log9711d ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 02:05:42 -0400 Reply-To: gamgee@geocities.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" Organization: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 Subject: Re: SF and academia and popularity MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Martha Bartter wrote: > ...sci-fi is "The tomato that ate Detroit" and > other oddball but basically science-free attempts at SF. Ahem. *I'm* in Detroit and can quite clearly say that a tomato has not eaten us... - Geoffrey -- "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." - Ford Prefect http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 02:26:40 -0400 Reply-To: gamgee@geocities.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" Organization: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 Subject: Re: SF and academia and popularity MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I don't think we can definitely draw a line between sci-fi and SF...I know I can't, and really wouldn't want to. My enjoyment of the Barsoom series or _Unveiling a Parallel_ isn't diminished or hindered when I read _Red Mars_ or _Moving Mars_; I enjoy both pieces for what they are. Science Fiction has been different things to different people over the past who-knows-how-many-years. Cyrano de Bergerac was definitely not as sophisticated in his SF thought as Mary Shelley, who wasn't as sophisticated as Jules Verne, who wasn't as sophisticated Gernsback or Campbell... I do think there are levels of SF, and one is rather grossly referred to as "sci-fi." SF does not have to be about hard science - sociology, political science, psychology, etc., are all sciences that have been dealt with in SF novels. Because of the divisions in the scientific community, we (academics, specifically) want to divide Greg Benford into hard SF and Nicola Griffith into soft. However, both writers write well, they just choose different scientific mediums to get their message across...I'd put them on par with each other (except that Benford has published much more than Griffith). Does that mean _Star Wars_ is SF? No, it's fantasy as science has nothing to do with the story whatsoever. Is _Flash Gordon_ SF? Yes, as cheesy as that might sound, but those serials are speculating on where we might be in various centuries...the science isn't strong, but it isn't missing. So, I don't think there can be a true seperation between SF and "sci-fi." They are the same. I will now await the incoming missiles... - Geoffrey P.S. Postmodernism is nothing more than modernism in drag (to paraphrase Michael Eric Dyson)... -- "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." - Ford Prefect http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 07:34:47 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: Re: New Genre In-Reply-To: <3475F115@msmailpc01.saic.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Rhian, I direct folks to the University Book Store in Seattle so often that everybody probably thinks I get a commission, but I don't. It's just that they support the local sf community in general and have been wonderful to me in particular; they discount hardback fiction, and they ship for free within the US. There's a link to their site from my web page (see .sig); also some links to excerpts (I hope to put up another late tonight). (see .sig) Their ordering number is 1-800-335-7323. And I live about 10 minutes away, so the chance of your getting an autographed copy of a book of mine if you order it here is... pretty close to 100%, I'd say. (As opposed to amazon.com, which is also in Seattle, but which ignores email and phone calls about signing what stock they might keep around, or providing free bookplates -- they _do_ do signings, but I guess they're not interested in _me_.) UBS held a huge sf signing party on Wednesday evening... 24 west coast writers -- I'll list them all because we all signed the bookstore's stock, so if anybody is faunching for an autograph by any of these writers, now is a good time to get one: (Steven Barnes, Chris Bunch, John Cramer, Joel Davis, Elizabeth DeVos, William Dietz, Ru Emerson, Howard Hendrix, Kay Kenyon, J. Gregory Keyes, Megan Lindholm (Robin Hobb), Vonda N. McIntyre, Don McQuinn, Louise Marley, Susan Matthews, Julian May, Mike Moscoe, Rebecca Neason, Eric Nylund, R. Garcia y Robertson, Sean Russell, Richard Paul Russo, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Taylor) Sorry for the advertisement. I just think this is one of the best independent bookstores in the country, so when I get a chance to throw in a plug for them I'm afraid I overdo it a little. I mean, they put up a window display for Moon & Sun (also on my web page) that was MORE elaborate than the one for Elvis a few windows down. Vonda On Fri, 21 Nov 1997 15:36:00 EST, Rhian Merris wrote: >... (Only been to >one bookstore recently, and it was somewhat lame, even if the person at >the check-out had met Octavia Butler.) > >Rhian http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda The Moon and the Sun -- One of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of 1997" http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 07:34:53 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: Reading for the Future In-Reply-To: <346b6e3d.458576914@mail.oz.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Here's an interesting literacy project that connects to a previous thread about getting people interested in science fiction: http://www.sff.net/rff/ It looks like it hasn't exactly taken off yet, but it is an interesting idea. Vonda http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda The Moon and the Sun -- One of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of 1997" http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 07:34:49 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: Re: Mythology book query -Reply In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Sean, Getting the MFA for a teaching gig makes perfect sense. I think it's kinda silly that established writers can't get hired to teach, but if the system wants that MFA, then the system wants that MFA. For writing, I'd agree with Brooks Landon. Most of the folks I know who did MFA programs ended up abused and burnt out. Here's the Clarion West (in Seattle) URL: http://www.sff.net/clarionwest/ They have scholarships, by the way. People come out of the various flavors of Clarion burnt out, too, but at least it's only six weeks long, and anyone who can manage to take critiquing without taking it personally (which can be hard) can get a great deal out of it. I'll spare the list my rant on how some people go to the workshop with an attitude of dogged professionalism (which I think is a giant huge mistake), and just say I think one should attend with one's heart open and aiming for experimentation and growth. Vonda On Fri, 21 Nov 1997 18:30:00 -0600, Sean Johnston wrote: >Vonda, > Yeah, I'd like an MFA in order to teach. You know, make a fair >living doing something I like a lot--teaching. I like it as much as >writing SF when I get to talk about SF, writing SF, stuff like that. > Brooks Landon, one of this year's Philip K. Dick Award judges, >advises me that it'd be better to get into Clarion. That'll carry a lot >more weight w/the community (SF) that I seem to love than an MFA. > >-Sean > http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda The Moon and the Sun -- One of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of 1997" http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 02:43:48 -0400 Reply-To: gamgee@geocities.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" Organization: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 Subject: Re: Mythology book query -Reply MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sean Johnston wrote: > Yeah, I'd like an MFA in order to teach. You know, make a fair > living doing something I like a lot--teaching. I like it as much as > writing SF when I get to talk about SF, writing SF, stuff like that. > Brooks Landon, one of this year's Philip K. Dick Award judges, > > advises me that it'd be better to get into Clarion. That'll carry a > lot > more weight w/the community (SF) that I seem to love than an MFA. Sean, I wish you luck. Creative writing jobs are few and far between out there (pick up the latest MLA Job Information Listing to see what I mean). Once you find that listing, they usually want at least two books published (and I've noticed that tends to be only for the assistant professors). My suggestion: find something else in the field to fall back on. I'm falling back on composition and instructional technology. A lot of people think it's dull, it's dry, it's boring (I don't, but that's another story), but if you look at that same JIL, you'll see a vast amount of comp people wanted. If you don't like composition, take up modern American or British literature. You can work science fiction into the classes, and eventually write a dissertation on something within the field (yes, a dissertation - an MFA can no longer guarantee a spot in today's humanities job market which means you'll have to sweat it out and get that doctorate). Again, I wish you luck. There's very strong forces, both classist ( in terms of SF) and financial, that have reared their heads up in the academy... - Geoffrey -- "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." - Ford Prefect http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 02:46:25 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Benesch Subject: Re: Aliens trailer In a message dated 97-11-21 16:47:35 EST, Patricia Mathews wrote: > > > How many Orson Scott Card fans have seen the trailers for Ailen > > > Resurrection? Doesn't it remind you of XENOCIDE? With Ripley facing off > > > against Ender? And Barbara Benesch wrote: > > Which part of the trailer, exactly? And which part of XENOCIDE? And Patricia responded: > > The situation where the man wants to revive the bug race by breeding > a > queen and Ripley wants them all dead - and the queen especially. I found > myself wondering if the scriptwriter had *read* Card!> Ah, I understand now. I guess I hadn't really thought of it that way because I didn't ever think the rest of the "Aliens" had been exterminated. I just figured they were working with the queen from Ripley because it was cheaper than sending ships out trying to find more Aliens. That, and anyone who actually _found_ some Aliens weren't real likely of coming back from the mission alive, so.... But I can see where you're coming from on that one. Barbara Benesch BJBenesch@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 03:18:42 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Kirsten Corby Subject: Re: Mythology book query Vonda: To get a handle on this book I think you'll have to give us some more information -- as in, is this book coming from a relgious perspective or a more stictly anthrolopogical one, and what body of mythology specifically is it examining? And so on. I can throw out a few titles just as guesses: GODDESSES AND GODS OF OLD EUROPE by Marija Gimbutas WHEN GOD WAS A WOMAN by Merlin Stone LOST GODDESSES OF EARLY GREECE by Charlene Spretnak But if you could be more specific, I might be able to do better. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 09:29:13 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: Re: Mythology book query In-Reply-To: <971122031840_-389208539@mrin45.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Kirsten, I really appreciate the help folks are trying to give me, but I can't remember anything more about the book than I've already said, and I'm thinking I probably misread the description and made up a book that doesn't exist. Thanks, Vonda On Sat, 22 Nov 1997 03:18:42 -0500, Kirsten Corby wrote: >Vonda: > >To get a handle on this book ,,, http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda The Moon and the Sun -- One of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of 1997" http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 14:08:41 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicole Youngman Subject: Fwd: Basileia Makhetes operetta! whoa :-) Y'all have GOT to see this: << >>> [We join our operetta already in progress. The infamous Pirates of >>> Pergamum have just seized a bevy of beautiful Mytilenean maidens, and are >>> attempting to carry them off for matrimonial purposes. Gabrielle >>> intervenes, with a recitative (well, it's better than a pan flute solo):] >>> >>> Gabrielle: Hold, scoundrels! Ere ye practice acts of villainy >>> Upon the peaceful and agrarian, >>> Just bear in mind, these maidens of My-TIL-ene[1] >>> Are guarded by a buff barbarian! >>> >>> Pirates: We'd better all rethink our cunning plan; >>> They're guarded by a buff barbarian. >>> >>> Maidens: Yes, yes, she is a buff barbarian. >>> [Xena leaps in from the wings, with a tremendous war cry, does a mid-air >>> somersault, and lands on her feet on the Pirate King's chest.] >>> >>> Xena: Yes, yes, I am a buff barbarian! [The orchestra starts up.] >>> I am the very model of a heroine barbarian; >>> Through Herculean efforts, I've become humanitarian. >>> I ride throughout the hinterland -- at least that's what they call it in >>> Those sissy towns like Athens (I, myself, am Amphipolitan). >>> I travel with a poet who is perky and parthenian[2] >>> And scribbles her hexameters in Linear Mycenian[3] >>> (And many have attempted, by a host of methods mystical, >>> To tell if our relationship's sororal or sapphistical). >>> >>> Chorus: To tell if their relationship's sororal or sapphistical! >>> To tell if their relationship's sororal or sapphistical! >>> To tell if their relationship's sororal or sapphisti-phistical! >>> >>> Xena: My armory is brazen, but my weapons are ironical; >>> My sword is rather phallic, but my chakram's rather yonical[4] >>> (To find out what that means, you'll have to study Indo-Aryan[5]). >>> I am the very model of a heroine barbarian! >>> >>> Chorus: To find out what that means, we'll have to study Indo-Aryan -- >>> She is the very model of a heroine barbarian! >>> >>> Xena: I wake up every morning, ere the dawn is rhododactylous[6] >>> (Who needs to wait for daylight? I just work by _sensus tactilis_[7].) >>> And ride into the sunrise to protect some local villagers >>> From mythologic monsters or from all-too-human pillagers. >>> I hurtle towards each villain with a recklessness ebullient >>> And cow him with my swordwork and my alalaes ululient[8]; >>> He's frightened for his head, because he knows I'm gonna whack it -- >>>he's >>> Aware that his opponent is the _Basileia Makhetes_! >>> [The music crashes to a halt, as the Chorus stares at Xena in utter >>> confusion. She sighs.] It's *Greek*. It means "Warrior Princess"! >>> [Light dawns on the Chorus, and the music resumes.] Sheesh . . . >>> >>> Chorus: He knows that his opponent is the _Basileia Makhetes_! >>> He knows that his opponent is the _Basileia Makhetes_! >>> He knows that his opponent is the _Basileia Makhe-makhetes_, >>> >>> Xena: Because I've got my armor, which is really rather silly, on >>> (It's cut so low I feel like I'm the topless tow'rs of Ilion, >>> And isn't any use against attackers sagittarian[9]). >>> I am the very model of a heroine barbarian! >>> >>> Chorus: It isn't any use against attackers sagittarian -- >>> She is the very model of a heroine barbarian! >>> >>> Xena: In short, when I can tell you how I break the laws of gravity, >>> And why my togs expose my intermammary concavity, >>> And why my comrade changed her dress from one that fit more comfily >>> To one that shows her omphalos[10] (as cute as that of Omphale[11]), >>> And why the tale of Spartacus appears in Homer's versicon[12], >>> [She holds up a tomato:] >>> And where we found examples of the genus _Lycopersicon_[13], >>> And why this Grecian scenery looks more like the Antipodes, >>> You'll say I'm twice the heroine of any in Euripides! >>> >>> Chorus: We'll say she's twice the heroine of any in Euripides! >>> We'll say she's twice the heroine of any in Euripides! >>> We'll say she's twice the heroine of any in Euripi-ripides! >>> >>> Xena: But though the kinked chronology, confusing and chimerical >>> (It's often unhistorical, but rarely unhysterical), >>> Would give a massive heart attack to any antiquarian, >>> I am the very model of a heroine barbarian! >>> >>> Chorus: 'Twould give a massive heart attack to any antiquarian -- >>> She is the very model of a heroine barbarian! >>> >>> [As the orchestra plays the final chords, a wild Xenaesque melee ensues, >>> and the curtain has to be brought down.] >>> >>> Notes: >>> >>> [1] Actually, "Mytilene" would properly be accented on the third syllable; >>> Gabrielle always did have trouble with rhymes. (Mytilene, incidentally, >>> is a city on the isle of Lesbos -- the hometown of the poet Sappho, as >>> a matter of fact. It is not clear what, if anything, Gilbert is trying >>> to imply here.) >>> >>> [2] parthenian: virginal. >>> >>> [3] Linear Mycenian: Mycenian is the ancient dialect of Greek which was >>> written in Linear B (a form of Greek writing that predates the adoption >>> of the alphabet). The implication is that Gabrielle does her writing >>> in Linear B; if _Xena_ takes place around the time of the Trojan war, >>> this is chronologically reasonable. >>> >>> [4] yonical: "Yonic" is the female counterpart to "phallic". >>> >>> [5] Indo-Aryan: The language group consisting of Sanskrit and its close >>> relatives. Both "chakram" and "yonic" are of Sanskrit derivation. >>> >>> [6] rhododactylous: rosy-fingered. (Homer makes frequent reference to >>> _rhododaktulos eos_ -- "rosy-fingered dawn".) >>> >>> [7] _sensus tactilis_: Latin for "the sense of touch". >>> >>> [8] "Alalaes" are war-cries (the Greeks spelled a Xena-like war cry as >>> _alala_ or _alale_) and "ululient" is a coined term, apparently >>> meaning "characterized by ululation". >>> >>> [9] sagittarian: archer-like. >>> >>> [10] omphalos: belly-button. >>> >>> [11] Omphale: Legendary queen of Lydia. From context, we must assume >>> that she had a cute belly-button; however, no known classical source >>> seems to address this vital issue. >>> >>> [12] versicon: a coined term, apparently meaning "collection of verse". >>> >>> [13] _Lycopersicon_: the biological genus to which tomatoes are assigned. >>> (The tomato is a New World plant, and was entirely unknown in the >>> Old World in pre-Columbian times. Thus, having tomatoes in a _Xena_ish >>> context is an even greater anachronism than having Homer tell the tale >>> of Spartacus.) >>> >>>----------------- End Forwarded Message ----------------- >>> >> >> --------------------- Forwarded message: From: dwebb@uwf.edu (D.J. Webb) To: NYOUNGMAN@aol.com Date: 97-11-21 20:29:09 EST one more apology...spelling your name with 2 ll's....oops here's the most creative wacky-Xena-thing I've seen. DJ >>>---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ---------------- >>> >>> [We join our operetta already in progress. The infamous Pirates of >>> Pergamum have just seized a bevy of beautiful Mytilenean maidens, and are >>> attempting to carry them off for matrimonial purposes. Gabrielle >>> intervenes, with a recitative (well, it's better than a pan flute solo):] >>> >>> Gabrielle: Hold, scoundrels! Ere ye practice acts of villainy >>> Upon the peaceful and agrarian, >>> Just bear in mind, these maidens of My-TIL-ene[1] >>> Are guarded by a buff barbarian! >>> >>> Pirates: We'd better all rethink our cunning plan; >>> They're guarded by a buff barbarian. >>> >>> Maidens: Yes, yes, she is a buff barbarian. >>> [Xena leaps in from the wings, with a tremendous war cry, does a mid-air >>> somersault, and lands on her feet on the Pirate King's chest.] >>> >>> Xena: Yes, yes, I am a buff barbarian! [The orchestra starts up.] >>> I am the very model of a heroine barbarian; >>> Through Herculean efforts, I've become humanitarian. >>> I ride throughout the hinterland -- at least that's what they call it in >>> Those sissy towns like Athens (I, myself, am Amphipolitan). >>> I travel with a poet who is perky and parthenian[2] >>> And scribbles her hexameters in Linear Mycenian[3] >>> (And many have attempted, by a host of methods mystical, >>> To tell if our relationship's sororal or sapphistical). >>> >>> Chorus: To tell if their relationship's sororal or sapphistical! >>> To tell if their relationship's sororal or sapphistical! >>> To tell if their relationship's sororal or sapphisti-phistical! >>> >>> Xena: My armory is brazen, but my weapons are ironical; >>> My sword is rather phallic, but my chakram's rather yonical[4] >>> (To find out what that means, you'll have to study Indo-Aryan[5]). >>> I am the very model of a heroine barbarian! >>> >>> Chorus: To find out what that means, we'll have to study Indo-Aryan -- >>> She is the very model of a heroine barbarian! >>> >>> Xena: I wake up every morning, ere the dawn is rhododactylous[6] >>> (Who needs to wait for daylight? I just work by _sensus tactilis_[7].) >>> And ride into the sunrise to protect some local villagers >>> From mythologic monsters or from all-too-human pillagers. >>> I hurtle towards each villain with a recklessness ebullient >>> And cow him with my swordwork and my alalaes ululient[8]; >>> He's frightened for his head, because he knows I'm gonna whack it -- >>>he's >>> Aware that his opponent is the _Basileia Makhetes_! >>> [The music crashes to a halt, as the Chorus stares at Xena in utter >>> confusion. She sighs.] It's *Greek*. It means "Warrior Princess"! >>> [Light dawns on the Chorus, and the music resumes.] Sheesh . . . >>> >>> Chorus: He knows that his opponent is the _Basileia Makhetes_! >>> He knows that his opponent is the _Basileia Makhetes_! >>> He knows that his opponent is the _Basileia Makhe-makhetes_, >>> >>> Xena: Because I've got my armor, which is really rather silly, on >>> (It's cut so low I feel like I'm the topless tow'rs of Ilion, >>> And isn't any use against attackers sagittarian[9]). >>> I am the very model of a heroine barbarian! >>> >>> Chorus: It isn't any use against attackers sagittarian -- >>> She is the very model of a heroine barbarian! >>> >>> Xena: In short, when I can tell you how I break the laws of gravity, >>> And why my togs expose my intermammary concavity, >>> And why my comrade changed her dress from one that fit more comfily >>> To one that shows her omphalos[10] (as cute as that of Omphale[11]), >>> And why the tale of Spartacus appears in Homer's versicon[12], >>> [She holds up a tomato:] >>> And where we found examples of the genus _Lycopersicon_[13], >>> And why this Grecian scenery looks more like the Antipodes, >>> You'll say I'm twice the heroine of any in Euripides! >>> >>> Chorus: We'll say she's twice the heroine of any in Euripides! >>> We'll say she's twice the heroine of any in Euripides! >>> We'll say she's twice the heroine of any in Euripi-ripides! >>> >>> Xena: But though the kinked chronology, confusing and chimerical >>> (It's often unhistorical, but rarely unhysterical), >>> Would give a massive heart attack to any antiquarian, >>> I am the very model of a heroine barbarian! >>> >>> Chorus: 'Twould give a massive heart attack to any antiquarian -- >>> She is the very model of a heroine barbarian! >>> >>> [As the orchestra plays the final chords, a wild Xenaesque melee ensues, >>> and the curtain has to be brought down.] >>> >>> Notes: >>> >>> [1] Actually, "Mytilene" would properly be accented on the third syllable; >>> Gabrielle always did have trouble with rhymes. (Mytilene, incidentally, >>> is a city on the isle of Lesbos -- the hometown of the poet Sappho, as >>> a matter of fact. It is not clear what, if anything, Gilbert is trying >>> to imply here.) >>> >>> [2] parthenian: virginal. >>> >>> [3] Linear Mycenian: Mycenian is the ancient dialect of Greek which was >>> written in Linear B (a form of Greek writing that predates the adoption >>> of the alphabet). The implication is that Gabrielle does her writing >>> in Linear B; if _Xena_ takes place around the time of the Trojan war, >>> this is chronologically reasonable. >>> >>> [4] yonical: "Yonic" is the female counterpart to "phallic". >>> >>> [5] Indo-Aryan: The language group consisting of Sanskrit and its close >>> relatives. Both "chakram" and "yonic" are of Sanskrit derivation. >>> >>> [6] rhododactylous: rosy-fingered. (Homer makes frequent reference to >>> _rhododaktulos eos_ -- "rosy-fingered dawn".) >>> >>> [7] _sensus tactilis_: Latin for "the sense of touch". >>> >>> [8] "Alalaes" are war-cries (the Greeks spelled a Xena-like war cry as >>> _alala_ or _alale_) and "ululient" is a coined term, apparently >>> meaning "characterized by ululation". >>> >>> [9] sagittarian: archer-like. >>> >>> [10] omphalos: belly-button. >>> >>> [11] Omphale: Legendary queen of Lydia. From context, we must assume >>> that she had a cute belly-button; however, no known classical source >>> seems to address this vital issue. >>> >>> [12] versicon: a coined term, apparently meaning "collection of verse". >>> >>> [13] _Lycopersicon_: the biological genus to which tomatoes are assigned. >>> (The tomato is a New World plant, and was entirely unknown in the >>> Old World in pre-Columbian times. Thus, having tomatoes in a _Xena_ish >>> context is an even greater anachronism than having Homer tell the tale >>> of Spartacus.) >>> >>>----------------- End Forwarded Message ----------------- >>> >> >> > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 15:47:00 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: MaryLou Subject: Re: SF and academia: was Re: Mythology book query -Reply MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Take a look at the MFA program at George Mason Univ. in Fairfax, Va. I teach parttime there in the English Dept and know that SF is considered serious lit by many of my colleagues. Tom Moylan is one of the professors--you may know his name from a book on SF he wrote several years ago--can't think of the title at the moment. The program here is heavily cultural studies and we tend to use sociological sf as ways to think about, write about, and discuss social issues. Also strong feminists in the program. Mason web page=http://www.gmu.edu > >> Any idea why academic insts. like UW-Seattle are so reluctant to > >> deal with writing SF? I'm trying to get into an MFA program, but I'd like > >> to not get there under false pretenses, which is what I might feel like I'm > >> doing if I submit something that's not really what I write just to get my > >> foot in the door. > >> > >> -Sean > >> > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 16:03:14 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: MaryLou Subject: Re: SF and academia: was Re: Mythology book query -Reply MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit As I mentioned in an earlier post, I teach English, mostly composition, but sometimes literature class; my favorite class to teach was under the category Society and Literature. I was able to design the class, choose the texts, and teach it my way. So I created a class called "Alternative Visions" which dealt with a variety of ways to view humanity and the possiblities of ways to live. I included: The Handmaid's Tale, Woman on the Edge of Time, 1984, Left Hand of Darkness, Herland, and Utopia. The class was exciting and fun plus students really became involved in thinking about issues of power and authority, class, wealth, sense of self, relationships between self and society. I think many professors are very much stuck in old ways of teaching and perhaps they do not read sf & f--and if they don't read the literature and they are afraid or too lazy to experiment then they are not going to use it in classes. And I believe many don't even know what sf is--their perceptions are shaped by the "b" rated movies professing to be sf but which in reality are rehashed "cowboys and indians" fighting to the finish. Bonnie Gray wrote: > This is something that has always puzzled me... why "popular" > literary forms are not considered worthy of study by some > academics. It seems that science fiction, mystery, etc. could > be interesting to study partly because they are "popular" forms, > and can say a lot about current culture. > > Of course, I'm a scientist who hasn't been in an English class > for over five years :) Anybody who knows about these things: what > do you think? > > Bonnie ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 23:09:49 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: Re: SF and academia: was Re: Mythology book query -Reply In-Reply-To: <34758950@msmailpc01.saic.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit There's a web page for her -- http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/m391/d-lena/PCHodgell.html I was going to look around for her email address for you, but the background color of the page made my over-40-eyes try to fall out, so I gave up I'm afraid. Vonda On Fri, 21 Nov 1997 08:11:00 EST, Rhian Merris wrote: > >ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod. You _went out_ with P.C. Hodgell? I >absolutely _love_ Godstalk!!!! > >... http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda The Moon and the Sun -- One of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of 1997" http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 18:33:54 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sean Johnston Subject: Re: SF and academia: was Re: Mythology book query -Reply In-Reply-To: <347964b6.93070499@mail.oz.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >There's a web page for her -- > >http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/m391/d-lena/PCHodgell.html > >I was going to look around for her email address >for you, but the background color of the page made >my over-40-eyes try to fall out, so I gave up I'm >afraid. > >Vonda Isn't that frustrating when people put up a web page with, say, a yellow background and pastel or neon green print? Aggghhh! -Sean "I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees."--Charles H. Houston ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 17:18:25 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bridget Subject: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sorry everyone for bringing this up again, but I'm intrigued. With regards to the issue of separatism (of the sexes) in novels such as Joanna Russ's The_Female_Man and Suzy McKee Charnas' _Motherlines_ what does everyone think about its feminist consequences? Is it merely an explorative and/or narrative tool or does it have wider implications? Is it the separatism which makes these works utopic/dystopic? I also thought the idea of 'freedom' as such, very interesting as well as the quite prevalent use of violence in both whileaway and the free fems tea camp and even in the raids etc of the riding women, especially seeing it was socially sanctioned. I'd also be interested in anyone's response to the prevalence of anti-monagamous relations in both books. To me it was tied up in the notion of freedom again, the whole issue of being owned but also intrigued me in the fact that in Charnas this seemed to be accepted in the 'dystopia' of the holdfast amongst both males and females as well as the 'utopia's' of the fems and the women. Why did they carry this practice (talking specifically about the fems now)over if it reminded them so much of the old ways? As well as the other contradictory elements of their almost feudal (serf/lord slave/master) class system etc. Was this irony supposed to illustrate a "no matter how things change they stay the same" type analogy or that they are inherently human characteristics that can't be helped- I'll spare you all and stop now! -Bridget- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 00:50:47 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Peggy Hamilton Subject: Re: Independent/feminist women in SF MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rhian Merris wrote: > > Paksenarrion is an interesting case. I agree with placing her in this > category, but it's a little more complicated, or subtle, or something. > Most of the strong characters in the Deed are male, the gods tend to be > male - in fact, the only goddess I can recall at the moment was very > evil. The Duke, who is one of the main characters looked-up-to in the > book is male, and he is almost a father-figure to Paksenarrion, at the > same time that he is a potential lover. > > Anyway, the dominant/superior/patriarchal relationships are of course > subverted by Paksenarrion's completely surpassing them. In a way, she > ends up being all the more powerful character for that, but the long > stretches through which she doesn't believe in herself, and all the > powerful folks being male just makes the feminist reading a little more > complex. I certainly agree that Paksenarrion is a strong and indepentant woman, but I would disagree that most of the strong characters are men. It's true that the Gods were largely male, but Alyana, Lady of Peace and healing was part of Paksenarrion's calling to be a paladin, so there was a good Goddess, even if she was predictalby the patron of peace. Another very strong immortal was the Lady of the Ladysforrest. She did not get into the action very much because she never left the Ladysforrest, but she was certainly a power to be recconned with. Among the mortal women there was Arianya, Marshal-General of Gird, who was certainly a match for Duke Phelan, and also a parental figure for Paks. Canna, one of her companions on the run from Dwarfwatch was a woman, more experienced and a teacher for Paks. One of the Duke's Captains was female. Even the minor female characters, like Kolya Ministiera and Estil Halveric were strong and independant. One aspect of the character that did bother me was Paksenarion's total lack of sexuality. Was this true of all paladins? Something to make them less entangled in personal affairs and better servants of their Gods? Or just Paks, because she was special, a kind of Galahad? Peggy Hamilton ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 14:19:06 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Robin Reid Subject: SF vs. sci-fi Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Honor raised the point of the academic world establishing canons (which I readily concede that academia tends to do), and thus distinguishing between SF and sci-fi. However, since I was an active fan (albeit star trek fandom, which brought a lot more women into fandom as far as I've known and heard) before entering graduate school and becoming a professional academic (eek), I became familiar with the distinction between SF and sci-fi in fandom. The history of the terms is interesting: there was a lot of effort in the earlier decades (30-50's) to develop a name for this genre of literature. Let me see--I did research on this, but my mind is a bit fuzzy. Gernsback wanted "scientifiction." Campbell had his term, I'm sure. "Science fiction" eventually won out--but then they needed a shortened term. Forry Ackerman is the one I've heard who coined "sci-fi" (modeling it on hi-fi" and journalists today always tend to use that term (fits the headlines better?). In my fandom days, "sci-fi" simply meant that the person using it was totally clueless in terms of fan jargon; we fen (plural of fans) used SF meaning science fiction. There was a similar distinction made between "Trekkers" and "Trekkies" for that matter. In my later academic years, I've argued (and not originally) for SF to mean "Speculative Fiction" because it's true that "science fiction" (only clear definition is as a marketing category) has been used to promiscuously to include fantasy, horror, etc. Now I sometimes see people using SF to talk about the stuff they like, while all that other stuff is sci-fi. Fen are quite capable of making up their own canons -- it's not just adademics. The field of SF is quite capable of doing it as well, through the awards, critics and so on (and by critics here I mean the reviewers in the field, not mainstream media or acadmiecs). I haven't noticed SF even paying much attention to academics categories and vice versa. (Sidenote: when I check the MLA bibliography, that is the index of work done by literature and language professors in their professional journals, the SF writer with the most entries is Ursula K. LeGuin. I have theories as to why academia likes her work so much--all that Jungian stuff!--but that's another issue.) But please believe me that OVERALL there is relatively little attention paid to SF under any name by the academic world for some of the same reasons mentioned here--many departments do not have an SF class of any sort--there are changes these days, as someone noted, in terms of "popular culture" or "cultural studies." But these aren't widespread, and there is a great deal of indifference to or outright antagonist about doing any sort of SF, especially, I'd imagine writing it. (It's better than it was--when Carolyn Heilbrun began publishing mysteries under the name of Amanda Cross, she was an untenured professor at Columbia and did not dare let anyone know A.C. was C.H. or she'd end up NOT tenured. My department now, which is not Columbia, encourates and rewards creative publication to the same extent that they encourage/reward critical publication in department evaluations). Other "literary" fields are marginalized in the same way: children's literature, "ethnic" literature (meaning literature by other than dominant ethnic groups, because all literature is 'ethnic'), "women's" literture, etc. And I'm not sure that the standard literary/new criticial approach is really a good way to approach SF, so maybe it's not a Bad Thing! Robin ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 14:43:28 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Robin Reid Subject: The "science" in Science Fiction Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" What I have read in various works by SF writers (Lester Del Rey's _The World of Science Fiction 1926-1976_ New York: Garland, 1980 and Brian Aldiss' _Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction_ New york: Atheneum, 1986) is that for AMERICAN SF (and it's true that with some exceptions what we are talking about on this list is American SF, and there's often to little awareness on our parts, definitely I include myself, about the literary traditions that underlie what we might call "SF" in other countries), John W. Campbell pretty much set the definitions and boundaries: he favored stories based on extrapolation of current scientific knowledge especially in the fields of what is so interestingly (for gender studies) called "hard" science--i.e. the math based disciplines of physics, chemistry, and astronomy. Biological sciences were less important; the social sciences ignored, and the humanities completely dismissed. Campbell was editor of Astounding Stories/Astounding Science Fiction from 1937 to 1971, and is credited with major influence on and publishing of Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, etc. Obviously this focus had a major influence on excluding work by women (and men) not trained in these disciplines (Campbell had a degree in Physics and wrote fiction as well as edited the magazine). The "New Wave" revolution (Harlan Ellison editing the _Dangerous Visions_ anthologies wrote a lot about this) brought in SF based on extrapolation from the biological and social sciences. The feminist utopia writers of the seventies pushed at the fact that technogocal innovation leads to social changes: Russ and LeGuin have both published essays pointing out how the Golden Age/hard SF was able to present stunning technological changes, but all the characters still lived in the basic nuclear family/suburban social structures of the 50's. (And this is true--without wanting to attack these writers as sexist, the conventions of the time that dicated, for instance, that Clarke was alway presenting "stewardesses" on space ships and restricting the piloting ships for men in his earlier work definitely showed the TIME the work was published.) "Hard" science fiction is still being published (Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, and David Brin leap to mind)--although for a while people complained it was disappearing--and some of the writers have some pretty strict dfinitions. Clarke says that although he loves _Star Trek_, it's a fantasy because there is no way to extrapolation to faster than light tavel. Other critics have pointed out the way the "hard" SF people work very hard to extrapolate or explain what then become shorthand conventions for other writers: space travel, for example, or various alien biologies. But the popular mind/media culture still tends to assign the status of science fiction to anything with aliens or spaceships in it. _Star Wars_, despite the fx, is basically a fairy tale: farmboy rescues princess. The fact that robots and a space smuggler in the _Mellenium Falcoln_ help him as opposed to talking animals doesn't make SW SF, because there is no science in it. The question is how much the big success of such productions (sometimes called "space opera" in a slighting way) has affected the chance of making real SF movies. I'm a huge SF fan, but can barely stand to watch most of the movies that have come out. Robin ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 15:35:41 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "M.J.Norman" Subject: Guy Gavriel Kay Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello all, I'm new to this list and I've been reading postings (lurking) the last few weeks with much interest. Although I taught (secondary school) English in the US and then the UK, for 5 years, I tend to do my leisure reading in a very uncritical way, perhaps in reaction, I don't know. I hope this list will help me become more consciously critical (which might keep my brain functioning better now I'm not teaching ;-)). One thing for sure, I definitely have a lot of catch-up reading to do! To my question (finally!). I was curious what readers of this list thought of Guy Gavriel Kay. I only "discovered" him when I moved to England a few years ago and I've become a great fan. Aside from the fact that he seems to create nearly as many strong female characters as male (an important consideration for me), I really enjoy the sense of background and history, fantastical though it may be, one gets in his books. I also like his level of "heightened language". His characters speak differently than we in the "real" world, but it's not too precious or convoluted (IMHO). I only hope some day I can write more like that. Anyway, back to lurking for awhile. Cheers, Monica Norman Hamshire, UK ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 10:59:05 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Martha Bartter Subject: SF and academia Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" While we're on this thread: the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (a well-known and popular group) holds its Annual Conference in Ft. Lauderdale again this coming March. Lois McMaster Bujold is the Guest Writer. Normally, several academic panels assemble around a Guest Writer. This year we don't have even ONE. I'm putting one together (late -- the CFP closed last month), but I'm doing a paper, and so is a friend of mine. And of course, Lois will be there. If you haven't read any of her work, I recommend it: strong women characters, interesting plots, lots of really deep character analysis, and of course the kind of action that one counts on in popular fiction (not always bloody, BTW). She has won a really impressive number of SF awards: Nebulas, Hugos, Analogs, Locus etc. Yet no academic has proposed a paper on her work (except myself and one other at my urging). What this leads to: We should have room for at least one more paper, if any of you want to 1) propose & write it and 2) come to Florida in March to present it. You will need to create something "academically respectable" but you DO NOT need to have an academic affiliation. Please contact me off-list if interested: mbartter@truman.edu Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 11:05:14 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Martha Bartter Subject: Re: SF and academia: was Re: Mythology book query -Reply In-Reply-To: <347964b6.93070499@mail.oz.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 23:09 11/22/97 GMT, you wrote: >There's a web page for her -- > >http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/m391/d-lena/PCHodgell.html > >I was going to look around for her email address >for you, but the background color of the page made >my over-40-eyes try to fall out, so I gave up I'm >afraid. > >Vonda > I just sent the page mgr. an e-mail on the background color; I agree with Vonda. Why make a page hard to read apparently on purpose? Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 10:26:19 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Susan Palwick Subject: Re: SF and academia/MFA Programs In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For whatever it's worth, I was recently hired by the University of Nevada, Reno, as their first tenure-track creative writing person . . . and I made no bones about the fact that I write primarily fantasy and science fiction. I've found the department here extraordinarily welcoming and supportive of my work. We don't have an MFA program, but we do offer an MA in English with an emphasis in writing, and it would be possible to design a creative writing concentration within that program. I've heard horror stories about other schools too, and as an alum of Princeton and Yale, I have plenty of horror stories of my own. I think the snobbery level is changing, but only slowly, and IMHO this isn't likely to happen anytime soon at places that pride themselves on their exclusivity (Iowa or Columbia, for instance). You want to find a school that emphasizes the nurturing of students and their own interests, rather than defining itself by who (and what) it leaves out. State schools are a better bet than private ones, I suspect -- and certainly a better bet than Ivies or Ivy-wannabes -- because state universities, by definition, exist to serve the wider community. That's all too unusual an approach elsewhere. Good luck! Susan Palwick ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:32:43 +0000 Reply-To: susan.courtney@virgin.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Susan Courtney Subject: Re: Guy Gavriel Kay MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit M.J.Norman wrote: > Hello all, > I'm new to this list and I've been reading postings (lurking) the > last few weeks with much interest. Although I taught (secondary school) > English in the US and then the UK, for 5 years, I tend to do my leisure > reading in a very uncritical way, perhaps in reaction, I don't know. I hope > this list will help me become more consciously critical (which might keep > my brain functioning better now I'm not teaching ;-)). One thing for sure, > I definitely have a lot of catch-up reading to do! > To my question (finally!). I was curious what readers of this list > thought of Guy Gavriel Kay. I only "discovered" him when I moved to > England a few years ago and I've become a great fan. Aside from the fact > that he seems to create nearly as many strong female characters as male (an > important consideration for me), I really enjoy the sense of background and > history, fantastical though it may be, one gets in his books. I also like > his level of "heightened language". His characters speak differently than > we in the "real" world, but it's not too precious or convoluted (IMHO). I > only hope some day I can write more like that. > Anyway, back to lurking for awhile. > Cheers, > Monica Norman > Hamshire, UK Hi Monica, I'm also a Yankee in Britain and refugee from critical reading, taking my escape in SF (by which I mean Speculative Fiction - including Sci-Fi), now trying to raise my consciousness. A strong second to your Guy Gavrial Kay interest. I love the character of Catriana in Tigana - despite, or maybe because of how she uses her feminine wiles in the service of everything except the pursuit of the man she loves. Also, Jennifer in The Fionavar Tapestry because, although she is cast as a rape victim, her determination to let her son make his own choices is as heroic a feminine choice as I can think of - and right in tune with my own person-centred training and values. Bright blessings, Susan Courtney Kent, UK ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 10:39:36 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Susan Palwick Subject: Re: SF and academia: was Re: Mythology book query -Reply In-Reply-To: <9711211628.AA13132@madrone.ece.ucdavis.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 21 Nov 1997, Bonnie Gray wrote: > This is something that has always puzzled me... why "popular" > literary forms are not considered worthy of study by some > academics. It seems that science fiction, mystery, etc. could > be interesting to study partly because they are "popular" forms, > and can say a lot about current culture. > > Of course, I'm a scientist who hasn't been in an English class > for over five years :) Anybody who knows about these things: what > do you think? > > Bonnie > This is an extremely complicated issue. Part of it just has to do with the history of English departments; literary studies have been trying to make themselves abstruse for a while now to qualify as a separate field worthy of funding -- i.e., to get around the "well, anybody can read books!" argument, which wouldn't apply to something like chemistry or nuclear physics. Part of it also has to do with changing tastes: modernism, as Jane Tompkins points out in her book "Sensational Designs," defines literature as writing a) that emphasizes aesthetics over politics -- that may reflect the outer world, but that doesn't comment on it or suggest ways to change it -- and b) that uses language unique to the author and not necessarily accessible to a broad audience. This definition represents a reaction against earlier 19th-century conceptions of literature: when Hawthorne, Melville et. al. complained about "that damned mob of scribbling women," they were griping about people like Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote books that were designed a) to change the world and b) to reach as broad an audience as possible. Most current English departments are just coming out of, or still in, modernist mode; so pop culture's becoming a source of fascination, but just recently, and there's still some resistance to it. To the extent that SF/F is either popular or prescriptive (utopian/dystopian/feminist whatever), it has its share of naysayers. Hope this makes sense . . . Susan Palwick ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 10:44:52 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Susan Palwick Subject: Re: SF and academia and popularity Comments: To: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" In-Reply-To: <34767B1C.5E61148@geocities.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII To paraphrase the old saw about erotic and pornography: "What I like is SF: what you like is sci-fi." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 13:59:25 -0400 Reply-To: gamgee@geocities.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" Organization: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 Subject: Re: SF and academia and popularity Comments: To: Susan Palwick MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Susan Palwick wrote: > To paraphrase the old saw about erotic and pornography: "What I like > is > SF: what you like is sci-fi." Quite right... - Geoffrey -- "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." - Ford Prefect http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 11:59:33 PST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Daniel Krashin Subject: "Sci-fi" historical note Content-Type: text/plain To provide some historical perspective: Forrest J. Ackermann ("4SJ"), one of the first and greatest media SF fans of all time, coined the term "sci-fi" in analogy to the then current phrase "hi-fi" for stereo equipment. The media loved the term; oldtime written SF fans generally loathed it. The public at large doesn't give a damn. With the emergence of the "Sci-Fi Channel," the phrase is clearly here to stay. Nonetheless, traditionally sci-fi is a derogatory term used for such lowgrade SF product as Godzilla and other rubber-suit movies. It is *not* used, as far as I know, as a term for "soft SF." And, be aware, traditional SF fans may take offense if you go calling the genre they love "sci-fi." In the words of Forrest Gump, "that's all I have to say about that." Dan Krashin P.S.: ditto what Vonda McIntyre said about Clarion. It's grueling and humbling but also pretty wonderful... and it packed more punch in 6 weeks than two years of weekly "creative writing classes" with friendly, but mundane, professors. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 19:40:27 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Attribution of quotation Sean's signature includes the quotation "I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees."--Charles H. Houston I had always believed 'Better to die on our feet than live on our knees' to have been a translation from the Spanish, originally said by Dolores Ibarrura (SP?) 'La Passionara', heroine of the Spanish Civil War. Also famous of course for 'No passaran' If it is her quote, it is even more appropriate to this list! Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 20:12:00 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: New Genre Haven't yet got to 'The Moon and the Sun' (giving the extortionate exchange rate applied by UK importers of US books) but another novel that seems to fit is Brust and Bull's 'Freedom and Necessity'. Has anyone else read this? What do you think of it? I didn't have my usually-sensitive teeth set on edge by the Victorian (alternative-Victorian?) setting though I did notice a few small linguistic errors (either non C19th or non Brit usage) but fairly tiny. Possibly because of the rather Gothic ambience, so that it could be read as being more about this convention... Plus I thought it did have a nuanced sense of the differences of different bits of the Victorian period--wasn't making vast assumptions about 'prudery', 'hypocrisy' etc. Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 20:23:05 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: SF and academia and popularity (me too) >the distinction between good,literary science fiction and the arguably >more pulpy brand. The pulpy popular stuff is necessary. Shakespeare and 'Hamlet' didn't come from nowhere, they came from an existing tradition of gory and usually dire revenge tragedies. There's a whole background of gothic melodrama behind 'Jane Eyre'. The westerns of John Ford are generally reckoned classics of film but came from the genre tradition of black hats, white hats, horses, guns, etc etc. I suspect more 'great works of art' emerge from despised popular traditions than from 'high' tradition (and if they do, make that high tradition accessible in a new way--e.g the Prague errandboys whistling Mozart after the first production there of the Marriage of Figaro). The margins are where it's at And yes, literary scholars tend to prefer the difficult, in need of detailed exegesis writers like Joyce, Yeats. Some writers, what can you say, but, 'they're good'--they don't require a lifetime's decoding. Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 17:32:45 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Honor Wallace Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias In-Reply-To: <3478D5E1.1D5A@modemss.brisnet.org.au> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="Default"; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Bridget wrote: >With regards to the issue of separatism (of the sexes) in novels such as >Joanna Russ's The_Female_Man and Suzy McKee Charnas' _Motherlines_ what >does everyone think about its feminist consequences? Is it merely an >explorative and/or narrative tool or does it have wider implications? >Is it the separatism which makes these works utopic/dystopic? I loved your questions, though I have no answers--they parallel some lines of thought I've been pursuing lately. I'm very intrigued by the ways in which this separatism is fictively achieved--in most cases, that is, how the men get killed off, kill themselves off, are in the process of being killed off, etc. Rarely does such separatism result from women killing men (Russ's Jael is an exception), but it is nevertheless a necessity and frequently portrayed as deserved. Especially interesting is the charge that the inhabitants of Whileaway defeated men in a war, rather than watching them succumb to a plague. The fact that Janet shrugs this accusation off does not completely put my mind at ease. Is this a form of revenge? What are the implications for feminism here? And is anyone familiar with works in which a more peaceful separatism is achieved? Honor ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 16:19:56 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: [GHOSTLETTERS] Santa Claus to that ingrate Barbie (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu Someone's channeling Kris Kringle, and the channeler for Barbie sent him THAT letter... >(Santa Claus is...well, Santa Claus, and right now he's not terribly happy) > >Dear Barbie, > >This "fat little troll" had one nerve left and I'll be darned if you didn't just >get right on it. > >Maybe it would be good to remember, sweetheart, that I am not your creator, nor have >I ever had anything to do with the way you are molded, shaped or dressed. When little >girls first began asking for you for Christmas all those years ago, I couldn't believe >that they would want a doll that looked like an anorexic Jayne Mansfield. I had >a very hard time trying to assemble you, then when I finally got the hang of it, >that shyster from Mattel showed up and told me that, Santa or no Santa, that you >were their "property," and that anything that had the Barbie name on it belonged >to them and them alone, and that I would be in a world of trouble unless I "ceased >and desisted". The upshot was that I was permitted to represent Mattel as a distributor >at Christmastime, for which, I'll have you know, I pay a pretty stiff fee. That's >a heck of a lot of fruitcake, young lady. > >Now, exactly where do you get off talking to me about how you've been "helping me >out" all these years? I asked the elves and the reindeer, and all they can seem >to remember you doing was showing up, usually late, on Christmas Eve, seconds before >liftoff, then spending the whole trip complaining: "I'm cold!" "The reindeer stink!" > "GI Joe is sticking his gun in my back!" "Get your grubby little hands off of me, >you filthy little dwarf!" Some help you are. Not to mention all of that other Barbie >stuff. The car, the Dream House, the horse, the dog, the hundreds of outfits--you'd >think I was hauling Princess Diana all over the world, for heaven's sake. > >And now, to listen to you, one would think that I wouldn't be anywhere without you. > Well, listen up, sister, it's no skin off my nose like a cherry not to have to haul >you all over the place. I was around a long time before you came around, and I'll >be around a long time after you're gone. > >So, you don't like being a teacher, a veterinarian or a dentist? Sorry to hear it. > Perhaps you should follow the example of your old friend Midge, who got a life of >her own after she was dumped by your bosses. She married Captain Action, has a nice >house in the suburbs, three adorable kids, and sells real estate. I saw her a couple >of weeks ago. She looks wonderful, as pretty as she ever was and twice as sweet, >and doesn't seem to remember the Machiavellian antics of her dear friend Barbie. > > >Speaking of pretty and sweet: your little sister Skipper has blossomed into quite >a pretty young teenager, and her friend Courtney is a little heartbreaker. Have >you noticed? I can assure you that Ken has. Perhaps that's why he's such a "wiped >out excuse for a boyfriend." Ho ho ho! And, by the way, Ken's earring was Teresa's >idea. > >As for GI Joe, does the phrase "don't ask, don't tell" ring any bells with you? > > >Now, I apologize if I seem a bit un-Santalike here, but I didn't need this from you >right now. This is the busiest time of the year, I'm trying to get the reindeer >back in flying shape, I've got appointments out the ying-yang, and I'm fighting a >case of the stomach flu. And now you. Now, we go back a long way, and I'm sure >that I can find an old sweatshirt and a sports bra around here somewhere, but most >of what you're asking me for is out of my control, and you're going to have to take >it up with Mattel. Perhaps I can prevail upon them to come up with something suitable >for a woman of your 38 years (not 37, dear). > >How about "Pelvic Exam Barbie"? > >HO HO HO! > >Santa > > > >Free web-based email, Forever, From anywhere! >http://www.mailexcite.com > Jean Lamb, from Klamath Falls, Oregon, tlambs@magick.net http://www.sff.net/people/jeanlamb. Now working part-time at a library near me! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:49:06 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Kirsten Corby Subject: Re: creative writing and sf In a message dated 97-11-21 15:00:39 EST, you write: << I doubt there's been any studies done on this, but I wonder just how many published writers actually TOOK any creative writing classes or graduated in the "field."....... >> I took one creative writing class as an undergraduate. A horrible experince! Hordes of dreary postmodern stories from my fellow students, trying to be "meaningful." The instructor, a writer of artsy-fartsy short stories (you know, the kind where nothing actually *happens*), who gave us as the text a short story anthology with one of *her own* stories in it, told me I had no talent. I failed the class! Not that I have been terribly terribly published, but I have published three short stories so far. When I sold the first one, I thought, "Hah, I showed her!" So, no, given my limited experince I would not go the university creative writing program course. It's a red herring in my opinion. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:49:09 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Kirsten Corby Subject: SF/Sci-Fi My understanding of this dichotomy has alwys been that it is not a matter of quality, but of semantics. By which I mean, those people who are real fans, who know SF and love it, refer to it as SF. There's even an adjectival form of the word, "SF-nal." "Sci-Fi" is used by people who neither understand SF nor like it, but occasionally try to jump on the bandwagon and cash in on it. Like the people who made Battlestar Galactica or the movie Starship Troopers. This is the only distinction I've ever made. But I suppose, by extension, "sci-fi" could then refer to bad SF movies and TV shows made by mundanes masquerading as members of the community. On a related note, I've always felt since I was a small child that there was a very clear division of people in the world (or in the US anyway) -- fans and mundanes. Two fundamentally different types of people. My secret criterion as a young woman for a potential future husband was that he would have to be a fan. (Thank Goddess, he is!) I was always very aware of this difference in people. Does anybody else feel this way? Or am I just a hopeless geek? =:0 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 21:37:24 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Benesch Subject: Re: New Genre In a message dated 97-11-24 16:06:49 EST, Lesley Hall wrote: > Haven't yet got to 'The Moon and the Sun' (giving the extortionate exchange > rate applied by UK importers of US books) but another novel that seems to > fit > is Brust and Bull's 'Freedom and Necessity'. Has anyone else read this? > What > do you think of it? I didn't have my usually-sensitive teeth set on edge by > the Victorian (alternative-Victorian?) setting though I did notice a few > small > linguistic errors (either non C19th or non Brit usage) but fairly tiny. > Possibly because of the rather Gothic ambience, so that it could be read as > being more about this convention... Plus I thought it did have a nuanced > sense > of the differences of different bits of the Victorian period--wasn't making > vast assumptions about 'prudery', 'hypocrisy' etc. > Lesley > Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com I haven't read it yet, but ever since the first time I saw it in the store, it's been firmly ensconced on my wish list. Hopefully I'll get it for Christmas! ;) I'm a big fan of Emma Bull, so I'm always excited to see when she has something new out on the shelves. I'd be interested to hear what other people thought about it, however. Barbara Benesch BJBenesch@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 21:58:07 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: DAVID CHRISTENSON Subject: Re: SF/Sci-Fi MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii -- [ From: David Christenson * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] -- > But I suppose, by extension, > "sci-fi" could then refer to bad SF movies and TV shows made by mundanes > masquerading as members of the community. So, by definition, "sci-fi" is what you find on the Sci-Fi Channel, and everything else is SF. I could go along with that. :) This thread may seem off-topic but I do detect an on-topic undercurrent - that some important feminist SF has been dismissed, historically, by the so-called "hard SF" mainstream of science fiction fandom and criticism. Do y'all think this is correct characterization of the history? Does it still go on? Do events such as Wiscon and the Tiptree Award represent a ghetto for gender-conscious SF, much as mainstream "women's fiction" was ghettoized by the mainstream of academia so many years ago? (Note that I'm old enough to have had a junior high school English teacher - female - who straightfacedly told us that most lit in the canon was by men because men were, by nature, better writers. Me, I didn't believe it even at age 13.) -- David Christenson - ldqt79a@prodigy.com "We live in Gothic times." - Angela Carter ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 22:25:07 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Corene McKay Subject: Re: Guy Gavriel Kay Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" [smile] _The Fionavar Tapestry_ is one of my favourite things of what I've read. I had stopped reading fiction for a couple of years, and in deciding to go back, picked up a copy of _The Summer Tree_ kind of at random. My reaction was, wow, why did I ever stop, I'd forgotten reading was this good. A lot of it since then has been something of a letdown.... I met someone recently who read _tFT_ and didn't like it, though, so such a thing *is* possible. :) If you were considering reading it, it's high fantasy, with Arthurian and Tolkeinesque elements (although I'm reading Tolkein now and not enjoying it as much - for an entire world view it could have just a few more women in it, and the writing is more pedestrian); Kay was also strongly influenced by Campbell, so it contains a lot of archetypical stuff. Kay's got a beautiful, epic, poetic, powerful writing voice. He's emotionally draining, but he's good. And I agree that the characters are definitely worth meeting. My biggest problem with Kay's later writing is after you've written the archetypical fantasy, where do you go? Kay's answer has been to stray farther and farther away from that world. And some of the characters seem to be watered-down versions of stronger originals (e.g. Look, it's Diarmuid again, but Diarmuid was better). Kay's strong storytelling ability keeps me reading, but I'm not sure how much I like what he's doing now. Anyone else? ___________________________________________________________________ Corene McKay ***ed_res@op.douglas.bc.ca*** ... & the word Editorial Resource splits & doubles & speaks Other Publications Society the truth ... Freelance Writer/Editor/Proofreader - Atwood (from "Spelling") ___________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 01:56:43 -0400 Reply-To: gamgee@geocities.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" Organization: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 Subject: Re: creative writing and sf MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Someone (I can't find who...) wrote: << I doubt there's been any studies done on this, but I wonder just how many published writers actually TOOK any creative writing classes or graduated in the "field." >> Does it matter? If you enjoy the author, does it really matter whether they have a PhD. in Restoration period literature or a GED from Generic, New York? I think, no matter what, just about every author out there will tell you they've gon through some form of a workshop, whether it was in a university setting ot not. Kirsten Corby responded to our mystery writer: > ...So, no, given my limited experince I would not go the > university creative > writing program course. It's a red herring in my opinion. A true creative writing program is going to allow a student to write what he or she wishes to write. Yes, I went to an urban, midwestern university (Wayne State University). No, we don't have an MFA. We've got some grand writers here, but no one who's "big," and, no, none of them have written science fiction. Does that matter? The aim of a true creative writing program (of any educational program at that) is *not* to get a degree. If the entire idea behind college or grad school is a degree then go sit down and have a deep, serious think. The aim of a true creative writing program is to get the student to write and to think about how writing is constructed. If you fail every class, but come out of the experience a better writer, then it was well worth the time. Do I appreciate the time I spent throughout both my BA and MA in workshops? Yes. Is it for eveyone? No. However, if it wasn't for those other, dreary postmodernistic students (I wasn't crazy about their stuff, either, but to each his own) and the arsty profs (a few were, but nowhere near all), I wouldn't be able to stand back from my own work and judge for myself whether it works as writing, not as fantasy or science fiction. So, in my opinion, a university writing program is good for an author who wants a diverse literary background... - Geoffrey -- "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." - Ford Prefect http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 23:24:17 -0800 Reply-To: laorka@meer.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Lindy S. L. Lovvik" Subject: Re: SF/Sci-Fi MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, This is the first I have heard of a difference between sci fi and SF. I grew up in a small town in Michigan and have mostly lived in CA since then, which may partly explain why it all seems the same to me. Whatever it's called (and I'll probably continue to call it sci fi), I love it inclusively. I am as happy reading star trek books (by favorite and talented writers) as I am reading Ursula K. Le Guin. I like comic books. I like biographies of women, like the Brontes and Wolfe and Winnemucca. I like Nancy Mairs essays. I like Tony Morrison. I bring something away from each type. Maybe it's just because I love to read. I am not comfortable dividing the sci fi category into "worthy" and "worthless," nor labeling someone negatively because of that person's taste in literature. Every one makes the distinction of worthiness on her or his own. For example: Asimov's _Foundation_ trilogy. . .I found the characters to be stale and flat. Many people hail Asimov as. . . someone on the top of the sci fi christmas tree. Not me, at least not today. I like discussing many kinds of literature with nearly every kind of human. You'd be surprised at the insight displayed by ordinary people. Regards, Lindy -- "If I had my past life to live over, I'd make all the same mistakes, only sooner." --Tallulah Bankhead http://www.best.com/~laorka Resources related to women, disabilities and literature ***Moving Soon to Meer.net*** Kirsten Corby wrote: (snip) > . . .By which I mean, those people who are real fans, > who know SF and love it, refer to it as SF. There's even an adjectival form > of the word, "SF-nal." "Sci-Fi" is used by people who neither understand SF > nor like it, but occasionally try to jump on the bandwagon and cash in on it. > Like the people who made Battlestar Galactica or the movie Starship > Troopers. This is the only distinction I've ever made. But I suppose, by > extension, "sci-fi" could then refer to bad SF movies and TV shows made by > mundanes masquerading as members of the community. (snip) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 23:49:30 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: lisa schmeiser Subject: Re: Guy Gavriel Kay Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >again, but Diarmuid was better). Kay's strong storytelling ability keeps me >reading, but I'm not sure how much I like what he's doing now. Anyone else? one thing i do like about his work is how thoroughly he immerses himself in the culture he's using as the geographical/social backdrop to his stories ... tFT was right-on with a lot of the Celtic/early English references, _Tigana_ captured Renaissance Italy ... the food, names, folk lore all match up. It shows that at least he's doing his legwork. But I do agree - he developed a formula in tFT, and has been working variations of it ever since. I was terribly disappointed by _The Lions of Al-rassan_. lovin' this thread -lisa ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 12:24:15 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: schant Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bridget wrote: > > Sorry everyone for bringing this up again, but I'm intrigued. > With regards to the issue of separatism (of the sexes) in novels such as > Joanna Russ's The_Female_Man and Suzy McKee Charnas' _Motherlines_ what > does everyone think about its feminist consequences? Is it merely an > explorative and/or narrative tool or does it have wider implications? > Is it the separatism which makes these works utopic/dystopic? > I just read a book on "Feminist Utopias" by Frances Bartkowski. It seemed a bit limited in scope, but one of the points that did strike me was that while there are many utopias written by women which are separatist,there do not seem to be any by men which had no women in them. From the point of view of procreation, perhaps it's easier to envisage women existing without men than vice-versa. > I also thought the idea of 'freedom' as such, very interesting as well as > the quite prevalent use of violence in both whileaway and the free fems > tea camp and even in the raids etc of the riding women, especially seeing > it was socially sanctioned. I'd also be interested in anyone's response > to the prevalence of anti-monagamous relations in both books. To me it > was tied up in the notion of freedom again, the whole issue of being > owned but also intrigued me in the fact that in Charnas this seemed to > be accepted in the 'dystopia' of the holdfast amongst both males and > females as well as the 'utopia's' of the fems and the women. Why did they > carry this practice (talking specifically about the fems now)over if it > reminded them so much of the old ways? As well as the other contradictory > elements of their almost feudal (serf/lord slave/master) class system > etc. Was this irony supposed to illustrate a "no matter how things change > they stay the same" type analogy or that they are inherently human > characteristics that can't be helped- I thought it showed the difficulty of working out totally new ways to live when all your life you had only known brutality and degredation. To people who had lived in servitude, being free might mean the same as "being the master" if their only terms of reference were those of the Holdfast. If I remember rightly, the fems had only limited contact with the Riding Women and saw them as more-or-less alien creatures. Alldera was the catalyst for fems and riding women to begin to come together. > I'll spare you all and stop now! > -Bridget- -- "Take what you want", said God. "Take it - and pay for it." Old Spanish proverb, quoted in "South Riding" by Winifred Holtby ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 08:55:15 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marsha Valance Subject: Re: Algernon -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=_386D7BF8.E988E5B2" This is a MIME message. If you are reading this text, you may want to consider changing to a mail reader or gateway that understands how to properly handle MIME multipart messages. --=_386D7BF8.E988E5B2 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline And I read it is a Judy Merril annual collection (SF: the Year's Best, 1957[?]) I bought on the drugstore paperback rack when I was 12. Marsha >>> Neil Rest 11/07 9:20 am >>> Patricia (Pat) Mathews wrote: >I knew I was getting ancient, but .... I read the original story in an SF >magazine when it first came out. I never forgot it. I had the magazine >hidden behind a textbook in class as my usual custom was - imagine my >surprise 30 years later to find it, not *behind* my daughters' textbooks, >but IN them! The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, wasn't it? also old enough to remember that it was a story later expanded into a novel, Neil NeilRest@tezcat.com --=_386D7BF8.E988E5B2 Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="HEADER.TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="HEADER.TXT" Content-Description: WordPerfect 6.0 /1dQQwQDAAABCgIBAAAAAgUAAAAEBAAAAAIAAC0hJDdq1qrv1zVWcaxVJDeMdDjCSWLqFRu9MUom 1qrv5ZpShDRCQenJJnwLYob4citWJbnC+PG5vBOvCamRe0a2NCcqwPxNcKOLX7/rX5QAAwgo6sQm yoWZKV9lNOxm6x6bKu0D+Th+jMB4vDI4CjlmuxenTROORnfiGMVC82Y6xecQIxgb1lFr6f2aIh4b FGYzpZiM/zjPDpJYiPzbXbZtTuXhB2TQgtdtGYfX6zswRPnkcAr39qRS1fl19j67gJZPSF1fy4uD g1MSy0T8YJqd6AhaBOeEnfE7L5Zue11aq8z1w/DK4ZoX11xIEOsxIF0hXBOoSq201fKJJm84nitu G5lXe6JnIFh4NDxl/iiQGkyG1cPdqlusi1J6orVuJQy0cncRDobzbd+LlHtuzZEd3jNrYGjOc1k7 iZUAenC0ea1qREy+5fcjzxQu+4jy5dJk9OIhVQgWi0aaxS/aEph7C3lsMLeIXN1BOAYx7lIJs14L x4Za9YKqxVnOP+gIILlnuyNXpaWneGYiN1THnVlghSmHJ6goCpNBa37kLcVOf8n3r07auQGF25W4 BZKaUxTfEoq7b9ZkVHUOSLbQBAhV8ljW9Df3t08XlPYJ4Jj3x0olGdbRhvHfSEL/zRKZO/0Ftc0C AAcAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgCAQAAABAAAABiAgAAAFUBAAAARgAAAHICAAAJJQEAAAAGAAAAuAIAAAsw AgAAACgAAAC+AgAACHcBAAAACgAAAOYCAAAINAEAAAAUAAAA8AIAAAgjfAB4AAECAAABAAAAAQA8 ABAnAAAAAAAAEQkAAABaACMAAAAQLgBSAG8AbQBhAG4AIAAxADAAYwBwAGkAIABSAGUAZwB1AGwA YQByAAAAAAAAAAAAAQACAFgCAQAAAAQAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABEwIAJAChAAAAoQAA AAEAAAABAAEACwAFWLcgAAAAAAAAcABtAAAACPogAN0KEACDAQQAAwACACEQAN3dCwsAAwAABAsA 3fEAAQDxTWFyc2hhgFZhbGFuY2XMV2lzY29uc2lugFJlZ2lvbmFsgExpYnJhcnmAZi90gEJsaW5k gCaAUGh5c2ljYWxseYBIYW5kaWNhcHBlZMw4MTOAV2VzdIBXZWxsc4BTdC7MTWlsd2F1a2VlLIBX SYA1MzIzMy0xNDM2zDxtdmFsYW5AbXBsLm9yZz7MzCJUaGF0gEFsbIBNYXmAUmVhZCLMzE15gG9w aW5pb25zgGFyZYBteYBvd24tLXRoZYBsaWJyYXJ5gHdvdWxkbid0gHdhbnSAdGhlbSHwFQbw8QEB APE= --=_386D7BF8.E988E5B2-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 14:57:38 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Guy Gavriel Kay When I first read tFT (or the first two books) I felt that GGK's sources were showing through rather too strongly and had not been adequately assimilated (esp the section which seemed to me a direct rip-off of Joy Chant's 'Red Moon and Black Mountain' {and what happened to Joy Chant???}). On re-reading many years late I liked it more. Again, some of Tigana showed the source-material a bit transparently I thought (the nightwalkers, for example). The more recent books seem to me to have overcome this. Always readable, however. Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 09:26:46 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Kathy Schlump Subject: Re: SF/Sci-Fi Comments: To: "Lindy S. L. Lovvik" In-Reply-To: <347A7D21.3113DFBD@meer.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello to All I've been lurking on this list for a while now, but the discussion of SF vs. Sci-Fi had me composing replies in my head. Then I read Lindy's posting. I agree completely with Lindy - I didn't even know there was a 'SF vs Sci-Fi' thing going on. And I'm still not sure if SF mean Scienc Fiction or Speculative Fiction - can anyone clarify for me? I am having a great time being on this list; you should see my list of 'must reads'. (Quick intro - I am Kathy Schlump, a middle-aged graduate student in Library and Information Science at the U of Missouri at Columbi. I found the list when I was doing research on the feminist perspective in science fiction and have been trying to keep up with it ever since. Unfortunately, I have almost no time for reading 'the good stuff' until semester break, then I'll begin my orgy with Vonda's 'The Moon and the Sun') I, like Lindy, read all kinds of books, but science fiction is an old friend. I began reading sci-fi with the 'Mushroom Planet' series in about the second grade, and have kept at it on and off over the years. I've enjoyed LeGuin, Elgin, Butler, and others but I can see I have a lot of good reading ahead of me. Thanks for all the recommendations. Til next time, Kathy "Once you learn to read you will be forever free." Frederick Douglass ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 08:24:54 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Susan Palwick Subject: Re: creative writing and sf In-Reply-To: <971124184906_-724883852@mrin86.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 24 Nov 1997, Kirsten Corby wrote: > In a message dated 97-11-21 15:00:39 EST, you write: > > << I doubt there's been any studies done on this, but I > wonder just how many published writers actually TOOK any creative writing > classes or graduated in the "field."....... > >> > > I took one creative writing class as an undergraduate. A horrible experince! > Hordes of dreary postmodern stories from my fellow students, trying to be > "meaningful." The instructor, a writer of artsy-fartsy short stories (you > know, the kind where nothing actually *happens*), who gave us as the text a > short story anthology with one of *her own* stories in it, told me I had no > talent. I failed the class! > > Not that I have been terribly terribly published, but I have published three > short stories so far. When I sold the first one, I thought, "Hah, I showed > her!" > > So, no, given my limited experince I would not go the university creative > writing program course. It's a red herring in my opinion. Now, hold on a sec -- please don't blast an entire field based on one bad teacher! I'm a graduate both of a university CW program (Princeton's undergraduate one) and of Clarion West, and I teach CW now. I'm a firm believer in workshops: the trick is to find one where the participants are sympathetic to your project. Yes, there are plenty of artsy-fartsy nazis out there, but plenty of us aren't, too. My own students have commended my willingness to read *anything* they write, whether it's SF, historical fiction, satire, postmodernist meaningfulness, etc. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 10:49:44 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bonnie Gray Subject: Re: creative writing and sf Ooops... I see now that you wanted replies from "published writers". Sorry. I should really pay better attention. Bonnie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 11:52:31 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michelle Bernard Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias [long] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Okay, so I've tried to sit and think about about this My first (but maybe not best) reaction to the reason for sepratism is the time-frame the book was written. I don't know how good an answer this is (late '60s, early '70s) but sometimes those of use who didn't live through times (I'm only 25 and all my experience of feminist lib during the '70s is vicarious and at least half academic) can't judge the anger at the status quo. I get angry thinking about the problems then, and sometimes it does seem (even now) that seperatism would be a solution. It's just not going to happen. SO, the miraculous or catastrophic ways to eliminate the other sex provide a way of working out a vastly different cultural influence. As to why there don't "seem" to be all-male separatist u/distopias, I don't think it's solely biology. The men towards the end of Walk to the End of the World wanted to eliminate women for the most part, and other books work out (non-sep) means for artificial wombs, etc. One part might be the prevalent male homophobia covered up by a "boys' club" atmosphere. I would say it is technically easier for women to procreate without men, but modern and SF technology often seems to work more towards procreation without women. Besides, often in novels males in the plot are separated from women (military, technology escapades) OR it is much easier to envision a world (like the Holdfast) where men dominate women and have no reason to eliminate them (esp immediately). Freedom is something very interesting, especially where freedom of person conflicts with society. I think one way this is more easily expressed is through the prevalence of non-monogamous relationships between women. From being "owned" by one (or many) men into self-direction... it seems that one of the first ways (possibly) women would express rebellion would be to try to eliminate this possessiveness in sex/caring relationships. But again, it takes some time to get there (witness the Free Fems' system still harem-like while the Riding Women try hard for the opposite). I think (as on Whileaway) that promoting a family of women so that even birth-mother doesn't have possession of a child (unlike the patriarchal father). I do want to emphasize this though >"being free might mean the same as "being the master" if their only terms of reference were those of the" master. I would say that is one of the things to be fought against when becoming "free" as freedom would mean different things. That's a way of looking at the differences between the Js in the Female-Man and the methods of achieving separatism. Jael said that Whileaway was started on a war, which would of necessity be denied. Violence responses to violence begets Jael's world. Okay, this is getting confused, but I hope you see what I'm trying to say. As for why the violence exists, it would take a while to breed out the need for violent action from an angry people who never were able to express that agression physically. The Holdfast fems certainly were conditioned against it. As for a peaceful separatism... I think some of the most peaceful ways that it sep could be achieved is via catastrophe. Are "masters" going to (as a group) willingly give up control? One thing that comes to mind is Piercy's _He, She, and It_ with the women in the Black Zone. They took a created situation (assuming they did not create it themselves) and separated themselves. Only by those convenient deadly to mostly males pandemics is it otherwise going to happen, and if the women create this... it's also warlike (IMO), even if an act of desperation. Some other things to think about are the works that ostensibly have women and men existing together (these two are very different, and i'm not sure I like the implications of Sargent's) Tepper's _Gate to Women's Country_ and Sargent's _Shore of Women_. Men aren't entirely eliminated (used for procreation) but it was also a man-made catastrophe/war that caused a situation women took advantage of. Slonziewsky (can't ever get her name correct) does an interesting thing with _Door into Ocean_ but I can't remember why there are no males. Okay, so after typing forever, I'm going to hope you will comment back! misha >bernardm@colorado.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 12:52:41 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: The Jeli's Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Some other things to think about are the works that ostensibly have >women and men existing together (these two are very different, and i'm >not sure I like the implications of Sargent's) Tepper's _Gate to Women's >Country_ and Sargent's _Shore of Women_. Men aren't entirely eliminated >(used for procreation) but it was also a man-made catastrophe/war that >caused a situation women took advantage of. The interesting part (for me) about _Gate to Women's Country_ was the secret that it wasn't the warriors begetting children, but the gentle men that the women had let back into their cities and who supposedly lived with the women's families as "servants". When I found that out near the end of the book I was genuinely surprised. I really liked the idea that the women really didn't want to get rid of men entirely, that they were willing to let men back into their cities and their lives as long as the men behaved themselves. I don't want to spark a heated debate on the list, but I find it hard to read books that are hateful towards men. I know I for one wouldn't want to live without them (after all, who would open jars for me?) ;-) Cami ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ utaar@cnnw.net http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/7115 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "What we call human nature in actuality is human habit" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 14:39:55 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Martha Bartter Subject: Re: creative writing and sf In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:24 11/25/97 -0800, you wrote: >On Mon, 24 Nov 1997, Kirsten Corby wrote: > >> In a message dated 97-11-21 15:00:39 EST, you write: >> >> << I doubt there's been any studies done on this, but I >> wonder just how many published writers actually TOOK any creative writing >> classes or graduated in the "field."....... >> >> >> >> I took one creative writing class as an undergraduate. A horrible experince! >> Hordes of dreary postmodern stories from my fellow students, trying to be >> "meaningful." The instructor, a writer of artsy-fartsy short stories (you >> know, the kind where nothing actually *happens*), who gave us as the text a >> short story anthology with one of *her own* stories in it, told me I had no >> talent. I failed the class! >> > >Now, hold on a sec -- please don't blast an entire field based on one bad >teacher! I'm a graduate both of a university CW program (Princeton's >undergraduate one) and of Clarion West, and I teach CW now. I'm a firm >believer in workshops: the trick is to find one where the participants >are sympathetic to your project. Yes, there are plenty of artsy-fartsy >nazis out there, but plenty of us aren't, too. My own students have >commended my willingness to read *anything* they write, whether it's SF, >historical fiction, satire, postmodernist meaningfulness, etc. > > I agree. I took creative writing -- made some excellent friends there -- and now teach it. I'm more than willing to read anything my students write, but I do insist that they don't just recycle the unexamined fantasy ideas they bring in. I want them to THINK about their characters, and their situations, and make them physically and psychologically logical. THEN they groan. (Like my student who had his evil usurper jail all the potentially dangerous dissidents while executing the criminals. I told him to read the rules for evil warlords, and not write anything stupid. He took it pretty well, I think. And he'll have a better story. (I hope. I have to read 'em all in a couple of weeks.) Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 21:57:39 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias Cami wrote The interesting part (for me) about _Gate to Women's Country_ was the secret that it wasn't the warriors begetting children, but the gentle men that the women had let back into their cities and who supposedly lived with the women's families as "servants". When I found that out near the end of the book I was genuinely surprised. I really liked the idea that the women really didn't want to get rid of men entirely, that they were willing to let men back into their cities and their lives as long as the men behaved themselves. I liked it that the women were really having relationships with men who didn't fit the macho stereotype, but I was very uneasy about the idea that what made the distinction was genetic rather than (at least in part) socialisation and child-rearing practices. Though given a society which (apparently) valued militaristic manhood to the extent this one did, the men who did reject that ideal would have been particularly strong and brave in ways beyond the merely physical. I think we may have had this discussion before (or was it about her exclusion of homosexuality as a potential by making it also genetic and correctable in utero?) Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 15:05:47 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michelle Bernard Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I guess I see that part of the difference between Sargent and Tepper (besides the time, I don't want to harp on the dates too much) is the attitude. The men inside the Women's Country are sort of enlightened beings (not necessarily partners since Tepper didn't develope that very much) while the men outside are rejects (coddled, to be sure). Sargent questioned, but not to my satisfaction, how a culture shapes actions/thoughts. It ultimately proclaimed the disatrous effects (well, this is how it came across to me, unfortunately) of a women's only society and how it would inevitably end (for the good). I think that the feminist agenda changed between Russ/Charnas and Tepper and that Sargent might show the change. Then again, I like to connect all this with Faludi's (non-fiction) _Backlash_. I would like to see more strong(successful) all-female societies written now. It would show something about the late '90s that I think is missing. Can anyone point me towards some? misha >---------- >From: The Jeli's[SMTP:utaar@cnnw.net] >Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 1997 1:52 PM >To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias > >>Some other things to think about are the works that ostensibly have >>women and men existing together (these two are very different, and i'm >>not sure I like the implications of Sargent's) Tepper's _Gate to Women's >>Country_ and Sargent's _Shore of Women_. Men aren't entirely eliminated >>(used for procreation) but it was also a man-made catastrophe/war that >>caused a situation women took advantage of. > >The interesting part (for me) about _Gate to Women's Country_ was the >secret that it wasn't the warriors begetting children, but the gentle >men that the women had let back into their cities and who supposedly >lived with the women's families as "servants". When I found that out near >the end of the book I was genuinely surprised. I really liked the idea that >the women really didn't want to get rid of men entirely, that they were >willing to let men back into their cities and their lives as long as the men >behaved themselves. I don't want to spark a heated debate on the >list, but I find it hard to read books that are hateful towards men. I know >I for one wouldn't want to live without them (after all, who would open jars >for me?) ;-) > >Cami >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >utaar@cnnw.net >http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/7115 >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >"What we call human nature in actuality is human habit" > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 15:36:31 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michelle Bernard Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does this mean we can't have the discussion again? I didn't have that discussion here =) and I'm continually bothered by the genetic bases for selection there. The lack of homosexuality (or, IMO any sexuality except every six months for about a week IF you choose!) as is often the case in seperatist/utopian SF totally boggled me. Was everyone on hormonal suppresents? If reproduction was carefully controlled, why eliminate same-sex relationships (because then some people might not be available to reproduce)? Anyway, this may bore a lot of folks if it's already been done, so enough for now. misha I think we may have had this discussion before (or was it about her >exclusion of homosexuality as a potential by making it also genetic and >correctable in utero?) > >Lesley >Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 18:29:13 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Benesch Subject: Re: SF/Sci-Fi In a message dated 97-11-25 02:33:14 EST, Lindy Lowik wrote: > Hi, > Whatever it's called (and I'll probably continue to call it sci > fi), I love it inclusively. I am as happy reading star trek > books (by favorite and talented writers) as I am reading Ursula > K. Le Guin. I like comic books. I like biographies of women, > like the Brontes and Wolfe and Winnemucca. I like Nancy Mairs > essays. I like Tony Morrison. > > I bring something away from each type. > > Maybe it's just because I love to read. > > I am not comfortable dividing the sci fi category into "worthy" > and "worthless," nor labeling someone negatively because of that > person's taste in literature. Every one makes the distinction > of worthiness on her or his own. > > Regards, > > Lindy > -- > "If I had my past life to live over, I'd make all the same > mistakes, only sooner." --Tallulah Bankhead > While I officially frown tolerantly at this type of post: Yeah, what she said. Okay, seriously. I'm very glad you posted this, Lindy, because I'd been becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the SF/Sci-Fi distinctions, just like I've always been uncomfortable with the "hard"/"soft" science distinctions. Personally, I think it's all a lot of hooey. I will grant an exception in the case of people who really want to separate "speculative fiction" from "science fiction", but really, I've always called science fiction in all its forms (including speculative fiction) "sci-fi". If this makes me some sort of bumpkin, so be it, but really, I can't imagine Vonda (sorry to pick on you, Vonda, but your book's been talked about on the list most recently, and it's the one I can remember right now) really cares what a person _calls_ "The Moon and The Sun", so long as they don't compare it to fecal matter. I guess my point is that just a few weeks ago we were all bemoaning the lack of science fiction readers, and now we're discussing the differences between "real" and "not-real" science fiction (I know it's couched in different terms, but that's really what's being said here). Telling those people who *do* like science fiction but prefer "lighter" science fiction, that what they like doesn't "count" as truly being science fiction is just going to push them farther away from the shelves, IMO. Regardless, like Lindy, I will probably continue to call science fiction "sci-fi" whether I'm reading Alan Dean Foster, Sheri Tepper, tie-in novels or Le Guin. Well, I think I was planning on putting forth something for further discussion, but I think I just stated my opinion. As always, hope I smushed no one's toes. Take care, all, and have a good Turkey Day. Barbara Benesch BJBenesch@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 15:53:18 -0800 Reply-To: laorka@meer.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Lindy S. L. Lovvik" Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Michelle Bernard wrote: (snip) > The lack of homosexuality (or, IMO any sexuality except > every six months for about a week IF you choose!) as is > often the case in seperatist/utopian SF totally boggled > me. Which works are you referring to here? I'd like to check them out. I am combing through my mind for the separatist/utopian books I've read. . . all of the cultures included women couples and men couples as normal (if not exclusive) that I can remember. It wouldn't make a lot of sense unless humans changed into creatures no longer dependent upon touch to remain healthy. > Was everyone on hormonal suppresents? If reproduction > was carefully controlled, why eliminate same-sex relationships > (because then some people might not be available to reproduce)? Since I don't' remember the books being discussed here, I may be off base. Might it have to do with a cultural link between sexual activity and reproduction? Many people believe that reproduction is the highest goal of sexual sharing, and if reproduction is impossible, then sex would not or shouldn't exist. If one believes sexual expression to be separate from reproduction, then I can't imagine why same-sex relationships would be discouraged. > >I think we may have had this discussion before (or was it about her > >exclusion of homosexuality as a potential by making it also genetic > >and correctable in utero?) > >Lesley > >Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com Which author is this? To review, why would such potential need to be "cured" in whichever environment created by the unknown (to me) author? I must have missed this discussion before. Thanks, Lindy -- "If I had my past life to live over, I'd make all the same mistakes, only sooner." --Tallulah Bankhead http://www.best.com/~laorka Resources related to women, disabilities and literature ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 19:23:29 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bonnie Gray Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias Cami wrote: " I don't want to spark a heated debate on the list, but I find it hard to read books that are hateful towards men. I know I for one wouldn't want to live without them (after all, who would open jars for me?) ;-) " No heated debate; just, I do, too, almost as hard as reading (or watching a show) hateful towards women. And I would answer your question "better-designed jars" :) Bonnie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 19:04:20 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Quilter Subject: Gate to Women's Country; Was Re: [*FSFFU*] old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias In-Reply-To: <199711252043.MAA10102@bert.cnnw.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII *** SPOILERS *** The genetics aspect of GATE TO WOMEN'S COUNTRY was a bit flakey but very interesting. (I'm completely a non-essentialist so I didn't buy it as real, but as a suspension-of-belief literary device it worked just fine. It should be noted that the whole genetics aspect also tied into the rather off-hand dismissal of homosexuality. Again, I found the biology to be not-believable.) For instance, it seems that "violence" or perhaps we should say "irrational violence" is a sex-linked tendency. The leading women and their male partners are engaged in a long-term breeding program to eliminate or substantially diminish that trait in humans. Now, if one wanted to discuss the (specious) genetics in the book, one could argue that this trait is also revealed to some extent in some of the women - certainly the protagonist's sister seems to be terminally stupid. And most of the women were in the dark about the agenda of the ruling council. The separatist society seemed to have two major functions: (1) to allow the ruling council to surreptitiously weed out the genetically violent; and (2) to place social controls that allowed the society to be maintained and not ultimately destroyed (again) while this breeding program runs its course. It was a very interesting book. If you can accept as a literary device (for suspension of disbelief) these essentialist biological ideas, then the book poses this intriguing moral dilemma: if we *knew*, really *knew*, that a particular trait caused all these problems and it could be eliminated, would it be moral to do so? In my opinion, Tepper thinks the answer is yes. But the question is ambiguously answered if at all, and there are examples in the book that you could point to as reasons for NO. Such as the too-casual elimination of homosexuality. Whether Tepper saw that as a problem with the society or not I have no idea - there's no textual evidence to suggest that she did. Once again that the moral dilemma only works if you overlook the biology. I see no reason to believe that there are simple genetic expressions of behavioral traits that can be bred in or out. Behavior being such a complex phenomena, Tepper's basic premise is really flawed - I really don't believe you can ever select for or against behavioral patterns such as violence or homosexuality. Of course I also think that essentialist constructs are really harmful to the feminist project, so in that sense the book is not helpful. But it works for me on the level of: "I don't believe in a god but if there were a god I wouldn't like him because he behaves like a jerk." From a logical & scientific perspective, I don't like the concept of biological essentialism - but if it could be proven (as in Tepper's novel) I wouldn't like any society that could control our biology. all this said, i really have to say that i really loved this book; it was one of the first books i found, after WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME and THE HANDMAID'S TALE, that carried on the dialog about gender and power. and i think it is a remarkable book, and one of her best works to date. Laura Quilter / lquilter@igc.apc.org "If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution." -- Emma Goldman FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL On Tue, 25 Nov 1997, The Jeli's wrote: > Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 12:52:41 -0800 > From: The Jeli's > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias > > >Some other things to think about are the works that ostensibly have > >women and men existing together (these two are very different, and i'm > >not sure I like the implications of Sargent's) Tepper's _Gate to Women's > >Country_ and Sargent's _Shore of Women_. Men aren't entirely eliminated > >(used for procreation) but it was also a man-made catastrophe/war that > >caused a situation women took advantage of. > > The interesting part (for me) about _Gate to Women's Country_ was the > secret that it wasn't the warriors begetting children, but the gentle > men that the women had let back into their cities and who supposedly > lived with the women's families as "servants". When I found that out near > the end of the book I was genuinely surprised. I really liked the idea that > the women really didn't want to get rid of men entirely, that they were > willing to let men back into their cities and their lives as long as the men > behaved themselves. I don't want to spark a heated debate on the > list, but I find it hard to read books that are hateful towards men. I know > I for one wouldn't want to live without them (after all, who would open jars > for me?) ;-) > > Cami > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > utaar@cnnw.net > http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/7115 > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > "What we call human nature in actuality is human habit" > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 19:09:44 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Quilter Subject: from list-mistress on repeating discussions Comments: To: feministsf@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII i say, go for it. we get new people all the time, and old people drop off. and even people who have previously addressed a topic may well have evolved their thinking on one or another aspect. so previous discussion of a topic is absolutely no reason not to bring it up again. that said, i'm trying to keep the list archives more current now. and as soon as i get this all to a decent server (next couple of months) i'm going to make them thread-searchable. so, if you think a topic has come up, refresh yourself on what was already said. don't hesitate to state it again or requote but you should get some information out of reading the previous discussions. and that brings me to one final point: please don't forget to change your subject. anyone can do this; when a subject seems to have evolved beyond the subject-line, *please* change the subject. feel free to add (was: blah blah blah) to the end to provide some continuity but keep the subject-lines as accurate as possible. ciao Laura Quilter / lquilter@igc.apc.org "If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution." -- Emma Goldman FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 00:11:47 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anne V Stuecker Subject: Spam generated by this list? Hello, all. I'm delurking to ask if anyone else has received this strange e-mail that I got today. I figure the only way this person could have gotten my name & address was from this list. --------- Begin forwarded message ---------- From: TOWNCLOSE@aol.com To: avs5@juno.com Subject: Tv show-need reply ASAP-fiction Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 11:25:51 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <971125112550_-623692024@mrin53.mail.aol.com> To Anne stuecker, My name is Kim Michael Ventris & I am a TV producer with a national syndicated show based in Boston, Massachusetts.This show airs weekly & reaches some 86% of all households in the United States. It is carried by CBS & NBC, plus some 150 additional independent & affiliated stations around the country. This show, titled, "The Wild Wild Web!" is specifically about the internet & what it has to offer for people of all ages & experiences.Whether they're long-time surfers or getting their feet wet for the first time,we'll introduce to them on this show a huge variety of websites to visit. It will be divided into segments with each segment dealing with a specific topic.One of these segments features science fiction writers & their work. In creating this story I am trying to get as much information on Octavia Butler.If you feel you can be of any help, please contact me by E-mail or by phone. Yours sincerely Kim Michael Ventris. 111 Townclose@aol.com - 617 558-6380 ext 303 --------- End forwarded message ---------- Laura, is this a consequence of list membership being made public? Or did this person simply read the webpage where all our comments are listed? His story sounds fishy to me. -- Anne ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 06:47:48 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: Re: Spam generated by this list? In-Reply-To: <19971126.001155.15670.0.avs5@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit A good solution to this kind of question is to tell the person to get in touch with the writer's agent. > >--------- Begin forwarded message ---------- >From: TOWNCLOSE@aol.com >To: avs5@juno.com >Subject: Tv show-need reply ASAP-fiction >Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 11:25:51 -0500 (EST) >Message-ID: <971125112550_-623692024@mrin53.mail.aol.com> > > > >In creating this story I am trying to get as much information on ... http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda The Moon and the Sun -- One of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of 1997" http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 02:05:23 -0400 Reply-To: gamgee@geocities.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" Organization: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 Subject: Re: SF/Sci-Fi MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I dug out my copy of _The Essential Ellison_, edited by Terry Dowling, and came across an interesting passage discussing some of his pieces (such as "The Sky is Burning" and "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World") in "Section VIII: Rococo Technology": Call it what you like: speculative fiction, futuristic fiction, science fiction. As long as you ignore the defamatory neologism "sci-fi," reviled by anyone who makes even a meager claim to literacy, you're on safe ground.(409) Intriguing quote, no? Especially when I remember what happened the week (years ago) I finally got the Sci-Fi Channel on my cable system: Harlan Ellison hosted a _The Prisoner_ marathon. I suspect the dislike for the "sci-fi" label is merely a case of literary snobbishness, and it would be all the better to stop categorizing things and read and discuss what one thinks is enjoyable. A canon only exists for the purposes of shaping thought. Once academia, and the SF (still my favorite term, but that's my choice) community as a whole, accept that, then we can decide for ourselves whether or not to read or not read an author's work... - Geoffrey -- "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." - Ford Prefect http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 10:05:01 +0000 Reply-To: susan.courtney@virgin.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Susan Courtney Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias [long] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit One of the questions that comes to my mind is how the power does or doesn't shift depending on disruptions in the balance of sexes in the population. In most fiction, it seems that either way, the men retain control - If there are too many women, the men have harems, if there are too many men, they fight over the women. Even The Gate to Women's Country had an example of this old order in the Holylander family that kidnapped Stavia. Although The White Plague posits that a shortage of eomen will give women the power to pick and choose, that too contains pockets (granted its in Catholic Ireland, during the plauge itself) where one man holds a group of young women "for their own safety!" No wonder so many authors have thought that killing off the men was the only solution! (I did live through the Sixties and Seventies). Still resolving my own anger, Susan Courtney Michelle Bernard wrote: > > Okay, so I've tried to sit and think about about this > My first (but maybe not best) reaction to the reason for sepratism is > the time-frame the book was written. I don't know how good an answer > this is (late '60s, early '70s) but sometimes those of use who didn't > live through times (I'm only 25 and all my experience of feminist lib > during the '70s is vicarious and at least half academic) can't judge the > anger at the status quo. I get angry thinking about the problems then, > and sometimes it does seem (even now) that seperatism would be a > solution. It's just not going to happen. SO, the miraculous or > catastrophic ways to eliminate the other sex provide a way of working > out a vastly different cultural influence. > As to why there don't "seem" to be all-male separatist u/distopias, I > don't think it's solely biology. The men towards the end of Walk to the > End of the World wanted to eliminate women for the most part, and other > books work out (non-sep) means for artificial wombs, etc. One part > might be the prevalent male homophobia covered up by a "boys' club" > atmosphere. I would say it is technically easier for women to procreate > without men, but modern and SF technology often seems to work more > towards procreation without women. Besides, often in novels males in > the plot are separated from women (military, technology escapades) OR it > is much easier to envision a world (like the Holdfast) where men > dominate women and have no reason to eliminate them (esp immediately). > Freedom is something very interesting, especially where freedom of > person conflicts with society. I think one way this is more easily > expressed is through the prevalence of non-monogamous relationships > between women. From being "owned" by one (or many) men into > self-direction... it seems that one of the first ways (possibly) women > would express rebellion would be to try to eliminate this possessiveness > in sex/caring relationships. But again, it takes some time to get there > (witness the Free Fems' system still harem-like while the Riding Women > try hard for the opposite). I think (as on Whileaway) that promoting a > family of women so that even birth-mother doesn't have possession of a > child (unlike the patriarchal father). > I do want to emphasize this though > >"being free might mean the same as "being the master" if their only terms of > reference were those of the" master. I would say that is one of the > things to be fought against when becoming "free" as freedom would mean > different things. That's a way of looking at the differences between > the Js in the Female-Man and the methods of achieving separatism. Jael > said that Whileaway was started on a war, which would of necessity be > denied. Violence responses to violence begets Jael's world. Okay, this > is getting confused, but I hope you see what I'm trying to say. As for > why the violence exists, it would take a while to breed out the need for > violent action from an angry people who never were able to express that > agression physically. The Holdfast fems certainly were conditioned > against it. > As for a peaceful separatism... I think some of the most peaceful ways > that it sep could be achieved is via catastrophe. Are "masters" going > to (as a group) willingly give up control? One thing that comes to mind > is Piercy's _He, She, and It_ with the women in the Black Zone. They > took a created situation (assuming they did not create it themselves) > and separated themselves. Only by those convenient deadly to mostly > males pandemics is it otherwise going to happen, and if the women create > this... it's also warlike (IMO), even if an act of desperation. > Some other things to think about are the works that ostensibly have > women and men existing together (these two are very different, and i'm > not sure I like the implications of Sargent's) Tepper's _Gate to Women's > Country_ and Sargent's _Shore of Women_. Men aren't entirely eliminated > (used for procreation) but it was also a man-made catastrophe/war that > caused a situation women took advantage of. Slonziewsky (can't ever get > her name correct) does an interesting thing with _Door into Ocean_ but I > can't remember why there are no males. > Okay, so after typing forever, I'm going to hope you will comment back! > misha > >bernardm@colorado.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 12:38:49 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Fred Bosman Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias Holtby wrote: > I just read a book on "Feminist Utopias" by Frances Bartkowski. It > seemed a bit limited in scope, but one of the points that did strike me > was that while there are many utopias written by women which are > separatist,there do not seem to be any by men which had no women in > them. From the point of view of procreation, perhaps it's easier to > envisage women existing without men than vice-versa. There is a book by Philip Wylie, _The Dissappearance_, in which, through a fluke of nature, the men and women of earth are separated into alternate worlds. Creating an all male society and an all female society. Fred. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 07:43:15 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sean Johnston Subject: Re: creative writing and sf In-Reply-To: <9711251749.AA05205@madrone.ece.ucdavis.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Ooops... I see now that you wanted replies from "published writers". >Sorry. I should really pay better attention. > >Bonnie Bonnie, If that was to me, apology accepted. -Sean "I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees."--Charles H. Houston ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 07:43:17 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sean Johnston Subject: Re: creative writing and sf In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19971125143955.00951130@pop.truman.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> >I agree. I took creative writing -- made some excellent friends there -- >and now teach it. I'm more than willing to read anything my students >write, but I do insist that they don't just recycle the unexamined >fantasy ideas they bring in. I want them to THINK about their characters, >and their situations, and make them physically and psychologically logical. >THEN they groan. (Like my student who had his evil usurper jail all the >potentially dangerous dissidents while executing the criminals. I told him >to read the rules for evil warlords, and not write anything stupid. He took >it pretty well, I think. And he'll have a better story. (I hope. I have to >read 'em all in a couple of weeks.) > >Martha Bartter >Truman State University Martha, Where are these rules? -sean "I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees."--Charles H. Houston ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 10:32:47 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Frances Green Subject: Re: thread- feminist dystopias/utopias: Tepper I 've always had the sneaking suspicion that Tepper just didn't want to be bothered with the complications of homosexuality as part of the "Women's Country" structure. I love it too: in fact I shall have to get a new copy soon; mine is starting to disintegrate. I still cry when I get to the end, after all those perusals! Laura: I'm DELIGHTED to see you are doing the SF column for Feminist Bookstore News! Possible SPOILER below The "undesirable" women were sterilized too, including Stavia's sister (though she had produced children first). Frances Green http://gayellowpages.com On Tue, 25 Nov 1997 19:04:20 -0800 Laura Quilter writes: >*** SPOILERS *** > > > > >> > > >The genetics aspect of GATE TO WOMEN'S COUNTRY was a bit flakey but >very >interesting. (I'm completely a non-essentialist so I didn't buy it as >real, but as a suspension-of-belief literary device it worked just >fine. >It should be noted that the whole genetics aspect also tied into the >rather off-hand dismissal of homosexuality. Again, I found the >biology to >be not-believable.) For instance, it seems that "violence" or perhaps >we >should say "irrational violence" is a sex-linked tendency. The >leading >women and their male partners are engaged in a long-term breeding >program >to eliminate or substantially diminish that trait in humans. Now, if >one >wanted to discuss the (specious) genetics in the book, one could argue >that this trait is also revealed to some extent in some of the women - >certainly the protagonist's sister seems to be terminally stupid. And >most of the women were in the dark about the agenda of the ruling >council. The separatist society seemed to have two major functions: >(1) >to allow the ruling council to surreptitiously weed out the >genetically >violent; and (2) to place social controls that allowed the society to >be >maintained and not ultimately destroyed (again) while this breeding >program runs its course. > >It was a very interesting book. If you can accept as a literary >device >(for suspension of disbelief) these essentialist biological ideas, >then >the book poses this intriguing moral dilemma: if we *knew*, really >*knew*, >that a particular trait caused all these problems and it could be >eliminated, would it be moral to do so? In my opinion, Tepper thinks >the >answer is yes. But the question is ambiguously answered if at all, >and >there are examples in the book that you could point to as reasons for >NO. >Such as the too-casual elimination of homosexuality. Whether Tepper >saw >that as a problem with the society or not I have no idea - there's no >textual evidence to suggest that she did. > >Once again that the moral dilemma only works if you overlook the >biology. >I see no reason to believe that there are simple genetic expressions >of >behavioral traits that can be bred in or out. Behavior being such a >complex phenomena, Tepper's basic premise is really flawed - I really >don't believe you can ever select for or against behavioral patterns >such >as violence or homosexuality. > >Of course I also think that essentialist constructs are really harmful >to >the feminist project, so in that sense the book is not helpful. But >it >works for me on the level of: "I don't believe in a god but if there >were >a god I wouldn't like him because he behaves like a jerk." From a >logical >& scientific perspective, I don't like the concept of biological >essentialism - but if it could be proven (as in Tepper's novel) I >wouldn't >like any society that could control our biology. > >all this said, i really have to say that i really loved this book; it >was >one of the first books i found, after WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME and >THE >HANDMAID'S TALE, that carried on the dialog about gender and power. >and >i think it is a remarkable book, and one of her best works to date. > >Laura Quilter / lquilter@igc.apc.org > >"If I can't dance, I don't want to be >in your revolution." -- Emma Goldman > > FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL > > > >On Tue, 25 Nov 1997, The Jeli's wrote: > >> Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 12:52:41 -0800 >> From: The Jeli's >> To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >> Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias >> >> >Some other things to think about are the works that ostensibly have >> >women and men existing together (these two are very different, and >i'm >> >not sure I like the implications of Sargent's) Tepper's _Gate to >Women's >> >Country_ and Sargent's _Shore of Women_. Men aren't entirely >eliminated >> >(used for procreation) but it was also a man-made catastrophe/war >that >> >caused a situation women took advantage of. >> >> The interesting part (for me) about _Gate to Women's Country_ was >the >> secret that it wasn't the warriors begetting children, but the >gentle >> men that the women had let back into their cities and who supposedly >> lived with the women's families as "servants". When I found that >out near >> the end of the book I was genuinely surprised. I really liked the >idea that >> the women really didn't want to get rid of men entirely, that they >were >> willing to let men back into their cities and their lives as long as >the men >> behaved themselves. I don't want to spark a heated debate on the >> list, but I find it hard to read books that are hateful towards men. > I know >> I for one wouldn't want to live without them (after all, who would >open jars >> for me?) ;-) >> >> Cami >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> utaar@cnnw.net >> http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/7115 >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> "What we call human nature in actuality is human habit" >> > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 08:44:01 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Le Anne Fossmeyer Subject: Re: feminist utopias/dystopias--Tepper's The Gate to Women's Coun try MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I agree with Frances Green's sneaking suspicion: >I 've always had the sneaking suspicion that Tepper just didn't want to >be bothered with the complications of homosexuality as part of the >"Women's Country" structure. But I'd go one step further to speculate that homosexuality posed more than bothersome "complications" Tepper preferred to avoid. I think homosexuality and homosexuals had to be excluded in order for the society to function at all. It's critical that homosexuality does not exist. Imagine the women's country had lesbians. They'd fall in love, undoubtedly move in together, and probably not have sex with the segregated men. Imagine being the straight girl watching your sisters, friends or neighbors fall in love and share a loving, physical life with another. You'd feel a little cheated, wouldn't you? You probably wouldn't tolerate it. You'd either leave or challenge the status quo. Either way, the society fails to work. When I first attempted to read this book and got to the discovery that homosexuality was consciously "removed" from the gene pool, I threw the book away. I was pretty intolerant of what I perceived as intolerance. = ) Later I decided to give Tepper the benefit of the doubt and tried again. And while I didn't really care for it as a regular story, I did find it interesting as a morality play of sorts. And I liked the comparison of the one society that picks its parents to limit the (less desirable) diversity of humanity and the society that fails as a direct result of a lack of diversity in the gene pool. Interesting.... -LeAnne ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 09:34:30 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Neil Rest Subject: Re: SF/Sci-Fi In-Reply-To: <971124184908_1914082548@mrin38> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 06:49 PM 11/24/97 -0500, Kirsten Corby wrote: >My understanding of this dichotomy has alwys been that it is not a matter of >quality, but of semantics. By which I mean, those people who are real fans, >who know SF and love it, refer to it as SF. There's even an adjectival form >of the word, "SF-nal." "Sci-Fi" is used by people who neither understand SF >nor like it, but occasionally try to jump on the bandwagon and cash in on it. > Like the people who made Battlestar Galactica or the movie Starship >Troopers. This is the only distinction I've ever made. But I suppose, by >extension, "sci-fi" could then refer to bad SF movies and TV shows made by >mundanes masquerading as members of the community. It's just the other way around: it *is* a matter of quality, not just semantics. I'm startled that this slice of history has fallen so completely below the horizon. Fandom is "time-binding", after all. ("Lindy S. L. Lovvik" wrote: >This is the first I have heard of a difference between sci fi >and SF. I grew up in a small town in Michigan and have mostly >lived in CA since then, which may partly explain why it all >seems the same to me.) The neologism "sci fi" was, indeed, invented by Forrey Ackerman, who has a number of linguistic and lexocographic bees in his bonnet. (The older, rarely seen "stfnal" comes from the original coinage "scientifiction" by Hugo Gernsback.) "Fans", who were derided for their obsessive interest in a literature represented to the general public by bimbos in vinyl spacesuits being abducted by animate anipasto, needed to distinguish the serious, ambitious literature of ideas to which they were devoted from "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago", so they use "science fiction" or "sf" (or "SF") for our love, and "sci fi" for the cheesy 50s movies with the rubber suits. So when DAVID CHRISTENSON wrote >> But I suppose, by extension, >> "sci-fi" could then refer to bad SF movies and TV shows made by mundanes >> masquerading as members of the community. he was close. It usually works out that way, but that's not where the distinction/definition comes from. You may have other opinions on the tags selected, but the distinction, pre-Star Wars and pre-Star Trek, was important. At 06:29 PM 11/25/97 -0500, Barbara Benesch wrote: >Okay, seriously. I'm very glad you posted this, Lindy, because I'd been >becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the SF/Sci-Fi distinctions, just >like I've always been uncomfortable with the "hard"/"soft" science >distinctions. Personally, I think it's all a lot of hooey. Barbara, if you were talking about Tepper, LeGuin and, say, _Looking Backward_, and someone chimed in wanting to know which Terminator movie you thought was better, you might well consider them off-topic, and perhaps even of less discriminating taste. Amplify that sort of thing by a couple of orders of magnitude. THAT's why Harlan says, > Call it what you like: speculative fiction, futuristic fiction, >science fiction. As long as > you ignore the defamatory neologism "sci-fi," reviled by anyone >who makes even a > meager claim to literacy, you're on safe ground.(409) > Is this any help? Neil Rest NeilRest@tezcat.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 11:41:30 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bonnie Gray Subject: Re: feminist utopias/dystopias--Tepper's The Gate to Women's Coun try Although I, too, was a little annoyed at the casual dismissal of homosexuality (seems too easy and convenient!) I liked the idea that Tepper drops the reader into a society in transit, which is definitely NOT a utopia, but which one could imagine it eventually turning into one (flakey genetics and convenient dismissal of homosexulaity aside...). or at least improving. I read "Glory Season" by Brin about the same time, and remember thinking the opposite: this is a society in decline (at least the clone-leadership end of things). It has been a NUMBER of years since I read both books, however. I'm only remembering surface impressions, not any deep thoughts I got out of them at the time. Anyone care to refresh my memory? Bonnie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 14:10:00 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rhian Merris Subject: University Book Store Vonda! Thanks for the info on the Seattle UBS. I just ordered two copies (autographed) of The Moon and the Sun - one for me, one for a friend for Christmas. They were very cool and very helpful. Rhian rhian.m.merris@cpmx.saic.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 20:48:24 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias A perhaps little-known feminist dystopia--does anyone else know it--Margaret O'Donnell's 'The Beehive'. The society from which the future one has evolved is never named but is pretty clearly Ireland, I think. Women are either selected out at an early age to become celibate 'Grey Ones': the women who, although subordinate to men, an advanced society needs as teachers, health-care workers, personal assistants, or else must be married and have children. Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 13:06:38 PST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Daniel Krashin Subject: Re: FEMINISTSF Digest - 24 Nov 1997 to 25 Nov 1997 Content-Type: text/plain >Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 12:24:15 -0800 >From: schant >Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias > >Bridget wrote: >> >> Sorry everyone for bringing this up again, but I'm intrigued. >> With regards to the issue of separatism (of the sexes) in novels such as >> Joanna Russ's The_Female_Man and Suzy McKee Charnas' _Motherlines_ what >> does everyone think about its feminist consequences? Is it merely an >> explorative and/or narrative tool or does it have wider implications? >> Is it the separatism which makes these works utopic/dystopic? >> >I just read a book on "Feminist Utopias" by Frances Bartkowski. It >seemed a bit limited in scope, but one of the points that did strike me >was that while there are many utopias written by women which are >separatist,there do not seem to be any by men which had no women >in them. From the point of view of procreation, perhaps it's easier to >envisage women existing without men than vice-versa. Some of William S. Burroughs' novels seem to evoke an anarchic male homosexual utopia... If you read Leslie Fiedler's (sp?) _Love and Death_, he talks about a domininant theme in American letters of small groups of men in the wilderness forming egalitarian, utopian brotherhoods... as contrasted to the civilization "back East,", which is associated with social hierarchies, laws, and women... Twain's _Huckleberry Finn_ is the best example of this, how Huck and Jim form a tight community of two on the Missisipi away from the laws, slavery, and domesticity of shorebound life. These masculine brotherhoods are usually not explicitly homosexual (although often homoerotic), I remember some feminist author called them "homosocial." Certainly this idea of a small band of men facing dangers far away from home, mothers and wives, is a strong theme in American SF as well. I would therefore suggest that perhaps (as one of the consequences of patriarchy) there is not much need for male writers to posit a separatist utopia. Male characters can always be loaded onto a raft, put on a starship, or sent to a war zone to get them away from women... As for female separatist utopias, I can think of two basic reasons for their frequency in feminist SF: --it's the most basic gender-based "What if?" in SF, a simple thought experiment. --for not a few women, a woman-only world is a wish fulfillment fantasy (and I don't just mean lesbians here. I know several married heterosexual women who, thinking about the various crimes men have perpetrated on them and their loved ones, think that life would be a lot easier without men around). Personally, as a man who reads a lot of feminist SF, I don't mind the feeling that an author thinks I'm the enemy; what I do mind, very much, is the feeling that the author thinks I'm stupid. dkrashin ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 16:33:21 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Stahl, Sheryl" Subject: reference question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I've been compiling a list of science fiction and fantasy reference works for a class project and came across _Frankenstein's daughters: women writing science fiction_ by Jane Donawerth. I haven't been able to find any reviews of this. Has anyone seen it that could comment on it? Thanks sheryl ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 15:27:40 -0600 Reply-To: lguerra@ibm.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: luz guerra Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bonnie Gray wrote: > > Cami wrote: " I don't want to spark a heated debate on the list, but > I find it hard to read books that are hateful towards men. I know > I for one wouldn't want to live without them (after all, who would open jars > for me?) ;-) " > > lg: I've always found smacking the bottom of the jar to break the seal quite effective. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 14:53:32 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michelle Bernard Subject: Re: reference question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Um I can't say how it is because I haven't read it, but I did have Donawerth for a SF by Women course at the University of Maryland (College Park) and thought she was a good professor, if that's any indication. I would think (judging from our syllabus) that it would cover a wide scope (from the Golden Age and pulps to the present) and a variety of topics (essentialism to relativism). She's in the English dept. misha bernardm@colorado.edu >---------- >From: Stahl, Sheryl[SMTP:SFStahl@CN.HUC.EDU] >Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 1997 2:33 PM >To: FEMINISTSF@listserv.uic.edu >Subject: [*FSFFU*] reference question > > I've been compiling a list of science fiction and fantasy >reference works for a class project and came across _Frankenstein's >daughters: women writing science fiction_ by Jane Donawerth. I haven't >been able to find any reviews of this. Has anyone seen it that could >comment on it? Thanks > sheryl > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 16:57:07 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Frances Green Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias Purely trivial: does anyone remember the New Yorker (I think) strip, where a woman unscrews a jar, stops and thinks, screws it up again, then takes it to her her husband to unscrew? On Tue, 25 Nov 1997 19:23:29 -0700 Bonnie Gray writes: > Cami wrote: " I don't want to spark a heated debate on the list, >but >I find it hard to read books that are hateful towards men. I know >I for one wouldn't want to live without them (after all, who would >open jars >for me?) ;-) " > > No heated debate; just, I do, too, almost as hard as reading (or >watching a show) hateful towards women. And I would answer your >question "better-designed jars" :) > >Bonnie > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 17:08:50 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Frances Green Subject: Re: creative writing and sf Trivial again, but when (lo these many years ago) I was wading through slush piles, I found that any submissions that mentioned taking, or teaching, a creative writing course tended to fall below the general standard (which was not terribly high). One of the worst offenders, who doubled EVERY exclamation point in his dialog, claimed to be head of the Department of English somewhere or other. I expect my experience was atypical. Frances Green http://gayellowpages.com PS: If the writer is Susan Palwick who wrote "Flying In Place", I liked that very much. Did I read that you have a new book either published or due for release? On Tue, 25 Nov 1997 08:24:54 -0800 Susan Palwick writes: >On Mon, 24 Nov 1997, Kirsten Corby wrote: > >> In a message dated 97-11-21 15:00:39 EST, you write: >> >> << I doubt there's been any studies done on this, but I >> wonder just how many published writers actually TOOK any creative >writing >> classes or graduated in the "field."....... >> >> >> ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 17:14:08 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Frances Green Subject: Re: feminist utopias/dystopias--Tepper, The Gate, and Homosexuality I hadn't thought of that. I guess social pressure could keep the lesbians "disapproved of", so that they would be discreet about liaisons, if it was going to be a problem. Since so many lesbians have children anyway, they might be able to stand the occasional sex with a man to keep the cover intact. (Think how annoyed any of them would be if POSSIBLE SPOILERS they qualified the for the group that knew where those babies really came from, and artificial insemination was where it was at anyway!) I have often wondered about Stavia's mother (sorry, name has slipped me for the moment) and her relationship with Joshua. I assume it was (discreetly) sexual as well as loving; likewise Stavia with (sorry, that name's gone too, Corrig??), father of her daughters, since they were not alone in their houses. (Which, since house-sharing seemed common, would provide additional cover for lesbian relationships.) In fact, I would suspect there might have been a fair number of "closeted" women/servitor affairs in progress: presumably libido was not turned off between festivals! I've also wondered about Minsning, Sylvia's fluttery servitor: maybe he was so patently unsuited to garrison life that he did not have to exercise any fortitude to return through the Gate, but was gently ushered out. Frances Green http://gayellowpages.com On Wed, 26 Nov 1997 08:44:01 -0800 Le Anne Fossmeyer writes: >I think homosexuality and homosexuals had to be excluded in order for >the society to function at all. It's critical that homosexuality does >not exist. Imagine the women's country had lesbians. They'd fall in >love, undoubtedly move in together, and probably not have sex with the >segregated men. Imagine being the straight girl watching your >sisters, >friends or neighbors fall in love and share a loving, physical life >with >another. You'd feel a little cheated, wouldn't you? You probably >wouldn't tolerate it. You'd either leave or challenge the status quo. >Either way, the society fails to work. > >When I first attempted to read this book and got to the discovery that >homosexuality was consciously "removed" from the gene pool, I threw >the >book away. I was pretty intolerant of what I perceived as intolerance. >= >) Later I decided to give Tepper the benefit of the doubt and tried >again. And while I didn't really care for it as a regular story, I >did >find it interesting as a morality play of sorts. And I liked the >comparison of the one society that picks its parents to limit the >(less >desirable) diversity of humanity and the society that fails as a >direct >result of a lack of diversity in the gene pool. Interesting.... > >-LeAnne > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 14:11:19 -0800 Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "L. Timmel Duchamp" Subject: Re: reference question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Stahl, Sheryl wrote: > > I've been compiling a list of science fiction and fantasy > reference works for a class project and came across _Frankenstein's > daughters: women writing science fiction_ by Jane Donawerth. I haven't > been able to find any reviews of this. Has anyone seen it that could > comment on it? Thanks > sheryl I found it interesting. It's noteworthy for discussing sf written by women thematically, rather than work by work, & with attention to history & intertextuality & narrative politics. It's bibliography of women's sf could keep anyone busy for years. Timmi Duchamp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 05:45:51 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: silk Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country; Was Re: [*FSFFU*] old thread-feministdystopias/utopias MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > From: Laura Quilter > *** SPOILERS *** > > > > > > > > > > > > > the book poses this intriguing moral dilemma: if we *knew*, really *knew*, > that a particular trait caused all these problems and it could be > eliminated, would it be moral to do so? In my opinion, Tepper thinks the > answer is yes. But the question is ambiguously answered if at all, and > there are examples in the book that you could point to as reasons for NO. > Such as the too-casual elimination of homosexuality. Whether Tepper saw > that as a problem with the society or not I have no idea - there's no > textual evidence to suggest that she did. De-lurking to make a comment on this, which won't, I hope, be very long because I have a published article on precisely this issue and don't want to rehash the whole argument here. (If anyone is interested, it's in the July 1996 issue of _Science-Fiction Studies_ and is called "After the (homo)sexual".) I'd agree that there's no textual evidence to read the text as ambiguous or satirical. It presents a problem, a potential solution and a method to achieve that solution. In the case of men, the basic argument says that men are violent, that men's violence must be eliminated so that women can be safe, and that the best way to achieve that solution is through controlled breeding and by using men's violence against them. In the case of homosexuals, the inference is not genetic per so, but hormonal and again the people with the offending trait are eliminated. Despite everything that I have come to see as positive about this novel -- and there are several very interesting and important things here -- the elimination of an identifiable group of people is simply genocide. On the plus side of this (if genocide can have a positive side, which I am somewhat dubious about), SF has a fairly long tradition of feminist thought-experiments in which women and men are separated, sometimes by the elimination of men, in order to think about what life without men would be like. As a thought-experiment, I have no problem with this; in the sense that _Gate_ is generally referred to as a "utopia" (and I've no idea whether Tepper sees that society as utopian or not), I have a problem because of the way in which utopias are often taken as potential blueprints. While I can open my own jars, I would also prefer not to live in a world from which men have been eliminated. As a lesbian, I would certainly not want to live in Women's Country -- but then I wouldn't be given that option,would I? As far as the homosexual issue is concerned, I have to agree with the person who pointed out that they (we) are eliminated because the novel cannot otherwise work. But I think the issue goes beyond eliminating the specific identity group; the whole novel seems to me to be profoundly anti-sexual. At the same time, and at the risk of contradicting myself, I would have had a more positive reaction to the novel without the few scenes in which homosexuals are brought up in order to be dismissed. Simply ignoring the existence of an alternative sexuality would have been heteronormative enough in its implications; bringing gay people into the book in order to get rid of them at a time when anti-gay homophobic AIDS rhetoric was at its height is intensely problematic. I read this book for the first time in 1989, shortly after the death of a close friend from AIDS, and it came very close to making me physically ill. I found it impossible, under those circumstances, to construe the introduction of homosexuality into the novel as anything but yet another way to create that fundamentalist utopian vision of a world in which gays don't exist and women stay in their place (if you read the novel from a certain perspective, you could, I think, although I've not tried to do so, construct an argument that it's not about the freedom of women but about their containment inside the Gate to Women's Country). In the intervening years, I've read the novel any number of times and, while the physical reaction has worn off, I still am very ambivalent about it as a model for feminist writing. As Laura says, the essentialism is dangerous; it simplifies what should be complex and it ends up advocating a very unpleasant kind of final solution to the "problem" of men and gay people. > > Of course I also think that essentialist constructs are really harmful to > the feminist project, so in that sense the book is not helpful. But it > works for me on the level of: "I don't believe in a god but if there were > a god I wouldn't like him because he behaves like a jerk." From a logical > & scientific perspective, I don't like the concept of biological > essentialism - but if it could be proven (as in Tepper's novel) I wouldn't > like any society that could control our biology. > Wendy Wendy Pearson Email: wpearson@trentu.ca; silk@pipcom.com Cultural Studies Phone: (705) 745-0637 Trent University Peterborough Mailing Address: Box 228, Trail College Ontario K9J 7B8 Trent University, Peterborough, Ont. K9J 7B8 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 15:46:09 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michelle Bernard Subject: Re: feminist utopias/dystopias--Tepper, The Gate,and Homosexuality MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >POSSIBLE SPOILERS > > > > > > > > > >they qualified the for the group that knew where those babies really came >from, and artificial insemination was where it was at anyway!) > >I have often wondered about Stavia's mother (sorry, name has slipped me >for the moment) and her relationship with Joshua. I assume it was >(discreetly) sexual as well as loving; likewise Stavia with (sorry, that >name's gone too, Corrig??), father of her daughters, since they were not >alone in their houses. (Which, since house-sharing seemed common, would >provide additional cover for lesbian relationships.) In fact, I would >suspect there might have been a fair number of "closeted" women/servitor >affairs in progress: presumably libido was not turned off between >festivals! Since only women who "knew" what was going on (high ranking, done well in "women's studies" (medicine) had servitors, I would think it would be highly unfair if there were contact (but that's part of what I found odd about the lack of sensual contact). I also wondered, but decided that if it were as the text put forth (not these people going on in regular life) that there was nothing, or it would have been brought out. I felt that the servitors (being considered emasculated men by the warriors) were considered (sexually) like other women (in a het world). They seemed to give up sexuality totally (vs the limited access city women had biannually or the access the warriors had to extra-city women or "good" women biannually). This was in exchange for being "smart" to come into the city (vs the cooks, etc who remained wedded to the warrior ethos but didnt' fight)... they knew their genes would be passed along and would also help raise the children. The society inside the city was a defered gratification for those who "knew". misha bernardm@colorado.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 19:03:37 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Lorry B. Bond" Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias [long] In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:52 AM 11/25/97 -0700, you wrote: >Okay, so I've tried to sit and think about about this > My first (but maybe not best) reaction to the reason for sepratism is >the time-frame the book was written. I don't know how good an answer >this is (late '60s, early '70s) but sometimes those of use who didn't >live through times (I'm only 25 and all my experience of feminist lib >during the '70s is vicarious and at least half academic) can't judge the >anger at the status quo. I get angry thinking about the problems then, >and sometimes it does seem (even now) that seperatism would be a >solution. It's just not going to happen. SO, the miraculous or >catastrophic ways to eliminate the other sex provide a way of working >out a vastly different cultural influence. > As to why there don't "seem" to be all-male separatist u/distopias, I >don't think it's solely biology. The men towards the end of Walk to the >End of the World wanted to eliminate women for the most part, and other >books work out (non-sep) means for artificial wombs, etc. One part >might be the prevalent male homophobia covered up by a "boys' club" >atmosphere. I would say it is technically easier for women to procreate >without men, but modern and SF technology often seems to work more >towards procreation without women. Besides, often in novels males in >the plot are separated from women (military, technology escapades) OR it >is much easier to envision a world (like the Holdfast) where men >dominate women and have no reason to eliminate them (esp immediately). > Freedom is something very interesting, especially where freedom of >person conflicts with society. I think one way this is more easily >expressed is through the prevalence of non-monogamous relationships >between women. From being "owned" by one (or many) men into >self-direction... it seems that one of the first ways (possibly) women >would express rebellion would be to try to eliminate this possessiveness >in sex/caring relationships. But again, it takes some time to get there >(witness the Free Fems' system still harem-like while the Riding Women >try hard for the opposite). I think (as on Whileaway) that promoting a >family of women so that even birth-mother doesn't have possession of a >child (unlike the patriarchal father). > I do want to emphasize this though >>"being free might mean the same as "being the master" if their only terms of >reference were those of the" master. I would say that is one of the >things to be fought against when becoming "free" as freedom would mean >different things. That's a way of looking at the differences between >the Js in the Female-Man and the methods of achieving separatism. Jael >said that Whileaway was started on a war, which would of necessity be >denied. Violence responses to violence begets Jael's world. Okay, this >is getting confused, but I hope you see what I'm trying to say. As for >why the violence exists, it would take a while to breed out the need for >violent action from an angry people who never were able to express that >agression physically. The Holdfast fems certainly were conditioned >against it. > As for a peaceful separatism... I think some of the most peaceful ways >that it sep could be achieved is via catastrophe. Are "masters" going >to (as a group) willingly give up control? One thing that comes to mind >is Piercy's _He, She, and It_ with the women in the Black Zone. They >took a created situation (assuming they did not create it themselves) >and separated themselves. Only by those convenient deadly to mostly >males pandemics is it otherwise going to happen, and if the women create >this... it's also warlike (IMO), even if an act of desperation. > Some other things to think about are the works that ostensibly have >women and men existing together (these two are very different, and i'm >not sure I like the implications of Sargent's) Tepper's _Gate to Women's >Country_ and Sargent's _Shore of Women_. Men aren't entirely eliminated >(used for procreation) but it was also a man-made catastrophe/war that >caused a situation women took advantage of. Slonziewsky (can't ever get >her name correct) does an interesting thing with _Door into Ocean_ but I >can't remember why there are no males. > Okay, so after typing forever, I'm going to hope you will comment back! >misha >>bernardm@colorado.edu Okay, after all this -- as far as storylines in which men may or may not have wanted to eliminate women from the Earth . . . let me direct your attention to Flynn Connoly's __Rising of the Moon__ in which men DO eliminate women from the earth by shipping 'em all to the Moon!!! BTW -- I'm new to the list, have just been lurking the past few days, but I wanted to respond to this one! Lorry ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 02:49:18 -0000 Reply-To: joanharan@dial.pipex.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joan Haran Subject: Re: feminist utopias/dystopias--Tepper, The Gate,and Homosexuality MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >POSSIBLE SPOILERS In response to the points below, there is specific reference in the text to Morgot's jealousy about the fact that Joshua has to inseminate other women. As he has to travel between the Women's Towns to do so, I think it is fair to say that he did it the old-fashioned way with those (fortunate?) women in the know. This seems to indicate that Morgot's preference would be for a one-to-one heterosexual relationship with Joshua. I think Stavia's growing relationship with Corrig is also very clearly of a loving/sexual nature. I wonder whether it would be possible to characterise Tepper not as anti-sexuality, but against sexuality for stupid people - still not an attractive message, but one that claims a different moral high ground. Joan > >I have often wondered about Stavia's mother (sorry, name has slipped me > >for the moment) and her relationship with Joshua. I assume it was > >(discreetly) sexual as well as loving; likewise Stavia with (sorry, that > >name's gone too, Corrig??), father of her daughters, since they were not > >alone in their houses. (Which, since house-sharing seemed common, would > >provide additional cover for lesbian relationships.) In fact, I would > >suspect there might have been a fair number of "closeted" women/servitor > >affairs in progress: presumably libido was not turned off between > >festivals! > > Since only women who "knew" what was going on (high ranking, done well > in "women's studies" (medicine) had servitors, I would think it would be > highly unfair if there were contact (but that's part of what I found odd > about the lack of sensual contact). I also wondered, but decided that > if it were as the text put forth (not these people going on in regular > life) that there was nothing, or it would have been brought out. I felt > that the servitors (being considered emasculated men by the warriors) > were considered (sexually) like other women (in a het world). They > seemed to give up sexuality totally (vs the limited access city women > had biannually or the access the warriors had to extra-city women or > "good" women biannually). This was in exchange for being "smart" to > come into the city (vs the cooks, etc who remained wedded to the warrior > ethos but didnt' fight)... they knew their genes would be passed along > and would also help raise the children. The society inside the city was > a defered gratification for those who "knew". > > misha > bernardm@colorado.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 00:08:43 +0000 Reply-To: orlando@telemail.telematic.edu.pe Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Orlando H. Barron Galarza" Subject: Re: Attribution of quotation In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 19:40:27 UT > From: Lesley Hall > Sean's signature includes the quotation > > "I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees."-- "Mejor morir de pie que de rodillas." > Charles H. Houston > > I had ... > for 'No pasaran'. __,--======-.___ __ _________,--'_,--'/_-__-___ `--._ / / ,_ / _ ,_ __/ __ {======>________,._.--------------' (__/ / _/ (_\ / / (_/ (_/ .------- ``--------' - USS VOYAGER NCC-74656 ----------------------. | Me gustas. No tengo gusto, pero me gustas! | | Dot - Animaniacs | `--------------------------------+----------------------------------' ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 08:50:59 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "M.J.Norman" Subject: Re: creative writing and sf Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Gee, I don't want to rock the boat here - and really I'm half teasing, but isn't that exact scenario what happened in Chile in the 70's? Have you ever read "Talking in Whispers" by James Watson? (Like my student who had his evil usurper jail all the >potentially dangerous dissidents while executing the criminals. Monica Norman Hampshire, UK ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 10:21:53 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "M.J.Norman" Subject: Re: Guy Gavriel Kay Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Lesley_Hall said >...Joy Chant's 'Red Moon >and Black Mountain' {and what happened to Joy Chant???}). Yes, what did happen to Joy Chant? I really enjoyed the two books I found by her years ago. Does anyone know of anything she's done since? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 10:55:21 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Theresa Mackey Subject: Re: creative writing and sf In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sean, Didn't the "I'd rather die on my feet..." line come from La Pasionara, heroine of the Spanish Civil War? I guess it's possible that more than one person generated that idea, but I'm curious. Do you know the date from your source? Terry ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 11:27:44 -0500 Reply-To: jgam7377@uriacc.uri.edu Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jen Gamble Subject: The Handmaid's Tale MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I was just wondering if anyone could help me out? I'm writing a thesis-driven paper about the socio-cultural experiences of the women in The Handmaid's Tale. I really don't have any idea where to start...does anyone have any suggestions as to a subject or thesis? Thanks... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 11:08:17 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sean Johnston Subject: Re: creative writing and sf In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Sean, > Didn't the "I'd rather die on my feet..." line come from La Pasionara, >heroine of the Spanish Civil War? I guess it's possible that more than >one person generated that idea, but I'm curious. Do you know the date >from your source? > Terry Source: Charles H. Houston. Dunno the date or where I heard of Houston from. Probably a movie. That's where I get a lot of these. That and cool guests on "Charlie Rose". -Sean "I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees."--Charles H. Houston ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 12:16:35 -0400 Reply-To: gamgee@geocities.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" Organization: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 Subject: Re: The Handmaid's Tale Comments: To: jgam7377@URIACC.URI.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jen Gamble wrote: > I was just wondering if anyone could help me out? I'm writing a > thesis-driven paper about the socio-cultural experiences of the women > in > The Handmaid's Tale. I really don't have any idea where to > start...does > anyone have any suggestions as to a subject or thesis? > Thanks... Perhaps you best bet is to examine what papers have already examined that subject. The subject of "socio-cultural" experiences is a rather broad area to take in, so you may wish to begin looking at US society today and comparing and contrasting it to the Gilead society of tomorrow, but something tells me, this close to the end of the semester, that you're expected to do research as well. You might be best off examining what Atwood saw as the trends we were headed in during the mid-eighties and then comparing all three...once you've done that, the thesis will follow (during my undergraduate and graduate years, I never wrote a thesis first...it always came during or at the end of the paper writing process). - Geoffrey -- "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." - Ford Prefect http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 09:21:12 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Quilter Subject: Rising of the Moon (was Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias [long] In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19971126190337.006a0c3c@students.wisc.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII It's been a few years since I read RISING OF THE MOON and I don't have the text on hand, but ... ** SPOILERS ** wasn't it just the rebel dissident women, and only those from the more fascistic states (Ireland, maybe the US, I don't remember) who were shipped off-planet? > Okay, after all this -- as far as storylines in which men may or may not > have wanted to eliminate women from the Earth . . . let me direct your > attention to Flynn Connoly's __Rising of the Moon__ in which men DO > eliminate women from the earth by shipping 'em all to the Moon!!! > > BTW -- I'm new to the list, have just been lurking the past few days, but I > wanted to respond to this one! > > Lorry > Laura Quilter / lquilter@igc.apc.org "If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution." -- Emma Goldman FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 09:35:38 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nancy Ewart Subject: Re: Guy Gavriel Kay In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm more a lurker on this list than a poster but wanted to add my two cents worth about Kay -- while I've enjoyed reading him, I feel that he plaragizes. For instance, many of his books (can't remember the names) are rip of's of Zoe Oldenberg's books on the Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade in southern France during the Middle Ages and ditto with his book on medieval Spain. I think that the more you know about medieval European history, the less enjoyable he is. Although he does create some strong women characters I've been very disappointed by the "borrowings" Just my two cents worth... Nancy EJ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 12:46:35 -0400 Reply-To: gamgee@geocities.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" Organization: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit luz guerra wrote: > Bonnie Gray wrote: > > > > Cami wrote: "...after all, who would open jars for me?) ;-) " > > > > > lg: I've always found smacking the bottom of the jar to break the > seal quite effective. My mother, before and after my parents' divorce (when I was eight), used to firmly tap the top of the jar against the countertop two or three times... Alas, times change: now I'm 24 (and she's...older than she was), she had me unscrew a jar just the other day when I was visiting...though she also has my 19-year-old sister open jars, too... ;) - Geoffrey -- "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." - Ford Prefect http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 20:41:20 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Joy Chant (was Guy Gavriel Kay) Yes, what did happen to Joy Chant? I really enjoyed the two books I found by her years ago. Does anyone know of anything she's done since? I know of 3: Red Moon and Black Mountain, When Voiha Wakes, The Grey Mane of Morning--all set in the same world as I recall. There was also another which I have somewhere which was a version of Irish mythology--The High Kings? Long since vanished into the backlog 'to be read' pile. Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 20:54:36 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: attribution of quotation As I was saying myself.... Sean, Didn't the "I'd rather die on my feet..." line come from La Pasionara, heroine of the Spanish Civil War? I guess it's possible that more than one person generated that idea, but I'm curious. Do you know the date from your source? Terry I've finally disinterred my Dictionary of Quotations which certainly attributes it to her (Dolores Ibarruri); cited as 'Speech in Paris, 3 Sep 1936'. I suspect this predates the Houston quote, and this may in fact be quoting her? Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 17:03:55 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: The Handmaid's Tale Comments: To: Jen Gamble In-Reply-To: <347D9F80.572@uriacc.uri.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 27 Nov 1997, Jen Gamble wrote: > > I was just wondering if anyone could help me out? I'm writing a > thesis-driven paper about the socio-cultural experiences of the women in > The Handmaid's Tale. I really don't have any idea where to start...does > anyone have any suggestions as to a subject or thesis? > Thanks... > Go get a copy of Heinlein's REVOLT IN 2100 - used or new - and read it on top of the HANDMAID'S TALE. I don't think Atwood ever read Heinlein in her life, but look at the beginning of the regime (Atwood) and the end (Heinlein). That gives you an arc for the culture itself. Note: REVOLT was written 40 years before HANDMAID and HANDMAID is still a perfe4ct prequel to REVOILT! Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews @unm.edu "With a 14.4 modem it's not netsurfing.It's webcrawling." "Wanted, one ghost. Experience and good character required. Ability to ing tenor an advantage. Apply Paris Opera before New Years, 1882." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 17:10:04 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: The Handmaid's Tale Comments: To: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" In-Reply-To: <347D9CE2.98926D76@geocities.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 27 Nov 1997, Geoffrey D. Sperl wrote: > that you're expected to do research as well. You might be best off > examining what Atwood saw as the trends we were headed in during the > mid-eighties and then comparing all three...once you've done that, the > thesis will follow (during my undergraduate and graduate years, I never > wrote a thesis first...it always came during or at the end of the paper > writing process). > > - Geoffrey > > -- Forget the mid-eighties. It's just a blip on the screen. Look at American history, especially the strain of religious fundamentalism and what, in each time it's arisen, what it has actually taught about women's status and how women have responded. The novel I suggested as prequel to it was written in rreaction to the age ELMER GANTRY described. And it's not always been as obvious as repression -oppression -revolt. Women have answered attempts to confine them to their spere in a good many ways. One common one is to establish total dominion over the home. Someone I knew who weas reared Mormon said that once inside the door, the mother was total boss. Another, used throughout Victorian times, was to do social reform as an extension of their motherly & wifely role. Dickens made a huge mockery of it with one of his characters who was (as a current book accused modern liberals of!) slobbering over starving children in distant lands, while ignoring the needs of those on her doorstep. But check out other eras as well. Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews @unm.edu "With a 14.4 modem it's not netsurfing.It's webcrawling." "Wanted, one ghost. Experience and good character required. Ability to ing tenor an advantage. Apply Paris Opera before New Years, 1882." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 21:15:41 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Lorry B. Bond" Subject: Re: Rising of the Moon (was Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias [long] In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Yea, I think you are right, but . . . I got the sense that shipping only the "rebel" wimmin from Ireland was only the beginning -- besides which, aren't all thinking, breathing, independent wimmin considered "rebels" in most cultures on our planet ??? ;) I'm still waiting for the sequel (oh, where, oh where, is it, Flynn?????) Still one of the best books I've ever read! At 09:21 AM 11/27/97 -0800, you wrote: >It's been a few years since I read RISING OF THE MOON and I don't have >the text on hand, but ... > >** SPOILERS ** > > > > > > > > > > >wasn't it just the rebel dissident women, and only those from the more >fascistic states (Ireland, maybe the US, I don't remember) who were >shipped off-planet? > >> Okay, after all this -- as far as storylines in which men may or may not >> have wanted to eliminate women from the Earth . . . let me direct your >> attention to Flynn Connoly's __Rising of the Moon__ in which men DO >> eliminate women from the earth by shipping 'em all to the Moon!!! >> >> BTW -- I'm new to the list, have just been lurking the past few days, but I >> wanted to respond to this one! >> >> Lorry >> > >Laura Quilter / lquilter@igc.apc.org > >"If I can't dance, I don't want to be >in your revolution." -- Emma Goldman > > FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 22:47:11 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sean Johnston Subject: Re: attribution of quotation In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >As I was saying myself.... > >Sean, > Didn't the "I'd rather die on my feet..." line come from La Pasionara, >heroine of the Spanish Civil War? I guess it's possible that more than >one person generated that idea, but I'm curious. Do you know the date >from your source? > Terry > >I've finally disinterred my Dictionary of Quotations which certainly >attributes it to her (Dolores Ibarruri); cited as 'Speech in Paris, 3 Sep >1936'. I suspect this predates the Houston quote, and this may in fact be >quoting her? >Lesley >Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com Lesley, Haven't a clue. To me, it's just a cool, and hopefully true, statement; the possessor of the mouth from whom it originally emanated is unimportant. Not to sound like I'm dissing you, though, this Dolores Ibarruri sounds rather interesting. -Sean Stand for something or you'll fall for anything.--Author Unknown ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 21:09:31 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: The Jeli's Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >As a thought-experiment, I have no problem with this; in the sense >that _Gate_ is generally referred to as a "utopia" (and I've no idea >whether Tepper sees that society as utopian or not), I have a problem >because of the way in which utopias are often taken as potential >blueprints. While I can open my own jars, I would also prefer not to live >in a world from which men have been eliminated. As a lesbian, I would >certainly not want to live in Women's Country -- but then I wouldn't be >given that option,would I? I for one definitely do not consider the Women's Country a utopia. Except for the few women at the top, the women's lives are very constricted and it seems they have few choices in life. The idea of a few running everything while keeping everyone else in the dark is disturbing. I definitely do not like others making my life choices for me, male or female. I don't let any man tell me what to do, I'm sure not going to let other women tell me what's right for me and every other woman--theoretically, of course. :-) Cami ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ utaar@cnnw.net http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/7115 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "What we call human nature in actuality is human habit" ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 15:55:19 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "M.J.Norman" Subject: Re: Guy Gavriel Kay Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I agree that Kay does use a lot of "real world" history to serve as a background for his novels, though I have to admit to ignorance of Zoe Oldenberg's books. However, his use of history has not lessened my enjoyment of his work. Isn't history there for everyone? Does anyone own it, whether they've written a (scholarly) book on it or not? Kay doesn't exactly make a secret of his sources, they are listed in the opening pages. When sources are identified, plagarisim is not really an issue (or hopefully his lawyers wouldn't have let him publish). I personally think that his derivative-ness (is there such a word?:)) is no "worse" than any other fantasy writer in that particular category. What about Katharine Kurtz, Patricia K. Morrison, Mary Stewart, Katharine Kerr, even Tolkien, to name only a few? Each of them draws extensively on various periods of history. It's another micro-genre of fantasy I suppose. (Is there already a name for it?) Perhaps Kay's use of history seems more obvious because the periods he uses are more recent (or more widely known) than those that have been used before. I think it's refreshing to find books of that genre written about something besides ancient Celts, Romans, or Anglo-Saxons. I guess either you enjoy that sort of thing or you don't. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. It's one of the many types of fiction that I enjoy reading. Sorry, I don't really mean to sound as if I'm lecturing. I'll put the soapbox away now - and if anyone disagrees with me, I'm sure I'll find out about it!!;-) Monica Norman Hampshire, UK >I'm more a lurker on this list than a poster but wanted to add my two cents >worth about Kay -- while I've enjoyed reading him, I feel that he >plaragizes. For instance, many of his books (can't remember the names) are >rip of's of Zoe Oldenberg's books on the Cathars and the Albigensian >Crusade in southern France during the Middle Ages and ditto with his book >on medieval Spain. I think that the more you know about medieval European >history, the less enjoyable he is. Although he does create some strong >women characters I've been very disappointed by the "borrowings" > >Just my two cents worth... > >Nancy EJ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 12:24:56 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Re: old thread- feminist dystopias/utopias MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My mother's only brother died at 21 in 1944, so all I know of him is through stories - and my favorite among them concerns opening jars, believe it or not. Uncle Cecil loved to tighten a lid as tight as he could get it and then hand the jar to his baby sister, preferably in the presence of someone who wouldn't believe a woman could have strong hands. Mom would then open it, every time. Wish I'd inherited that from her, but I didn't...I always need to use a very handy device you can buy in any grocery store. Nina Osier Geoffrey D. Sperl wrote: > luz guerra wrote: > > > Bonnie Gray wrote: > > > > > > Cami wrote: "...after all, who would open jars for me?) ;-) > " > > > > > > > > lg: I've always found smacking the bottom of the jar to break the > > > seal quite effective. > > My mother, before and after my parents' divorce (when I was eight), > used > to firmly tap the top of the jar against the countertop two or three > times... > > Alas, times change: now I'm 24 (and she's...older than she was), she > had > me unscrew a jar just the other day when I was visiting...though she > also has my 19-year-old sister open jars, too... ;) > > - Geoffrey ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 20:11:22 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: C17th women writers For those of you who are interested in Margaret Cavendish, I pass on information about a 'study pack' called 'Spinning with the Brain: women's writing in C17th England' edited by Norman Clarke and Helen Weinstein. Published by BBC Education. It contains 2 cassettes of what was a radio series of interviews, and a booklet on the broader context. The subjects include Margaret Cavendish, the scandalous novelist Delariviere Manley, also the midwife Jane Sharp and the writer of domestic manuals Hannah Woolley. It costs £24.99 Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 20:06:23 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Guy Gavriel Kay Isn't history there for everyone? Does anyone own it, whether they've written a (scholarly) book on it or not? Kay doesn't exactly make a secret of his sources, they are listed in the opening pages. I think the issue here that troubles me (and whoever else it was commented about it--sorry, I deleted this message) is the very close way GGK sticks to his originals. He doesn't seem to me to use them as a springboard for the imagination but just transcribes things directly (which was my feeling about the nightwalkers in Tigana). I wouldn't necessarily call this plagiarism: more a kind of failure to reimagine source material through an individual creative perspective. The other writers mentioned by Monica seem to me to being using their historical knowledge to create new imagined societies. There is (I think) a difference between writing 'alternative history' based on the history of this world as we know it, and using one's historical research to create the history of an imagined society--too close an adherence to the sources does jar a bit. Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 17:43:45 -0400 Reply-To: gamgee@geocities.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" Organization: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 Subject: Re: The Handmaid's Tale MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Pat wrote: > On Thu, 27 Nov 1997, Geoffrey D. Sperl wrote: > > > that you're expected to do research as well. You might be best off > > examining what Atwood saw as the trends we were headed in during the > > > mid-eighties and then comparing all three > > -- > Forget the mid-eighties. It's just a blip on the screen. I'm sorry, Pat, but I disagree. The time in which a work was written is an important part of research. While it would do good to look at all of American history, it's the fact that Atwood saw the US as having the potential to fall into a theocracy just as Iran did. I think any individual who looks over the historical context in which a book was written is overlooking an important influence over the book itself. Ever the non-poststructuralist, Geoffrey