would have > >recommended. There's also Samuel Delany's _Babel 17,_ although Suzette > >Elgin told me that he gets some of his linguistic principles wrong in > >that one. And I don't know that any of her books are *about* > >translation, but Quebecer Elisabeth Vonarburg writes in both French and > >English. I know that she has an essay about the difference between > >writing the same text in two languages vs. translating it from one > >language to the other. > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 08:49:05 -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: Ursula LeGuin In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 23 Apr 1997, Edward James wrote: > > Not only was her father, A.L. Korover, an anthropologist, but so was her > mother: see her lovely book _Isihi, Last of His Tribe_. If you want to > understand how Le Guin (LE GUIN, please, not LeGuin!) has been PROFOHNDLY > influenced by that, you need to read the fascinating article by Robert > Maslen in the Summer 1996 issue of FOUNDATION (no. 67). Even Ursula K. > liked it! > > Edward James I believe it's Kroeber ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 10:53:06 -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: Re: dissertations / papers on tiptree In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hi! On Wed, 23 Apr 1997, farah mendlesohn wrote: > Are you writing a bibliography? 1) thanks on your kind answer. no, i'm not writing a bibliography - i'm just trying to assemble some resources for a web site on tiptree i plan to release soon. any help / suggestions would be welcome, btw. cheers, Antonio Marcos Pereira ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 09:11:05 -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: Ursula LeGuin In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 14:03 4/23/97 +0100, you wrote: >On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Clarke girls wrote: > >> Hi >> >> I was talking to an Anthropology grad student who like Ursula LeGuin >> because of the influences she got from her father who is a well-known >> Anthropologist... I didn't know this about her. Can anyone fill me in? >> >> Thanks >> Jacquie >> > > >Not only was her father, A.L. Korover, an anthropologist, but so was her >mother: see her lovely book _Isihi, Last of His Tribe_. Yes, but it's spelled Kroeber, please, like Ursula K's middle name. Theodora Le Guin, author of _Ishi_, was his second wife; mother of his two children and certainly a talented author, whether or not she was also an anthropologist. > >Edward James > >........................................................................... ... > >Professor Edward James, Dept of History, Faculty of Letters and Social >Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, READING RG6 6AA, UK > >http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~lhsjamse/home.htm > >Editor: FOUNDATION: THE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION >Joint Editor: EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE > >........................................................................... ... > Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 14:33:05 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: American Airlines Pride Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear Friends and Family, BACKGROUND: American Airlines is a major sponsor to and supporter of groups like GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, the AIDS Action Foundation, DIFFA, AmFAR, and scores of community- based groups representing gays and lesbians. It is also the first airline to adopt a written non-discrimination policy covering sexual orientation in its employment practices. An unusual joint letter was released to the media on Friday, March 14th from the Family Research Council, Concerned Women of America, American Family Association and Coral Ridge Ministries. Radical right leader Beverly LaHaye also went on Christian "talk radio" on Friday to blast American Airlines because "American's sponsorship of homosexual 'pride' events constitutes an open endorsement of promiscuous homo- sexuality." She and the other groups have written Bob Crandall at American to complain that the airline has "gone beyond mere tolerance" of gays and lesbians. The full article appears in Friday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and possibly picked up by other newspapers around the country. It has come to the attention of the gay and Lesbian community that American Airline's switchboard and e-mails are being bombarded now by homophobic and hateful callers who have been urged by LaHaye and others to DEMAND the company terminate its gay-friendly policies. WHAT YOU CAN DO At the end of this note is a petition supporting American Airlines' stance on gay rights. If you feel that discrimination is in nobody's best interest, add your name to the list below. And, of course, pass it on. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IF YOU ARE the 25th, 50th, 75th, 100th, etc., person to sign this petition, please forward this copy to American Airlines at: webmaster@amrcorp.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------> To American Airlines: We, the undersigned, support your gay/lesbian rights policies and commend you for your efforts in ending discrimination. Thank you for your dedication to such issues and please continue to remain active in the struggle to end discrimination. 1. Marybeth Kurtz, Philadelphia, PA 2. Jen Faust, Goucher College, Balto. MD 3. Heather Riley, UMBC, Balto., MD 4. Katy Schuman, UMBC, Balto., MD 5. Rebekka Gold, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. 6. Danielle Hirsch, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. 7. Jerrod Wendland, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. 8. Jon Morgan, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH. 9. Keri Rainsberger, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. 10. Cheryl Lynn Bates, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. 11. Court Singrey, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. 12. Carol Fischer, Indiana University, Bloomington IN. 13. Victoria R. Gardner, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. 14. Joshua S. Greenbaum, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 15. Tamara Grybko, Boston, MA 16. Jameson Hill, San Francisco, CA 17. Ed Roppo, San Francisco, CA 18. Christopher Pratt, Mountain View, CA 19. Tom Lloyd, San Francisco, CA 20. Brian Kliment, San Francisco, CA 21. Steve Christensen, Palo Alto, CA 22. Michael Larson, Sunnyvale, CA 23. Jennifer Rudenick, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 24. Sarah Knipper, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 25. Jan Alfred Sandven, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 26. Amy Van Looy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 27. David Bradley, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 28. Andrea Rufo, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 29. Alison Chase, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30. Julie Noelle Chase, San Francisco, CA 31. Steve Boland, San Francisco, CA 32. James Devinny, Denver, CO 33. Heather Saunders, Denver, CO 34. Meg Green, Austin, TX 35. Rachel Matthews, Austin, TX 36. Danny Field, San Francisco, CA 37. Daniel Heilborn, San Francisco, CA 38. Kevin H. Souza, San Francisco, CA 39. Willis Navarro, UCSF, San Francisco, CA 40. Gregory S. Arent, M.D., San Francisco, CA 41. Derek A. Palmer, Seattle, WA 42. Recinda L. Sherman, Portland, OR 43. Amanda Perrygo, Charlottesville, VA 44. Jamison F. Bowman, Woodstock, MD 45. Marc Roney, Parkersburg, WV 46. Rev. D. L. Kemp, Hinton, WV 47. JT Kemp, Hinton, WV 48. Barbara Russell, Beckley, WV 49. Virginia Keyes, Austin, Texas 50. Thomas Kermani, Austin, TX 51. Tani L. Barr-Kermani, Austin, TX 52. Laura Hicks, Austin, TX 53. Sarah Hicks, Portland, OR 54. Kristen Hoard, Portland, OR 55. Patricia Ju, New York, NY 56. Heather MacLean, Kent, OH hmaclean@kent.edu http://kent.edu/~hmaclean/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 20:45:46 -0700 Reply-To: byerwood@ix.netcom.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: K Wood/C Byers Organization: Byerwood Productions Subject: introduction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, all. I was just added to this list, and thought it would be polite to introduce myself. I'm Candace Byers. I live in Oakland, California. I'm an unpublished fantasy novelist, and came across this list while wandering around the Net looking for something else. It looked so potentially interesting that I couldn't resist. Talk to you all later. Candace -- "Making war is easy. It's making peace that's hard. That's why so few people do it." Xena, Warrior Princess KOFY-TV ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 02:43:42 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Sandeen Subject: Re: what do students read? << Laura: so glad to hear from a younger person... it's absolutely necessary to hear your voice!!! i haven't read as much as the others on the list, either... but i'm learning so much by discussion. (i'm 30 and an english instructor). (double ack.) what have you read? and what did you think about those works? AND why do you think you and your friends don't read sf? or at all? do you feel that the females read more or less -- and why? and one last question: what is going on in the high schools and around younger people today that makes them think that feminism is so terrible? i'd love to get your perspective. -lissa bloomer >> I read _The Gate to Woman's Country_ and I loved it. I don't consider that one part that's been so discussed on the list exactly homophobic, maybe I'll read it again. I also read _Grass_ and found it really interesting. This is really randomn but I noticed some strange, kind of abstract similarities between it and Jewel's music (though not nearly as many as between Tracy Chapman and _1984_). I just finished Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. At first I was a bit appalled at the manipulation and violence in Ender's Game, but I really liked them and when Iread the other two, it conected a lot better in my mind. I can't wait to read Children of the Mind. I think a lot of people my age don't read because of the time factor. with all the books everyone has to trudge through they don't want to deal with any more even if they'll be fun. I know in middle school I read a little SF, but I refused to call it that because everyone, including me thought of science fiction of some awful nerdy thing, I'm not even sure anymore. Most of my friends hate science except maybe phisiology. They have no interest in the subjects in science fiction and they don't want to think about it. I think a lot of it is the whole nerd image, too. They might try sf, but then they don't want to be laughed at. I think the females tend to read less and I'm not sure why. Most of my friends are from Girl Scout camp and most of them tend to be more into humanities, especially major wise. They'll say "this is a plant" but they won't ask "why is this a plant" or "what makes it a plant". I'm the one teaching 7 year olds about chemical reactions, while they're fighting over who can help in Arts & Crafts (I like Arts & Crafts too). This is getting really irrelevant so maybe I'll ask some people this week and write more when I get more info. About Feminism I've never really thought about it, I've rarely even heard the word used at school, but thinking about it, when it is used there does seem to be sort of a stigmitism around it. I think feminists are usually looked at as either a bunch of woman who hate men or a bunch of lesbians. If people think that by definition they have to hate men, they're going to run away from the term. It's perception, but a lot about high school is perception, everyone tries to be what they think everybody else will think is "cool" and it ends up being quite amusing if you just remove yourself from the situation and watch the madness of people trying to fit in 100% which is impossible. It's late and I have a ton of hw left to do, so I think I'll stop rambleing. (Please excuse my spelling, I have aol and there is still no spellcheck.) :-) Laura Sandeen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 07:31:26 -0400 Reply-To: areuter@world.std.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Anne E. Reuter" Organization: iDirect Subject: Re: introduction Comments: To: byerwood@IX.NETCOM.COM Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit K Wood/C Byers wrote: > FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > I'm Candace Byers. I live in Oakland, California. I'm an unpublished > fantasy novelist... So am I. Welcome to the list. Have you tried to get your work published? My email address is areuter@world.std.com. We can exchange war stories :-) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 11:01:24 -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: American Airlines Pride In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19970423145003.30e78b00@kent.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 14:33 4/23/97 -0400, you wrote: >Dear Friends and Family, > > BACKGROUND: > > American Airlines is a major sponsor to and supporter of groups > like GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, the Gay and Lesbian Victory > Fund, the AIDS Action Foundation, DIFFA, AmFAR, and scores of community- > based groups representing gays and lesbians. It is also the first > airline to adopt a written non-discrimination policy covering > sexual orientation in its employment practices. > > An unusual joint letter was released to the media on Friday, March > 14th from the Family Research Council, Concerned Women of America, > American Family Association and Coral Ridge Ministries. Radical right > leader Beverly LaHaye also went on Christian "talk radio" on Friday to > blast American Airlines because "American's sponsorship of homosexual > 'pride' events constitutes an open endorsement of promiscuous homo- > sexuality." > > She and the other groups have written Bob Crandall at American to > complain that the airline has "gone beyond mere tolerance" of gays > and lesbians. The full article appears in Friday's Fort Worth > Star-Telegram, and possibly picked up by other newspapers around the > country. > > It has come to the attention of the gay and Lesbian community that > American Airline's switchboard and e-mails are being bombarded now by > homophobic and hateful callers who have been urged by LaHaye and others > to DEMAND the company terminate its gay-friendly policies. > > WHAT YOU CAN DO > > At the end of this note is a petition supporting American Airlines' > stance on gay rights. If you feel that discrimination is in nobody's > best interest, add your name to the list below. And, of course, pass > it on. > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > IF YOU ARE the 25th, 50th, 75th, 100th, etc., person to sign this > petition, please forward this copy to American Airlines at: > webmaster@amrcorp.com > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------> >To American Airlines: > > We, the undersigned, support your gay/lesbian rights policies and > commend you for your efforts in ending discrimination. Thank you > for your dedication to such issues and please continue to remain > active in the struggle to end discrimination. > > 1. Marybeth Kurtz, Philadelphia, PA > 2. Jen Faust, Goucher College, Balto. MD > 3. Heather Riley, UMBC, Balto., MD > 4. Katy Schuman, UMBC, Balto., MD > 5. Rebekka Gold, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. > 6. Danielle Hirsch, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. > 7. Jerrod Wendland, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. > 8. Jon Morgan, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH. > 9. Keri Rainsberger, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. > 10. Cheryl Lynn Bates, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. > 11. Court Singrey, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. > 12. Carol Fischer, Indiana University, Bloomington IN. > 13. Victoria R. Gardner, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. > 14. Joshua S. Greenbaum, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI > 15. Tamara Grybko, Boston, MA > 16. Jameson Hill, San Francisco, CA > 17. Ed Roppo, San Francisco, CA > 18. Christopher Pratt, Mountain View, CA > 19. Tom Lloyd, San Francisco, CA > 20. Brian Kliment, San Francisco, CA > 21. Steve Christensen, Palo Alto, CA > 22. Michael Larson, Sunnyvale, CA > 23. Jennifer Rudenick, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL > 24. Sarah Knipper, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL > 25. Jan Alfred Sandven, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL > 26. Amy Van Looy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL > 27. David Bradley, Emory University, Atlanta, GA > 28. Andrea Rufo, Emory University, Atlanta, GA > 29. Alison Chase, Emory University, Atlanta, GA > 30. Julie Noelle Chase, San Francisco, CA > 31. Steve Boland, San Francisco, CA > 32. James Devinny, Denver, CO > 33. Heather Saunders, Denver, CO > 34. Meg Green, Austin, TX > 35. Rachel Matthews, Austin, TX > 36. Danny Field, San Francisco, CA > 37. Daniel Heilborn, San Francisco, CA > 38. Kevin H. Souza, San Francisco, CA > 39. Willis Navarro, UCSF, San Francisco, CA > 40. Gregory S. Arent, M.D., San Francisco, CA > 41. Derek A. Palmer, Seattle, WA > 42. Recinda L. Sherman, Portland, OR > 43. Amanda Perrygo, Charlottesville, VA > 44. Jamison F. Bowman, Woodstock, MD > 45. Marc Roney, Parkersburg, WV > 46. Rev. D. L. Kemp, Hinton, WV > 47. JT Kemp, Hinton, WV > 48. Barbara Russell, Beckley, WV > 49. Virginia Keyes, Austin, Texas > 50. Thomas Kermani, Austin, TX > 51. Tani L. Barr-Kermani, Austin, TX > 52. Laura Hicks, Austin, TX > 53. Sarah Hicks, Portland, OR > 54. Kristen Hoard, Portland, OR > 55. Patricia Ju, New York, NY > 56. Heather MacLean, Kent, OH 57. Martha Bartter, Kirksville MO > > > > > > > > > >hmaclean@kent.edu >http://kent.edu/~hmaclean/ > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 16:29:00 -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: American Airlines Pride Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hmmm. I forwarded this to an individual off list with my name in the #57 spot. Oh, well, I guess if they get two lists back at 100, they can merge them or something... More is more, right? 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: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 17:26:46 -0700 Reply-To: byerwood@ix.netcom.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: K Wood/C Byers Organization: Byerwood Productions Subject: Re: American Airlines Pride MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, all and Maryelizabeth; I did exactly the same thing. Candace Maryelizabeth Hart wrote: > > Hmmm. I forwarded this to an individual off list with my name in the #57 > spot. Oh, well, I guess if they get two lists back at 100, they can merge > them or something... > > More is more, right? > > 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 -- "Making war is easy. It's making peace that's hard. That's why so few people do it." Xena, Warrior Princess KOFY-TV ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 20:20:29 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pandora's Box Subject: Re: what do students read? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:43 AM 4/24/97 -0400, you wrote: Hi Everyone, I joined the list about 2 weeks ago, and had an interesting time reading the posts re: "What do students read?" mainly because I'm a university student. It was refreshing to hear all of your opinions on this issues. I'm finishing up a course called "Science Fiction, Fantasy & Romance". The reading list consisted of Mary Shelley, _Terminal Experiment_ (author's name escapes me), Lem's _Solaris_, Zamyatin's _We_, Frank Hebert (2 books from _Dune_), _Grendel_, _The Lord of the Rings_ (all of it!), _A Canticle for Leibowitz_, Dick's _Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep_, Orwell's _1984_, Piercy's _He, She & It_ (my favourite!), Le Guin's _The Left Hand of Darkness_, and many short stories from an anthology that Le Guin and a man (?) edited and published by Norton. I haven't decided what exactly to make of the course. I spent most of my time reading Dale Spender, and contemplating cyborgs and humans. Speaking of which, can anyone recommend any well-written novels dealing with this subject? Before this course, I had read very little sci fi/fantasy (a few W. Gibson novels and _Waking the Moon_). With the urgence of my partner, who reads *only* science fiction, I took the course. I'm a Women's Studies student and would read the texts with that slant. The prof was concerned with the way "other" (ie. aliens, robots) is constructed -- something I found very interesting. It turned out to be my second fave class, though unfortunately because of the size of the reading list I had to go to classes with the books either half completed or barely touched. Now I'm catching up on the reading, and am planning on reading more sci-fi during the summer. I don't think I'd be considered "fully-converted" though. So as a young person (relatively -- I'm 20), I'll answer some of Lissa's questions as well. > about those works? AND why do you think you and your friends don't read sf? I think I read very little sci-fi before the course began because there are so many other books! :-) What I did while I was in high school was read classics. For my grade nine book report I wanted to do G. Flaubert's _Madame Bovary_ (the book wasn't approved ). Around that time I was convinced that the best way to get a handle of what was written was to read in chronological order. Though I spent a lot of time in 18th - early 20th century. I was incredibly bored during high school, and would read any time I got. English class, the time I thought would be the most fun, was the dreariest. The mandatory books were too easy, and I was never able to compromise with the teachers -- though in grade ten my teacher let me read _Don Quixote_ (made for an interesting in-class oral book report). :-) Now that I'm university I've read *most* of what makes it on a reading list, so I spend my time reading current/modern books. Being in Canada where education cuts are a daily affair, course offerings are must more conservative and careful than most US colleges (I have looked at a few syllabi and nearly died of excitement -- the range of topic being explored is AMAZING!). Most of the titles I read come from those syllabis. Thank God some of you post them on the Net! :-) > or at all? do you feel that the females read more or less -- and why? and I went to a French Catholic high school in Northern Ontario (read: stereotypes are alive and well). Girls naturally fell into taking art/humanity classes, while boys took math/science courses. At school there were more girls openly reading, I knew some male "closet" readers. They never read at school, and in English class when there was designated reading time, they would stare at the page. When I was a senior (18-19 years old) my English class was dominated by girls. They were the ones who spoke out and participated in discussions. The boys who were present goofed off, while secretly discussing the book/play with me in the halls -- in whispered voices, of course. Though I have noticed the reading material was very different. Most girls chose romance novels, while boys read horror and science fiction. Again, my novel (_Monk_) was rejected for my book report. > one last question: what is going on in the high schools and around younger > people today that makes them think that feminism is so terrible? i'd love > to get your perspective. I think Laura got it right when she wrote: >About Feminism I've never really thought about it, I've rarely even heard the >word used at school, but thinking about it, when it is used there does seem >to be sort of a stigmitism around it. I think feminists are usually looked >at as either a bunch of woman who hate men or a bunch of lesbians. If people >think that by definition they have to hate men, they're going to run away >from the term. It's perception, but a lot about high school is perception, >everyone tries to be what they think everybody else will think is "cool" and >it ends up being quite amusing if you just remove yourself from the situation >and watch the madness of people trying to fit in 100% which is impossible. When I was in high school I was very vocal. I would shout in debates to be heard -- teachers let the boys dominate the conversations even though they never raised their hands (I only remember one teacher who wouldn't let the above happen *all* of the time). Me and three of my closest friends were the only ones who had the guts to call someone's comment sexist, racist, or homophobic. And because of our courage we were called lesbians, man haters, accused of not wearing a bra, never shaving our legs, far too opiniated to ever get a guy, and would die alone with hundreds of cats. (!) There was one guy (in my senior history class) who was too ashamed to even say the word "homosexual". I'll never forget it, he just waived his hand and said "you know who I mean," calling them a deragatory word (in french) instead. It was horrible, and very typical of most of the students responses. I'm sure that there were kids who didn't agree with that guy, but they never spoke up. Interestingly though, now when I see the people who used to call us lesbians (in a derogatory way) behind our backs (and later to our faces) they have the nerve to stop me in the street and chit chat like we were the best of friends. University is no different, I'm afraid to say. In my Women's Studies courses most of the girl