Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF LOG9806E" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 06:45:05 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: The Moon and the Sun..a few more MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Krauel wrote: >>Seven reasons why I loved The Moon and the Sun: And may I add a few more? 1. Female protagonist's attentions and actions are given to many diverse efforts, as are her skills and accomplishments achieved in many diverse areas. None of which involve "swooning interminably over some man". A Renaissance Woman as it were. 2. The convent is portrayed for what is must really have been, a place to shutter up active and vocal women and deny them pleasures of intellect and displays of talent. 3. Women characters from non-white cultures (Martinique and Arabia) provide us truthful information of themselves that interrupt a readers shorthand stereotypical assumptions. 4. Monarchy is shown as appalling (IMHO) yet the Monarch is shown as complex and sympathetic in the same manner as is done with the "Church" and the Pope. I am still puzzling about the portrayal of Monsieur - Philippe. His only real activity of note, other then being the continuously "obsessed swooning character", is to confront the King over the potential loss of his lover. I am assuming the author adheres to historical accuracy as much here as in the other portrayals. There is probably more in there somewhere, but I just finished it last night and this is all that has jelled. Captivating and extraordinary story. It will not spare your heart any measure. donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 05:28:39 PDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: False contraceptives Comments: To: cyborg@UOL.COM.BR Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit What a horrendous but believable story about Schering selling sham birth ^? control pills then taking no responsibility for the results. We in our o^? ver-litigious USA have no real idea of the extent corporations can inflic^? t harm without reprisal in other countries. Goddess knows they do plenty^? of damage here, but at least if we have money or power enough there is l^? egal recourse. Of course the same could be said anywhere. Money and power usually get anyo^? ne pretty healthy treatment. Do you mind if I send your post to the midwifery and perinatalrn lists? ^? I'm sure many of my sister with-women types would be very interested. By the way, have you seen the movie Brazil? What a perfect ending. Some^? times I think there needs to be a board (of which I would be chairperson)^? who should pass judgement on the endings for all movies before they can ^? be shown. I think that would eliminate about half the ones out today. H^? ow about Bullworth and A Perfect Murder? There would have been some chan^? ges. Joyce Jones ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N^? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 10:26:47 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Debra Euler Subject: Re: book covers -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain THE GOLDEN KEY is a fabulous painting. I did *not* want to give it back to Michael Whelan when we were finished with it... Debra Euler, DAW Books >>> Maryelizabeth Hart - 6/26/98 3:18 AM >>> GOLDEN KEY is indeed marvelous. BTW, I noticed that Jennifer Roberson is offering hardcovers of it signed by all three authors via the Basement Full of Books. I love the cover for THE WHITE RAVEN so much I have a print of it signed by Thomas Canty and Diane Paxson. And I don't buy much art -- sorry, but it takes up wall space, where I might put a bookshelf! I also like the cover art on SWORD-DANCER, the first Tiger and Del book. It has to be one of my faves. And on a non-sf book, the cover art on Nicola's BLUE PLACE is great! I read BROWN GIRL IN THE RING, and will do my review of it as soon as I get back from the Lilith Festival! Look for it Monday or so! Have a great weekend! Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 10:54:49 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Kathleen M. Friello" Subject: Hateful Old Women Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I've been taking another stab at Sturgeon--- trying to like him for all the reasons he's been praised by writers I respect. He's one of those authors I can only partially swallow before gagging on the undertaste, like the orange- flavored penicillin I got dosed with around the time some of the stories I just read first appeared. I found an old copy of The Golden Helix, and was actually making progress until I hit "...and my fear is great..." and lost my mental lunch again. Has anyone else read this story? A young juvenile-delinquent type male encounters an old woman, a severe grandmotherly type, who has strange mental/physical powers. She seems interested in helping him improve himself. He starts changing for the better. She reveals that her powers are due to yoga and offers a primitive discription of the "yin-yang" symbol (or, tellingly, yin-Yang). Boy meets girl, vulnerable and open and wounded. Boy has troubled dating past (disgusting story about bloated corpse of a rat/connection with birthing a baby/disinclination to cause a baby, so can't date girls), but somehow this girl is different. At this point, the old woman character becomes perverted. She forbids him to see the girl. She hypnotizes him, becomes jealous, tries to transfer his affection to herself. Boy is stronger than she is, throws off hypnotic suggestion, forces the company of the good, compiant, soft girl on the old woman. Horror, not only in her attempted manipulation, but in her inappropriate sexuality--- the same horror as that of the post- menopausal Nora Desmond. Bad yin: old, powerful; good yin: young, dependent, wounded. I don't know whether Sturgeon conceived the old woman as horrible from the beginning, or just perverted her character in writing the story, but from this sex and time, to me, in other words, the character was unnaturally twisted. It was a nasty jolt, a deformation by the author. The story was also pop-psych at its worst. It had a slight, grotesque echo in the book's last story/anecdote, written some twenty years later, about a vicious family fight instigated by the grandmother of the author (author describing himself as still a "kid" with a young wife and baby; grandmother motivated by, no fooling, the desire to sleep with his wife, who the author wants to take away with him). The story was made more unpleasant because I had just finished reading Bradley Denton's "The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians" with a similarly empowered horrible old woman reforming naughty comics. (There's a soft, lovely, seemingly wounded woman there, too.) I love Denton, even at his darkest or goofiest, but the hateful old woman stuck in my mind. I didn't get the idea that she'd been betrayed by her creator, the way Sturgeon's old woman was. That was just foul. It wasn't even so much that the type, the evil old woman inflicting punishment on men, was still so powerful. It was more that both women were also depicted as manipulating love and favor-giving; that they shown as the source of potential comfort that was willfully withheld, that was only given as reward for dictated behavior. And, in Denton, that she was the local personification of the Almighty This Is The Way It Is. So, what's the point? I'm not sure. It does make me reach for Granny Weatherwax, in gratitude. And wonder whether fat is a natural insulation against evil female inclinations. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 12:03:45 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Kathleen M. Friello" Subject: Re: The Moon and the Sun..a few more Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-06-29 06:46:03 EDT, donnaneely@EARTHLINK.NET writes: << 2. The convent is portrayed for what is must really have been, a place to shutter up active and vocal women and deny them pleasures of intellect and displays of talent. >> This is, excuse me, crap. For all the oppressions of the church, the convent could function as a haven for women disinclined to marry or unable to live independently. Pleasures of the intellect could certainly be indulged-- I can only cite my patron saint, Catherine of Padua, administrator of a convent, as an example, as well as her faithful chronicler (lover?), who recorded her life and outspoken condemnation of sexism within the church. In addition, meditation and spiritual instruction encouraged intellectual exercise. Even if the topics and scope of meditation were proscribed by religion, the exposure to metaphysical thought was still an expansion of the mental universe not necessarily available to the secular woman. Nuns painted, embroidered, healed and tended the sick, planted, baked, played instruments and sang-- and instructed young ladies boarding at the convent, which required a community with greater literacy than might be encountered outside of the nobility. Above all, they lived in a community of women, free of the oppression of enforced child bearing and rearing. It's a romantic literary convention to send (or threaten to send) a lively heroine off to the convent for the suppression of her sexuality, independence, or "self-expression," and to posit the convent as an institution expressly designed to crush the female soul. Fiction isn't life. If you want to form your opinions of the convent from fiction, try Sylvia Townsend Warner's The Corner That Held Them, about three decades in a community of nuns, during the Hundred Years' War. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 21:28:21 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Carolyn Ives Gilman Subject: Re: Hateful Old Women Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit >At this point, the old woman character becomes perverted. She forbids him to see >the girl. She hypnotizes him, becomes jealous, tries to transfer his affection to >herself. Boy is stronger than she is, throws off hypnotic suggestion, forces the >company of the good, compiant, soft girl on the old woman. Horror, not only in her >attempted manipulation, but in her inappropriate sexuality-- Very interesting post. To make things even more complicated, the Hateful Old Woman, inappropriate sexuality and all, also makes an appearance in Candas Jane Dorsey's _Black Wine_, this year's Tiptree Award winner. So she is not solely the denizen of the male subconscious. Finding her so widely reproduced, I've got to think she's some sort of archetype, even though she does not push any of my buttons. Or should I say, stir the sludge at the bottom of my subconscious well... Carolyn ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 21:28:28 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Carolyn Ives Gilman Subject: Re: Convents in fiction Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit << 2. The convent is portrayed for what is must really have been, a place to shutter up active and vocal women and deny them pleasures of intellect and displays of talent. >> <> I have to think the reality must have had aspects of both these pictures. My own favorite portrayal on a convent is in H.F.M. Prescott's "The Man on a Donkey," which has been called the best historical novel ever written (I don't know about that, but it's certainly the best I've ever read). There, the convent is a place of stultifying routine and silly personality conflicts, full of gossip, where some people settle into the safety of unchanging roles, others achieve a fleeting transcendence through their work, and a few of ambition rise into the much-criticized administration -- in fact, exactly like every workplace I've ever been in. It rings so true to me, I've got to believe it. And I work in the modern equivalent, the nonprofit educational institution. Carolyn ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 20:23:26 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: Hateful Old Women In-Reply-To: <97041bde.35983f36@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Carolyn Ives Gilman wrote: > > > Very interesting post. To make things even more complicated, the Hateful Old > Woman, inappropriate sexuality and all, also makes an appearance in Candas > Jane Dorsey's _Black Wine_, this year's Tiptree Award winner. So she is not > solely the denizen of the male subconscious. Finding her so widely > reproduced, I've got to think she's some sort of archetype, even though she > does not push any of my buttons. Or should I say, stir the sludge at the > bottom of my subconscious well... > > Carolyn > Maybe it's everybody's nightmare of their primary caretaker with PMS? Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 23:07:53 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Convents in fiction In-Reply-To: <44baf35d.35983f44@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > << 2. The convent is portrayed for what is must really have been, a place to > shutter up active and vocal women and deny them pleasures of intellect and > displays of talent. >> > > < > < for women disinclined to marry or unable to live independently. Pleasures of > the intellect could certainly be indulged-->> Go to a good university library and look up their medieval literature collection. Then look for all of the women writers in their medieval lit collection. There won't be a lot of them, but, barring a few noblewomen, virtually all of them will indeed be nuns. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 23:11:24 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: Convents in fiction In-Reply-To: <44baf35d.35983f44@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > << 2. The convent is portrayed for what is must really have been, a place to > shutter up active and vocal women and deny them pleasures of intellect and > displays of talent. >> > > < for women disinclined to marry or unable to live independently. Pleasures of > the intellect could certainly be indulged-->> > I think this is the question of what is better -- to be cut off from the world, at the same time avoiding its sexism, inequality, and the proscribed social roles of "what women otta do"; or to stay within the world and try having a "real life", which means compromising one's independence, sometimes to the point of completely giving it up. To be or not to be, you know. To get away or fight the sea of troubles. Freedom vs. life. Kind of like "family vs. career". Personally, I think that life in a convent could (and can) be either stiffling or liberating. It depends on the person, her attitude, the people around her, and the spirit of the particular setting. It's kind of like military -- some people see the discipline and harsh training as a welcome challenge, others see it as a dehumanizing nightmare. I don't think the convents of past centuries by themselves were good or bad concerning the rights of women. They did give women the only non-male-based refuge. But they never had much power in the male-dominated Church hierarchy. Unlike the secualar world, women in convents were allowed to be by themselves. But just like in the secular world, they were completely subordinate to male clerics. Sometimes, when I feel totally sick of this world, I'm also thinking about going into a convent. However, in my opinion, it's just a variation of getting yourself a secluded cabin in the woods of Montana. Plus the company, minus the shotgun. I wonder if there is anyone lurking on this list who is actually in a convent. Maybe they could present a better idea on what it's really like. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 06:17:38 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: The Moon and the Sun..a few more In-Reply-To: <000c01bda34a$fb0d4460$84ae2499@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Donna, Thanks for the kind words. Monsieur was a bona fide war hero -- he would spend 4 hours primping in front of his mirror, get on his warhorse, lead his troops into battle, and beat the crap out of the enemy. This scared the hell out of Louis. (Who had already lived through one civil war, when he was a child, when his faithless uncle Gaston tried to take over the country for his branch of the family -- the Fronde was the name of this particular war.) So after Orleans' victory, Louis called him back to Versailles posthaste and never let him do another single thing again. He did the same thing to Chartres. He did the same thing to every man in his family who ever distinguished himself in any way. Poor Monsieur (not to mention Chartres, who was intellectually talented in a lot of interesting ways) really had nothing to do but stand around being bored and getting himself into trouble with Lorraine, who was mostly out for whatever he could get. (But wasn't very good at it so mostly just got them all into more trouble.) Best, Vonda On Mon, 29 Jun 1998 06:45:05 -0400, donna simone wrote: >I am still puzzling about the portrayal of Monsieur - Philippe. His only >real activity of note, other then being the continuously "obsessed >swooning character", is to confront the King over the potential loss of >his lover. I am assuming the author adheres to historical accuracy as >much here as in the other portrayals. http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda http://www.sfwa.org/awards/1997neb.htm ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 06:19:33 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: The Moon and the Sun..a few more In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I think there's no point in arguing or insulting each other over this -- how women with a vocation or girls being educated were treated depended on the convent, and on who was running it. At the time I was writing about, the Church had decreed that women must be silent. The interpretation of this varied widely, from "all the time" to "in church" to -- "I will not be silenced!" On Mon, 29 Jun 1998 12:03:45 EDT, "Kathleen M. Friello" wrote: >In a message dated 98-06-29 06:46:03 EDT, donnaneely@EARTHLINK.NET writes: > ><< 2. The convent is portrayed for what is must really have been, a place to >shutter up active and vocal women and deny them pleasures > of intellect and displays of talent. > >> > >This is, excuse me, crap. http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda http://www.sfwa.org/awards/1997neb.htm ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 23:37:55 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Kieth Subject: Re: Hateful Old Women In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Kathleen M. Friello wrote: > I've been taking another stab at Sturgeon--- trying to like him for all the > reasons he's been praised by writers I respect. He's one of those authors I > can only partially swallow before gagging on the undertaste, like the orange- > flavored penicillin I got dosed with around the time some of the stories I > just read first appeared. I found an old copy of The Golden Helix, and was > actually making progress until I hit "...and my fear is great..." and lost my > mental lunch again. > >> snip << > > I don't know whether Sturgeon conceived the old woman as horrible from the > beginning, or just perverted her character in writing the story, but from this > sex and time, to me, in other words, the character was unnaturally twisted. It > was a nasty jolt, a deformation by the author. The story was also pop-psych at > its worst. I loved _More Than Human_ when I first read it twenty or so years ago, because of the sympathy Sturgeon had for exceptions and outsiders, and because of his apparent love for human potential. On reading it again recently, I had a reaction similar to yours - the way Sturgeon portrayed a woman trapped in a sexually repressive situation made me sick. The story includes two female characters, daughters of a hellfire and brimstone pervert, who keeps them isolated from the world and is rabidly fearful of anything sexual. The man *is* portrayed as a harmful pervert, but Sturgeon shows the older daughter as being so corrupted by her environment that she becomes guilty too. As a young women, she is shown to enjoy being whipped and as an older women, as a stereotypical "repressed spinster", who can only see sex as rape, and who actually asks to be raped by a mentally retarted drifter. Sturgeon seems to be using the pop-psychology approach you mentioned to explain and soften her character, but it comes across as incredibly patronising. The portrayal is still that of a cold, inhibited and irretrievably damaged person. I kept the book this time around, but just barely. Kathleen ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 07:23:01 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: Hateful Old Women In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Kieth wrote: > I loved _More Than Human_ when I first read it twenty or so years ago, > because of the sympathy Sturgeon had for exceptions and outsiders, and > because of his apparent love for human potential. > > On reading it again recently, I had a reaction similar to yours - the way > Sturgeon portrayed a woman trapped in a sexually repressive situation made > me sick. The story includes two female characters, daughters of a > hellfire and brimstone pervert, who keeps them isolated from the world and > is rabidly fearful of anything sexual. The man *is* portrayed as a > harmful pervert, but Sturgeon shows the older daughter as being so > corrupted by her environment that she becomes guilty too. As a young > women, she is shown to enjoy being whipped and as an older women, as a > stereotypical "repressed spinster", who can only see sex as rape, and who > actually asks to be raped by a mentally retarted drifter. That sounds about right. Her father did her INCREDIBLE damage. When Sturgeon gets psychological his theory may be all wrong, but he sees what he sees. As note: his needing to take several pages to define what we now know to be an autistic character. (Note: Lone is NOT retarded. Not when he went from nonverbal to low-functioning verbal. As for his breakthrough being due to him meeting an Innocent: yes. She had no social expectations of him. She treated him like a deer or a rainbow or any other natural object in this world. That's part of what did it. Plus the horrendous "shock therapy" dealt out by Daddy. It sometimes takes quite a bit to get through to someone with Lone's disorder.) > Sturgeon seems to be using the pop-psychology approach you mentioned to > explain and soften her character, but it comes across as incredibly > patronising. The portrayal is still that of a cold, inhibited and > irretrievably damaged person. Yes, of course. Why is that patronizing? He KNOWs how damaged she's been. And for all that damage she's still in there trying. I say bully for her; at least she's trying. > > I kept the book this time around, but just barely. > > Kathleen > Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 10:16:28 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Kathleen M. Friello" Subject: Re: The Moon and the Sun..a few more Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-06-30 02:18:42 EDT, you write: << I think there's no point in arguing or insulting each other over this -- how women with a vocation or girls being educated were treated depended on the convent, and on who was running it. At the time I was writing about, the Church had decreed that women must be silent. The interpretation of this varied widely, from "all the time" to "in church" to -- "I will not be silenced!" >> Sorry for the "crap"; I should have said "an overly broad and largely incorrect generalization," in reference to the specific statement, "The convent is portrayed for what is must really have been, a place to shutter up active and vocal women and deny them pleasures of intellect and displays of talent" -- but seriously meant no insult to the poster and apologize if I gave offense. The Church throughout its history continually abjured women to silence, and it rarely had more reason (or, arguably, less success) than in 17th- and 18th- century France, above all within aristocratic circles or the court. This was an age of brilliant women and a "feminized" culture and political regime--- Rousseau's goad. The heroine of "The Moon and the Sun" could certainly have been a woman of her time and place. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:49:13 +0200 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Ines Lassnig Subject: madness in sf by black feminist writers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello all, I know this is completely off topic but I have a request to all of you and after a long period of hesitating I've finally decided to post it (thanks to Donna Simone's encouragement, who's also been an invaluable help for me, thanks Donna!): I'd like to write a thesis on the theme of madness in SF written by black women writers. Up to now I've come across a considerable number of books that deal with that topic (i.e. Woman On The Edge Of Time, Anna Kavan's novels and some German writers) but it seems that women's madness in literature has been an area that has been restricted to white, middle-class, possibly Euro-centric women (both in terms of authors and protagonists). I wonder whether there are works by black or Indian women that are concerned with madness and where the difference is in handling that topic. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what books I should read, both primary and secondary literature? Or any aspects that you think I might want to look at? Anything really...!! And: I can't wait for the CRONES list to start!! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 11:56:30 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rudy Leon Subject: Re: madness in sf by black feminist writers In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19980630144913.2137cb70@mailbox.edu.uni-klu.ac.at > Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" How about _Madwoman in the Attic_? One of the co-authors is Gilbert (Sandra maybe?) It's about women writers, can't remember if there was a color line or not. Good luck! At 04:49 PM 6/30/98 +0200, you wrote: >Hello all, > >I know this is completely off topic but I have a request to all of you and >after a long period of hesitating I've finally decided to post it (thanks to >Donna Simone's encouragement, who's also been an invaluable help for me, >thanks Donna!): >I'd like to write a thesis on the theme of madness in SF written by black >women writers. Up to now I've come across a considerable number of books >that deal with that topic (i.e. Woman On The Edge Of Time, Anna Kavan's >novels and some German writers) but it seems that women's madness in >literature has been an area that has been restricted to white, middle-class, >possibly Euro-centric women (both in terms of authors and protagonists). I >wonder whether there are works by black or Indian women that are concerned >with madness and where the difference is in handling that topic. Does anyone >have any suggestions as to what books I should read, both primary and >secondary literature? Or any aspects that you think I might want to look at? >Anything really...!! > >And: I can't wait for the CRONES list to start!! > > Rudy Leon Ph.D. candidate Department of Religion Syracuse University releon@syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 11:15:47 -0600 Reply-To: egarrett@du.edu Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Erin Garrett Organization: None Subject: Re: Convents in fiction MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I've been lurking about for a couple of months now, and finally have found the wherewithal to speak. I have to agree with Carolyn on this point. It does seems to me that there are two sides to the historical uses and abuses of the convent system. While for some the convent life could provide a safe, as well as socially and culturally validated, alternative for women, it was also used as a holding tank for young women (read virgins) whose spouses and destinies had not yet been chosen by the fathers and brothers and custodians entrusted with their care. Take for instance Abbe Prevost's _Manon Lescaut_. The plots of both the novella and the later opera are rooted in the everyday, and everyday women were imprisoned (i.e., tucked away in convents) "for their own good" as protection from not only their own sensuality, but the attentions of randy dandies. For a real life example, take Emilia Viviani, the subject of Percy Shelley's "Epipsychidion," whose family used the convent as a type of virgin vault. The irony, it seems to me, is that the convent didn't protect the vulnerable Emilia from anything, certainly not from the romantic intentions of a married man. Can there be any wonder why Mary Shelley had such fun lambasting nuns and convents and young immured women in her later works ? She recorded the hypocrisy, the promise, the failings, and the fatal doublesidedness of the system when few were willing to listen. Carolyn Ives Gilman wrote: > << 2. The convent is portrayed for what is must really have been, a place to > shutter up active and vocal women and deny them pleasures of intellect and > displays of talent. >> > > < > < for women disinclined to marry or unable to live independently. Pleasures of > the intellect could certainly be indulged-->> > > I have to think the reality must have had aspects of both these pictures. My > own favorite portrayal on a convent is in H.F.M. Prescott's "The Man on a > Donkey," which has been called the best historical novel ever written (I don't > know about that, but it's certainly the best I've ever read). There, the > convent is a place of stultifying routine and silly personality conflicts, > full of gossip, where some people settle into the safety of unchanging roles, > others achieve a fleeting transcendence through their work, and a few of > ambition rise into the much-criticized administration -- in fact, exactly like > every workplace I've ever been in. It rings so true to me, I've got to > believe it. And I work in the modern equivalent, the nonprofit educational > institution. > > Carolyn ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 14:57:59 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: Convents in fiction Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit No one has yet mentioned Hildegard von Bingen nor Hrotsvitha, neither of whom would have unleashed their creativity had they NOT been behind the walls. (We won't dwell on the irony of their celebrity in the 20th Century!) So I mention them here. My own reading over the years makes me think the middle road is probably right: depended on the convent, the powers in the convent, and the politics of the place. No doubt, it was a grim time. best to all Phoebe Wray zozie@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 14:39:31 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: madness in sf by black feminist writers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ines Lassnig wrote: > I'd like to write a thesis on the theme of madness in SF written by > black women writers. > Does anyone have any suggestions as to what books I should read, > both primary and secondary literature? Or any aspects that you think > I might want to look at? Well, I'm only partway through, but I believe that Nalo Hopkinson's *Brown Girl in the Ring* would be appropriate. The main character, Ti-Jeanne, has an especially potent connection to the spirits of voudoun, a connection that runs through the family and appears to have driven her mother mad. The mother has been offstage so far (about 1/3 of the way through), but I have a feeling she'll be making an appearance. -- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: The Flash Girls - Maurice and I "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 18:12:47 -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: madness in sf by black feminist writers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit How about some of Octavia Butler's work? Although, in her books, it's usually the young black woman who ISN'T susceptible to "madness". Or maybe I just want to plug Butler's work, because I love it so. Bonnie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 21:18:31 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Vivian Lee Subject: Re: madness in sf by black feminist writers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit try Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. The main char's telepathy is treated as madness by those around her.. and for a while she does think she's nuts, but gets over that as she learns how to use her gift. Vivian ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 20:31:26 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Neil Rest Subject: Re: Hateful Old Women In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ("Kathleen M. Friello" ran into some Sturgeon she *really* didn't like.) I'm afraid I have to disagree about the author, though I don't mean to dispute your reactions to that particular story. Sturgeon wrote _The Lovebirds_ and _Some of Your Blood_ (which hasn't yet been equalled) and _The Man Who Learned Loving_ and _Syzygy_ and so many, many more that I hope you will persevere to the gold which I (and many others!) promise you is there. And didn't he do _Granny Won't Knit_? (I'm not certain it's a Sturgeon. It most definitely is an antidote to the Hateful Old Women which have been getting you down.) Neil Rest NeilRest@tezcat.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 19:20:25 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: BDG reminder: Mists discussion begins next Monday Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Remember that our discussion of Mists of Avalon begins Monday, July 6th (the first Monday of the month). If you haven't read it yet, it's too late to start if you want to join in the discussion Monday! But if you've already read it and have been meaning to get around to browsing it again, this weekend would be a good time. Jennifer jkrauel@actioneer.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 00:13:03 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Barbara R. Hume" Subject: Re: The Moon and the Sun..a few more Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/29/98 3:46:03 AM Pacific Daylight Time, donnaneely@EARTHLINK.NET writes: << 2. The convent is portrayed for what is must really have been, a place to shutter up active and vocal women and deny them pleasures of intellect and displays of talent. >> Aren't you making an assumption? I'm not a Catholic myself, but surely some women chose this way to serve God, as they believed. And it might have been a way to escape a forced marriage to some ancient horror of a rich man to bond properties together.