From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Tue Dec 29 16:02:55 1998
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 17:57:29 -0600
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Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF LOG9810A"

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Date:         Thu, 1 Oct 1998 08:11:19 +0100
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Maryelizabeth Hart <mystgalaxy@AX.COM>
Subject:      More on JARAN
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I think JARAN works fine as a stand alone. In fact, it's as far as I've
gotten in the series, the rest of which are on my TBR pile. <g>


Maryelizabeth
Mysterious Galaxy                    619-268-4747
3904 Convoy St, #107                  800-811-4747
San Diego, CA 92111                    619-268-4775 FAX
http://www.mystgalaxy.com
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 30 Sep 1998 21:57:39 -0700
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Jennifer Krauel <jkrauel@ACTIONEER.COM>
Subject:      Re: Begin BDG Nomination
In-Reply-To:  <3.0.32.19980925095953.0091e4d0@pop.uky.edu>
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Finally made it through all the group's emails.  What great nominations!  I
think I've already seen lots of my favorites, so I don't think I'll even
nominate anything this time around.  Thanks Petra for leading the process
while I was under water.  After tomorrow, October 1, the nominating period
is closed, and Petra will compile all the nominations on her web page and
let us know again where it is.

Then beginning next Monday, October 5, we begin voting.  We also begin
discussing Shadow Man.  Thanks, Kathleen, for the on-line bibliography.

One comment I think Maryelizabeth already addressed -- as Joe Sanders
pointed out:
>        Ack--To Say Nothing of the Dog comes out in paper sometime during
>December.  I suppose that eliminates it from our options, eh?

The books we are selecting now won't be read until January at the earliest,
so technically that doesn't disqualify them.  However, the main point of
selecting books this far in advance is for folks who live overseas and must
order them months ahead of time or pay lots of money.  So perhaps we could
get to this book next round.

For those of you who like closure, it seemed quite clear to me that we
should continue reading and discussing without any breaks.  So the books we
select now will be read beginning in January.  I'm going to arbitrarily
suggest we select four (three is just too few given all these great
nominations!).  That means we are picking books to discuss in January
through April.  We'll do another round of nominating/voting in February.

The process of selection is not set up to accomodate specific books by
month -- the books with the most votes are discussed in alphabetic order.
However, we can always adjust that order by popular decree - if there's one
that everyone wants to read in December and discuss in January we can do that.

Jennifer
jkrauel@actioneer.com
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 2 Oct 1998 10:09:17 0100
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
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From:         Petra Mayerhofer <mayerhof@USF.UNI-KASSEL.DE>
Subject:      BDG Nomination period CLOSED
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The nomination period for the next BDG round is closed.

22 books are accepted as candidates. They are listed at the end of
this email. The nominated books WITH the accompanying recommendations
can be looked up at

http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/Garden/4667/bdg_nom.htm

 _To say nothing of the dog_ by Connie Willis was not accepted
because of concerns that it could not be available in time for
everybody to get it. However, there are 2 other books by Willis
to choose from.

Voting starts on Monday (5 October) and is organised by Terri
Wakefield. Please wait till she explains the procedure and do not
send any votes to the list.

Petra



Nominated books:

Dorothy Bryant: The Kin of ATA Are Waiting for You.
Paperback, Reprint edition (April 1997), Random House (Paper); ISBN:
0679778438,  List Price: $11.95

Octavia Butler: Wild Seed.
Mass Market Paperback (July 1995), Warner Books; ISBN: 0445205377,
List Price: $5.99

Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories.
Paperback (January 1993), Penguin USA (Paper); ISBN: 014017821X. List
Price: $11.95

Suzy McKee Charnas: The Furies.
Mass Market Paperback (December 1995), Tor Books; ISBN: 0812548191,
List Price: $6.99

C. J. Cherryh: Cyteen.
Paperback (September 1995), Warner Books; ISBN: 0446671274, List
Price: $14.99

Chicks in Chainmail. Esther Friesner (Ed.).
Mass Market Paperback (September 1995), Pocket Books; ISBN:
0671876821, List Price: $5.99

Carol Emshwiller: The Start of the End of It All : Short Fiction.
Paperback (June 1991), Mercury House; ISBN: 1562790021. No List price
available, Amazon price US-$ 10.95

Kate Elliott: Jaran.
Mass Market Paperback Reissue edition (October 1994), Daw Books;
ISBN: 0886775132, List Price: $6.99

Nalo Hopkinson: Brown Girl in the Ring.
Paperback (July 1998).  Warner Books; ISBN: 0446674338, List Price:
$12.99

Ursula K. LeGuin: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea.
Mass Market Paperback (September 1995), Harper Mass Market
Paperbacks; ISBN: 0061054917, List Price: $4.99

Ursula K. LeGuin: Four Ways to Forgiveness.
Harper Mass Market Paperbacks Reprint edition August 1996 ISBN:
006105401, List Price: $5.99

Elizabeth Moon: The Deed of Paksenarrion.
Baen Books Paperback Reissue edition February 1992 ISBN: 0671721046,
List Price: $15.00

Linda Nagata: The Bohr Maker.
Mass Market Paperback (April 1995) Spectra Books; ISBN: 0553569252,
List Price: $5.99

Marge Piercy: Woman on the Edge of Time.
Mass Market Paperback Reissue edition (January 1990), Crest; ISBN:
0449210820, List Price: $6.99

Joanna Russ: The Female Man.
Beacon Press Paperback Reprint edition January 1987, ISBN:
0807063134, List Price: $12.00

Nancy Springer: Fair Peril.
Mass Market Paperback (July 1997) avon; ISBN: 0380794306, List Price:
$5.99

Sheri S. Tepper: Beauty.
Paperback (April 1992), Bantam Spectra, List Price: $6.99

Sheri S. Tepper: The Family Tree.
Paperback (May 1998) Eos (Mass Market); ISBN: 0380791978, List Price:
$6.99

Sheri S. Tepper: Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
Paperback (July 1997), Bantam Books; ISBN: 0553573985, List
Price: $6.99

Connie Willis: Bellwether.
Paperback (July 1997). Bantam Books; ISBN: 0553562967, List Price:
$6.50

Connie Willis: The Doomsday Book.
Spectra Mass Market Paperback Reprint edition September 1993, ISBN:
0553562738, List Price: $6.50

The Women of Wonder: The Contemporary Years. Science Fiction by Women
from the 1970s to the 1990s. Ed. Pamela Sargent (with intro. by
Pamela Sargent).
Paperback (September 1995), Harvest Books; ISBN: 0156000334, List
Price: $15.00


*** Petra Mayerhofer **** mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de ***
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 3 Oct 1998 01:14:16 EDT
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         "Barbara R. Hume" <Lurima@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: OS Card and his attitudes
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In a message dated 9/15/98 9:58:12 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU writes:

<<
 The strange thing about Card is that he seems to get less feminist
 over the course of his work...and more homophobic, maybe.

Card is a strong feminist. And not too long ago he wrote a fine dedication in
one of his books to a friend of both his and mine who is gay. I am amazed at
the difference between the kind of person he is and the attitude that seems to
come through in his writing. If you want to learn something about his personal
views on life and writing, you might try reading _A Storyteller in Zion_,
which is a collection of his essays.


 Card's early books have a number of  strong and influential female
 characters, as well as the only semi-positive portrayal of a gay man.
 His later books, especially those silly Home/Earth ones in that series
 that just goes on and on seem to be a bit more patriarchal.  Maybe
 he's just gotten into that strong-Christlike-male-saves-the-world rut
 and can't think of anything else.
  >>
The Homecoming books--at least, the first one--is based directly on events in
the Book of Mormon. When I complained to him about the way the last book just
wandered off and petered out and the characters never did do what they set out
to do in the first book, he asked me how I knew the story was over. I said,
well, everybody died but the homosexual's wife. He said he'd hoped I'd see her
for more than that. So he never really answered my question, but at least the
hero at the end who kept the good work going was a woman.

barbara
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 3 Oct 1998 14:17:47 -0600
Reply-To:     egarrett@du.edu
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Erin Garrett <egarrett@DU.EDU>
Organization: None
Subject:      [Fwd: ASA announcements shared with us.  Please take note!]
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This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--Boundary_(ID_8JInrCQgLPeqPRz6Nj+l0Q)
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FYI

>      Call for Papers: Science Fiction and Fantasy; 20th Southwest/Texas
>      Popular Culture/American Culture Association, Sheraton Old Town,
>      Albuquerque, NM, 24-27 February 1999
>
>      The area chair for fantasy and science fiction seeks submissions on
>      any aspect of fantasy and science fiction. Especially welcome are
>      submissions dealing with fantasy for children and with science fiction
>      and fantasy on television and the movies. Also especially welcome are
>      submissions treating fantasy games for computers.
>
>      Send abstracts of about 150 words. Be sure to include the proposed
>      title with the abstract. Presentations in the past have included
>      things like the film The Thing from Outer Space, the television series
>      Xena Warrior Princess, the Frankenstein movies, as well as works by
>      Anne Rice, L. Frank Baum, and William Gibson. Send abstract or
>      questions to: Richard Tuerk, Department of Literature and Languages,
>      Texas A&M University-Commerce, Box 3011, Commerce, TX 75429-3011.
>      E-mail: Richard_Tuerk@tamu-commerce.edu; Fax: 903 886 5980; Tel: 903
>      886 5266.
>
>      North East Popular Culture Association, November 6-7, 1998
>
>      The North East Popular Culture Association meeting will be held on
>      November 6-7, 1998 at Suffolk University, Boston.
>
>      Panels are planned on the following topics: Patriotic Icons and
>      Holidays; Public Art and Architecture; Disney and Popular Culture; The
>      Gilded Age; Comics and Culture; Sexuality and Culture; Music: from
>      Xavier Cougat as Poet to the Beatles; The Disabled in Film; Film and
>      History; Aliens in Film; Western Films; War and Culture; Vietnam;
>      World War II; Special Authors: Patrick O'Brien; Advertising and
>      Imaging; The Body; Female Icons, Images and Narratives; Archives and
>      Research; Race and Culture; Sports.
>
>      The meeting will also include special performances of Humor and
>      Poetry, wine and cheese receptions, and a Luncheon on November 7th.
>
>      The entire program is on the North East PCA/ACA Web-site:
>      http://www.wpi.edu/~jphanlan/MAY98.html. Contact information,
>      registration information etc. are all there on this site for
>      inspection. Check  out the program and try to attend. The NE Meeting
>      is a lot of fun and always sends us away inspired.
>
>      The finished program is now in place on the web site.  This organization
>      is still taking root and is looking for enthusiastic and creative new
> members  to move it forward in a region where many are now publishing and
>      researching in this area.
>



--Boundary_(ID_8JInrCQgLPeqPRz6Nj+l0Q)
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Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1998 20:43:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Peter Rollins, WWI, Vietnam, Presidents" <RollinsPC@aol.com>
Subject: ASA announcements shared with us.  Please take note!
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     ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM ORGANIZATIONS AND INSTITUTIONS
       FROM THE AMERICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION^Å.

     The Council for International Exchange of Scholars

     The Council for International Exchange of Scholars is very interested
     in the internationalization of American Studies and would like to hear
     from subscribers regarding the degree to which the field has become
     internationalized and in what respects?  How might one understand
     internationalization of American Studies?  Does it simply mean that
     more scholars abroad are studying the US and teaching about American
     culture and society?  Or, is the process having a fundamental impact
     on the content of the field as well as its perspective and
     methodology?  We would also like to learn your views about the kinds
     of programs and fellowship opportunities that will facilitate the
     internationalization process?  Please send responses to
     avandyke@cies.iie.org
     -------------------------------------

     CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENTS &
CALLS FOR PAPERS

     Georgia Association of Historians: Call for Papers

     The next Annual Meeting of the Georgia Association of Historians will
     be held in Savannah, April 16-17 1999. The theme for this meeting will
     be "Freedom and Unfreedom".

     The struggle to achieve freedom and to maintain it has been a
     continual
     theme in the history of the world.  Unfreedom has characterized the
     status of many, perhaps most, people throughout history and the
     dialectic between the two-freedom and unfreedom-characterizes the
     story of many peoples' past.  Who would recognize American, Russian,
     European, African or Asian history without the theme of freedom and
     unfreedom?  We struggle with the consequences today.

     The role of freedom and unfreedom is readily perceived in social
     history,
     economic history, gender history, political history, diplomatic
     history, and
     military history, as well as the history of various geographical
     regions.  The theme is a broad one that includes just about every
     field in the discipline and yet it provides an organizing topic for
     the annual meeting.  It seems appropriate to focus on this pivotal
     idea as we conclude what many have called the American Century and
     approach the beginning of the Third Millennium of the Common Era.

     Proposals for papers and sessions on all topics are welcome, but those
     devoted to the theme of Freedom and Unfreedom are preferred.
     Proposals for sessions with several papers and discussants will be
     given priority over
     individual paper proposals.  All proposals should be submitted by the
     DEADLINE of November 15, 1998 to Lee W. Formwalt, GAH Program Chair,
     The Graduate School, Albany State University, Albany, GA 31705.

     The Program Committee for the Savannah Meeting is putting together an
     exciting agenda.  Sessions will be held Friday afternoon and Saturday
     morning. Friday evening will begin with a reception and end with a
     tour ("Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil"?) of several historic
     squares downtown.  After the luncheon/business meeting on Saturday,
     excursions will be offered of historic homes and museums downtown and
     of the plantation country.  For those who like to really plan ahead
     mark your April 2000 calendars for Albany, GA!


     19th Annual Berlin-Prague Seminar 1999

     The 19th Annual Berlin-Prague Seminar organized by Bradley University
     will be held at the European Academy of Berlin (20 June-26 June) and
     the Prague University of Economics (27 June-3 July). The Seminar is
     intended to inform college faculty about a wide range of issues facing
     contemporary Germany and the Czech Republic. Past presentations have
     focused on politics, foreign policy, history, economics, societal
     issues, the media, and art. Participants may choose to attend one or
     both segments of the Seminar. For further information contact Dr
     Charles Bukowski, Director, Institute of International Studies,
     Bradley University, Peoria, IL 61625. Tel: 309 677 2450; fax: 309 677
     3256; e-mail: cjb@bradley.bradley.edu.


     The Netherlands American Studies Association Conference, 1999

     The Netherlands American Studies Association invites proposals for its
     annual conference to be held June 2-4, 1999 at the Roosevelt Study
     Center in Middelburg, the Netherlands. The theme of the conference is
     The American Metropolis: Image and Inspiration. In order to narrow
     down the proposals to manageable proportions and to encourage a
     regional spread, the proposals should focus on New York, Chicago, Los
     Angeles, Atlanta or Miami in the twentieth century (although
     interesting proposals on other urban experiences will also be
     considered). Interdisciplinary approaches and comparisons with
     European cities are encouraged. Deadline is December 1, 1998. For a
     full description of  the theme contact: Dr. Tity de Vries, Department
     of History, University of Groningen, PO Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen,
     The Netherlands. Fax +31 50 3637253; Tel +31 50 3636010; E-mail:
     t.de.vries@let.rug.nl; www.knaw.nl/01instit/rscuk09.htm


     Call for Papers: Science Fiction and Fantasy; 20th Southwest/Texas
     Popular Culture/American Culture Association, Sheraton Old Town,
     Albuquerque, NM, 24-27 February 1999

     The area chair for fantasy and science fiction seeks submissions on
     any aspect of fantasy and science fiction. Especially welcome are
     submissions dealing with fantasy for children and with science fiction
     and fantasy on television and the movies. Also especially welcome are
     submissions treating fantasy games for computers.

     Send abstracts of about 150 words. Be sure to include the proposed
     title with the abstract. Presentations in the past have included
     things like the film The Thing from Outer Space, the television series
     Xena Warrior Princess, the Frankenstein movies, as well as works by
     Anne Rice, L. Frank Baum, and William Gibson. Send abstract or
     questions to: Richard Tuerk, Department of Literature and Languages,
     Texas A&M University-Commerce, Box 3011, Commerce, TX 75429-3011.
     E-mail: Richard_Tuerk@tamu-commerce.edu; Fax: 903 886 5980; Tel: 903
     886 5266.


     North East Popular Culture Association, November 6-7, 1998

     The North East Popular Culture Association meeting will be held on
     November 6-7, 1998 at Suffolk University, Boston.

     Panels are planned on the following topics: Patriotic Icons and
     Holidays; Public Art and Architecture; Disney and Popular Culture; The
     Gilded Age; Comics and Culture; Sexuality and Culture; Music: from
     Xavier Cougat as Poet to the Beatles; The Disabled in Film; Film and
     History; Aliens in Film; Western Films; War and Culture; Vietnam;
     World War II; Special Authors: Patrick O'Brien; Advertising and
     Imaging; The Body; Female Icons, Images and Narratives; Archives and
     Research; Race and Culture; Sports.

     The meeting will also include special performances of Humor and
     Poetry, wine and cheese receptions, and a Luncheon on November 7th.

     The entire program is on the North East PCA/ACA Web-site:
     http://www.wpi.edu/~jphanlan/MAY98.html. Contact information,
     registration information etc. are all there on this site for
     inspection. Check  out the program and try to attend. The NE Meeting
     is a lot of fun and always sends us away inspired.

     The finished program is now in place on the web site.  This organization
     is still taking root and is looking for enthusiastic and creative new
members
     to move it forward in a region where many are now publishing and
     researching in this area.

     Peter C. Rollins, Director of Development, PCA/ACA. RollinsPC@aol.com

--Boundary_(ID_8JInrCQgLPeqPRz6Nj+l0Q)--
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 3 Oct 1998 18:09:25 EDT
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         "Barbara R. Hume" <Lurima@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: BDG: A Change of Pace (was: BDG announcements)
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In a message dated 9/24/98 8:51:16 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
E.F.James@READING.AC.UK writes:

<<
 But, yes, they are fun! Particularly for old Hornblower fans, if there are
 any reading this.
  >>
Yes! I read and enjoyed all (well, almost all) of the Hornblower books. I had
to skim over a lot of blood-filled carnage, and I was sometimes irritated by
the hero's inability to give himself credit for anything, but they did grip
me. Have you ever read the Patrick O'Brian series about Jack Aubrey, a British
Navy captain from the same era? I many ways I consider his more like Captain
Kirk than is Horblower, on whom Kirk is supposed to be modeled.

barbara
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 3 Oct 1998 15:27:51 -0700
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         "Wisdom : Literary Search" <search@THINKERS.NET>
Subject:      Intro: Wisdom - literary search
In-Reply-To:  <4353c26a.3616a095@aol.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Dear friend of Feministsf

Taking the liberty to introduce you a literary site and hope you make use
of it.
Thinkers.net is a search engine and directory for Literature, Languages,
Thoughts, writers and other literary and academic people.
It is non-lucrative, non-commercial.

If you have a literary page you could add to the search engine & directory
by simply adding to http://thinkers.net/add.cgi

AuthorBase: A searchable global database of Living Authors, journalists and
creative writers of any genre. You can add your brief profile
http://thinkers.net/authorbase

Authorpage: You can create a free personal literary webpage at
http://thinkers.net/authorpage

sincerely
Phil clearwater
Editor - Wisdom at http://thinkers.net
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 4 Oct 1998 08:33:38 -0700
Reply-To:     Pamela Bedore <pebedore@sfu.ca>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Pamela Bedore <pebedore@SFU.CA>
Subject:      New MA and Call for Papers
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

***  CALL FOR PAPERS  ***

PRESSING MATTERS: The Politics of Print

An interdisciplinary graduate student conference
February 5-7, 1999 - Halpern Centre, Simon Fraser University


Topics may include but are not limited to:
- writing as a professional activity
- the politics of race, gender, and class with regard to
authorship
- the dissemination of writing through cultural infrastructures
- the ideological split between 'high' and 'low' culture
- the impact of 'little magazines' and independent cultural
production
- the impact of desktop publishing (and/or other information
revolutions)
- independent intellectual property rights
- historical patterns of  anthologization
- discipline and publish: the formation of English studies
- abuses of the press (real or imagined)
- the 'author' and the patron, bookseller, publisher, reviewer,
or agent
- the academy and/or the debate over the canon and syllabus
- the print/oral interface: the search for the text's 'origin'
- the politics of translation and its impact on English language
writing
- Early-Modern manuscript production

Abstracts of 250-500 words should be sent to:
 Stephen Collis at scollis@sfu.ca
Pamela Bedore at pebedore@sfu.ca

or mailed to:

Simon Fraser University, Department of English, Burnaby B.C., V5A 1S6.

Papers will be limited to 20 minutes. The closing date for submissions is
15 October, 1998.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 4 Oct 1998 18:05:22 -0700
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Joyce Jones <hoop5@EMAIL.MSN.COM>
Subject:      Re: Cool Fact: Vibrating Earth

Aha, wasn't it Ammonite where people listened to the ring of the earth?  It
sounded like such a neat idea, it was good to find it might be possible, if
we know how to listen.

Joyce

>   The Learning Kingdom's Cool Fact of the Day for October 2, 1998
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                 Does the Earth ever stop vibrating?
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>Even when there are no earthquakes, the planet still vibrates all the
>time!  The tiny vibrations have recently been detected, by
>high-sensitivity gravimeters (devices that sense gravitational
>changes).
>
>The Earth rings like a bell.  There are several vibration patterns
>repeating with cycle times of hundreds of seconds.  Researchers
>suspect the vibrations are caused by turbulence in the atmosphere,
>but no one knows for sure.
>
>Of course, when there is an earthquake, the entire planet vibrates on
>a much larger scale, as the waves spread right through the center and
>out to the other side.
>
>A short article describing the subtle vibrations:
>http://www.phys.uni.torun.pl/~jkob/physnews/node90.html#SECTION000232000000
000000000
>
>More about the larger vibrations of the planet:
>http://club.eng.cam.ac.uk/~pm3/quake/earth.html
>http://www.metu.edu.tr/home/www61/pitane/earthq/faq.htm
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>             Cool Fact of the Day list membership: 34,319
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>          To subscribe, visit http://www.tlk-lists.com/join/
>        To unsubscribe, visit http://www.tlk-lists.com/change/
>     To become a sponsor, visit http://www.tlk-lists.com/sponsor/
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>            Copyright (c) 1998, The Learning Kingdom, Inc.
>                    http://www.LearningKingdom.com
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1998 09:55:42 0100
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Petra Mayerhofer <mayerhof@USF.UNI-KASSEL.DE>
Subject:      Correction of BDG nomination list
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To my chagrin I have overlooked one of the nominations as a list
member fortunately pointed out over the weekend. I have added the
nomination to the list. So, on

http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/Garden/4667/bdg_nom.htm

you now find the modified nomination list with 23 books including

David Weber: On Basilisk Station. Mass Market Paperback (September
1998), Pocket Books; ISBN: 0671577727, List Price: $1.99

My apologies.

Petra
*** Petra Mayerhofer **** mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de ***
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1998 09:00:26 -0500
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Jane Franklin <JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: OS Card and his attitudes
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(My old posts just keep coming  back to haunt me.)

I suppose it all depends on what you mean by feminism.  I really like Card
but I just don't see what I recognize as feminism in his work and since I
don't know him personally I can't judge that way.

I admit that I have not read Children of the Mind of Christ or the last
book in the Homecoming series.  They seem to wander and I feel bad to read
otherwise fine series coming to such an end.  I'm also a bit frustrated
with the last book in the Seventh Son series, although the first two in
particular were amazing.

So anyway, I just don't see women in Card's work as leaders equivalent to
male leaders, with the possible exception of Este in Songmaster.  Most of
the powerful women characters are powerful because they are warm and
nurturing and they don't seem to be able to fill the really big heroic
roles, like Valentine in Ender's Game .  Admittedly, it seems like Card's
version of heroism involves a lot of misery, inadaquacy, and torment.  
There's a lot to be said for Valentine because she CAN settle into a
normal life.  Even in his short stories, the female characters are nearly
always the victims while the active agents are male, again with the
exception of the woman scientist in "THe Monkeys Thought Twas All In Fun"
(talk about a delphic little story)  And where women have agency, like in
that novella about the Mormons escaping to Utah in The Folk of the Fringe
(I have never thought of highways the same since that story) the main
female character's primary role is being the nurturerer for the group.  
In "America" in that same book, the main female character is the mother of
the savior of the Americas.

It's not that I object to women being nurturers or rescued or whatever.  
It's just that when that's the major role for women in an author's work, I
tend not to regard the work as specifically feminist.  That's not to say
that Card doesn't write great female characters.  I love the woman in the
Folk of the Fringe novella.  And Peggy the torch in the Alvin Maker
series.  And the women in those Worthing stories.  I don't mean to say
that not being specifically feminist means being hostile to or
contemptuous of women.

I still think that Card's female characters have grown less interesting in
recent years.  In his earlier books there are Este and Patience and
Beauty, who play a variety of female roles and who actually get to lead.  
And there's Reck, one half of the Gebling King.

The only major gay character I'm familiar with in Card (I'm sure there are
others and that may well prove me totally wrong)  is the man in
Songmaster.  He's an interesting characer, and I know that to write so
sympathetically of a gay man in the late 70's or early eighties (I think
Songmaster was 1979 but I'm not sure) was rather radical.  However, there
is that whole borderline pedophilia thing between him and the songbird
character.  ( I can't remember any names today for some reason)  which I
find rather disturbing, especially since pedophilia is a recurring theme
in Card.  Of course that book ends in a wave of horror for everyone.  I
never cry while reading and I cried and cried and felt like I'd been hit
with a brick at the end of that book.

As far as the Homecoming series goes, I think it's very impressive that
he's writing about the book of Mormon, simply because it may dispell some
of the tremendous prejudice against Mormons.  A friend of mine pointed out
(while we were visiting Salt Lake City on a road trip) that the
stereotypes we have of Mormons are very similar to those people used to
justify prejudice against Jews:  their marriage customs are funny (even
though most Mormons are not polygamous) they have weird rules about
eating, they're clannish, the women dress funny, etc. etc.  My church
listed the Mormons as a cult ( this was back when I went to church) along
with the Moonies.

I think Card is a wonderful writer of children--he's like Steven King
(otherwise not a favorite of mine) in that regard.  And he writes about
damaged children very well too.  And I do think that's important.  And I
don't think Card is anti-woman or anything.  It's just that I don't feel
that this makes him a feminist, specifically.  There are lots of people
who are against government tyranny, for example, who are not therefore
anarchists.

By which I mean nothing about his private life or formal beliefs.  I just
mean what I draw from his writing, which may be wrong.

>>> "Barbara R. Hume" <Lurima@AOL.COM> 10/03 12:14 AM >>>
In a message dated 9/15/98 9:58:12 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU writes:

<<
 The strange thing about Card is that he seems to get less feminist
 over the course of his work...and more homophobic, maybe.

Card is a strong feminist. And not too long ago he wrote a fine dedication
in one of his books to a friend of both his and mine who is gay. I am
amazed at the difference between the kind of person he is and the attitude
that seems to come through in his writing. If you want to learn something
about his personal views on life and writing, you might try reading _A
Storyteller in Zion_, which is a collection of his essays.


 Card's early books have a number of  strong and influential female
 characters, as well as the only semi-positive portrayal of a gay man.
 His later books, especially those silly Home/Earth ones in that series
 that just goes on and on seem to be a bit more patriarchal.  Maybe
 he's just gotten into that strong-Christlike-male-saves-the-world rut
 and can't think of anything else.
  >>
The Homecoming books--at least, the first one--is based directly on events
in the Book of Mormon. When I complained to him about the way the last
book just wandered off and petered out and the characters never did do
what they set out to do in the first book, he asked me how I knew the
story was over. I said, well, everybody died but the homosexual's wife. He
said he'd hoped I'd see her for more than that. So he never really
answered my question, but at least the hero at the end who kept the good
work going was a woman.

barbara
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1998 10:21:39 -0400
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         lisette boily <boilyl@SHAW.WAVE.CA>
Subject:      Re: OS Card and his attitudes
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Don't forget about Card's fairly recent PASTWATCH:  THE REDEMPTION OF
CHRISTOPER COLUMBUS when trying to locate his "feminism" and/or "strong"
female characters.   The female characters run the show in that one.

Lisette Boily
Toronto, Canada
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1998 11:08:19 +0100
Reply-To:     terriergraphics@cybertours.com
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Terri Wakefield <terriergraphics@CYBERTOURS.COM>
Organization: Terrier Graphic Design
Subject:      Begin Voting
Comments: cc: "<jkrauel@actioneer.com>" <mayerhof@usf.uni-kassel.de>
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The voting for the BDG books to be read for discussion
January through April begins today. We have 23 excellent
nominations to choose from. These nominations can be seen at
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/Garden/4667/bdg_nom.htm

To vote send your choices to me at <terriergraphics@cybertours.
com>, four votes from each person,  in no particular order. I
will send you a reply that I have received your votes within 24
hours. If you have not received a reply in a reasonable amount
of time please repost.

Voting will take place from today, October 5,  through Saturday,
October 10th. The winners will be announced Monday October 12th.

Looking forward to hearing from everyone!
Terri Wakefield  <terriergraphics@cybertours.com>
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1998 08:37:50 -0700
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Comments:     RFC822 error: <W> MESSAGE-ID field duplicated. Last occurrence
              was retained.
From:         Jennifer Krauel <jkrauel@ACTIONEER.COM>
Subject:      BDG: Voting period begins
Mime-Version: 1.0
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The voting period for the Book Discussion Group is now open.  You are
invited to vote on books to be part of our discussion during the first four
months of next year.

The voting period is from October 5th through 9th.  That means you must
send your vote by the end of Friday the 9th (midnight PST, west coast of
US) in order for them to be included.  Selected books will be announced
Monday, October 12.

You can find the list of nominated books at: (thanks, Petra!)
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/Garden/4667/bdg_nom.htm

To vote:

1.  Send an email to terriergraphics@cybertours.com with your vote.  If you
don't receive a confirmation within 48 hours, you should resubmit your
votes, to make sure things don't get lost.

2. Vote for up to four books.  The four books with the highest number of
votes win.  In the event of a tie, we'll find some random way to decide
which book(s) are selected (e.g. coin toss).

If you send your votes to the whole list, we will be entertained by knowing
what you wanted to read, but also your vote might not be counted.  Please
send them to Terri only!

We'll keep the actual votes confidential but will also save them.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1998 08:54:36 -0700
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Jennifer Krauel <jkrauel@ACTIONEER.COM>
Subject:      BDG: Shadow Man discussion begins
Mime-Version: 1.0
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I hope everyone who was interested was able to find a copy of Melissa
Scott's _Shadow Man_!  It's finally time to start discussing it.

I confess to having got the book back out of the library but haven't
re-read it yet.  So I don't have a nice set of questions to start us off --
help me out here.  What did you like about the book?  What puzzled you
about it?

How did you like the representation of the five "genders"?  Were you able
to figure out a way to pronounce them?  Did they seem realistic to you?

Jennifer
jkrauel@actioneer.com
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1998 20:05:00 EDT
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Phoebe Wray <Zozie@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: BDG: Voting period begins
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In a message dated 10/5/98 5:02:17 PM, you wrote:

<<1.  Send an email to terriergraphics@cybertours.com with your vote.  If you
don't receive a confirmation within 48 hours, you should resubmit your
votes, to make sure things don't get lost.
>>

I did this and the mail was returned as undeliverable...  cut and pasted the
eddress...

phoebe
zozie@aol.com
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1998 20:32:44 -0500
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Neil Rest <NeilRest@TEZCAT.COM>
Subject:      Re: BDG Nomination: THE FEMALE MAN
In-Reply-To:  <8025668E.0059DEC6.00@osiris.postmaster.co.uk>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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At 05:25 PM 9/29/98 +0100, Mike Stanton <m_stanton@POSTMASTER.CO.UK> wrote:

>Jeannine, a pre-feminist, is Joanna's earlier self who, unmarried at 28,
>views herself as an 'old maid'. Joanna, ostensibly a 60s-type radical
>feminist but in the book's context a proto-feminist, lives in a universe
>similar to our own. Jael (Judges 4:21), Joanna's contemporary and the
>'true' feminist, is from a parallel, alternate history which is torn by
>gender wars. Janet, Joanna's future genetically improved self and a
>post-feminist, lives in a Utopian society on Whileaway, a planet without
>men.

It seemed to me a reasonably straightforward 'alternate historys' on the
theme of, "Gee, what would I have been like if I'd been born in different
worlds?"

And yes, very good, and of uncertain availability.


Neil Rest
NeilRest@tezcat.com
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 00:58:48 EDT
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
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From:         "Barbara R. Hume" <Lurima@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: OS Card and his attitudes
Mime-Version: 1.0
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In a message dated 10/5/98 7:34:16 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU writes:

<< My old posts just keep coming  back to haunt me.)

 I suppose it all depends on what you mean by feminism.  I really like Card
but I just don't see what I recognize as feminism in his work and since I
don't know him personally I can't judge that way.

He is a strong feminist in his beliefs. By that, I mean that he dislikes the
common assumption among males that they are innately superior, and he pokes
fun at them for thinking that way. He believes that women have as much to
offer and have as many rights as men. Like you, however, I don't see it so
much in his work.

 I admit that I have not read Children of the Mind of Christ or the last book
in the Homecoming series.  They seem to wander and I feel bad to read
otherwise fine series coming to such an end.  I'm also a bit frustrated with
the last book in the Seventh Son series, although the first two in particular
were amazing.

I think it's just _Children of the Mind_. I've always felt that Scott starts
out wonderfully, then loses his momentum as a work progresses. BTW, the
Seventh Son series is based on the life of Joseph Smith, the founder of the
Mormon Church. For example, just like the character, Joseph had a diseased
legbone as a boy and the doctor had to operate without anesthesia to scrape it
out. The magic in the books stands for non-occult spirituality.

And where women have agency, like in that novella about the Mormons escaping
to Utah in The Folk of the Fringe (I have never thought of highways the same
since that story) the main female character's primary role is being the
nurturerer for the group.  In "America" in that same book, the main female
character is the mother of the savior of the Americas.

The characters in "West," the first story you refer to, were based on members
of Scott's church congregation. The boy, Scotty, was based on his own son, the
assumption being that Scott and the rest of his family had been killed.

  I still think that Card's female characters have grown less interesting in
recent years.

Yep, I'll agree with that. His wife is really interesting, though. Maybe he
should base them more on her!

 The only major gay character I'm familiar with in Card (I'm sure there are
others and that may well prove me totally wrong)  is the man in Songmaster.
He's an interesting characer, and I know that to write so sympathetically of a
gay man in the late 70's or early eighties (I think Songmaster was 1979 but
I'm not sure) was rather radical.  However, there is that whole borderline
pedophilia thing between him and the  songbird character.

I hated that whole thing. It brought a fascinating story to a grotesque
conclusion, IMO. And at that time Scott wasn't nearly so sympathetic to gays
as he is now. It's interesting to watch one's attitudes change along the road
of life.

 As far as the Homecoming series goes, I think it's very impressive that he's
writing about the book of Mormon, simply because it may dispell some of the
tremendous prejudice against Mormons.  A friend of mine pointed out (while we
were visiting Salt Lake City on a road trip) that the stereotypes we have of
Mormons are very similar to those people used to justify prejudice against
Jews:  their marriage customs are funny (even though most Mormons are not
polygamous) they have weird rules about eating, they're clannish, the women
dress funny, etc. etc.  My church listed the Mormons as a cult ( this was back
when I went to church) along with the Moonies.

A cult is simply a religious group without political power! The term reflects
the attitude of the person using it; it says nothing about the group itself.
Most of the stereotypes about Mormons are quite far from the truth. I don't
think our marriage customs are all that funny; for example, we marry for time
and all eternity, instead of having that built-in divorce decree of "till
death do us part"! We believe that families are forever. _No_ Mormons are
polygamous; the practice was outlawed in our church in 1890. More than a
century, and it's still what people think of! The polygamists you hear about
in Utah are not Mormons, but the press insists on referring to them as "Mormon
fundamentalists." There's no such thing! No, we don't dress funny. Those
ladies you see in the cheesecloth bonnets are somebody else--some other
"cult," I suppose.  I dress like any other middle-aged fat woman you know--in
outfits designed to hide the bulges! About our only funny thing about eating
is that we don't use coffee or tea, which doesn't seem too extreme to me, and
we don't drink alcohol, which makes us much healthier. In fact, our food
guidelines, which we've had for 150 years, sound just like the latest wisdom
from the nutritional experts: go easy on the meat, eat fresh fruits and
veggies, use whole-grain products--makes sense to me! As for being clannish,
our leaders are trying to get us to get over that already. Mormons are human
beings, and people have a tendency to be more comfortable with people who
share their world views. We're all God's children, and he loves us all, so who
are we to look down on each other?  As for Moonies, I've read so many
distortions and lies about my own faith in the press that I tend to hold back
on believing what I read about any organization!

 I think Card is a wonderful writer of children--he's like Steven King
(otherwise not a favorite of mine) in that regard.  And he writes about
damaged children very well too.  And I do think that's important.

He has a son with a pretty severe case of cerebral palsy; that's one reason
he's interested in the difficulties of disabled kids.

Thanks for your post! It was interesting! BTW, perhaps you ought to go back to
your church. I'll bet you're missing a lot. (Of course, if they start in on
the Mormons. . . . . .)

Barbara
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 08:08:03 +0100
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Mike Stanton <m_stanton@POSTMASTER.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: BDG Nomination: THE FEMALE MAN
Comments: cc: ajhs@usa.net
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On 5 Oct 98, at 20:32, Neil Rest wrote:

> [The female man] seemed to me a reasonably straightforward
> 'alternate historys' on the theme of, "Gee, what would I
> have been like if I'd been born in different worlds?"

On the most superficial level perhaps. On the same level you could describe
_King Lear_ as a "tale of a domestic dispute"!

That said, I have to admit that the book was extensively discussed on
content_analysis with a similar but less harsh consensus being reached. If
the book is selected for discussion, it'll be interesting to see why
feminists think it's so good. I hope it's not for that same reasons that so
many feminist scholars have heaped praise on Katherine Phillips or -
especially - Aphra Behn.

> ... of uncertain availability.

At 04:30 GMT on 6 October 1998, a search on Amazon.com reported:
"Availability: This title usually ships within 2-3 days". Our new copy was
bought in a New York bookstore evidently without problem six weeks ago.

The book is also widely available at public and university libraries. All
members of content_analysis who wished to read it had no problem getting a
copy usually without having to buy it.


Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk)
___________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 07:16:11 -0700
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Pat <mathews@UNM.EDU>
Subject:      Re: OS Card and his attitudes
In-Reply-To:  <908fe96a.3619a388@aol.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

        For the person whose church called the LDS a "cult" --- Robert
Heinlein defined a "cult" as "any church you're not born into."

Patricia (Pat) Mathews
mathews@unm.edu
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 06:15:16 PDT
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Daniel Krashin <dkrashin@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: OS Card and his attitudes, also Mormon church
Content-Type: text/plain

>Date:    Tue, 6 Oct 1998 00:58:48 EDT
>From:    "Barbara R. Hume" <Lurima@AOL.COM>
>Subject: Re: OS Card and his attitudes
[snip]
> As far as the Homecoming series goes, I think it's very impressive
that he's
>writing about the book of Mormon, simply because it may dispell some of
the
>tremendous prejudice against Mormons.  A friend of mine pointed out
(while we
>were visiting Salt Lake City on a road trip) that the stereotypes we
have of
>Mormons are very similar to those people used to justify prejudice
against
>Jews:  their marriage customs are funny (even though most Mormons are
not
>polygamous) they have weird rules about eating, they're clannish, the
women
>dress funny, etc. etc.  My church listed the Mormons as a cult ( this
was back
>when I went to church) along with the Moonies.
>
>A cult is simply a religious group without political power! The term
reflects
>the attitude of the person using it; it says nothing about the group
itself.
>Most of the stereotypes about Mormons are quite far from the truth. I
don't
>think our marriage customs are all that funny; for example, we marry
for time
>and all eternity, instead of having that built-in divorce decree of
"till
>death do us part"! We believe that families are forever. _No_ Mormons
are
>polygamous; the practice was outlawed in our church in 1890. More than
a
>century, and it's still what people think of! The polygamists you hear
about
>in Utah are not Mormons, but the press insists on referring to them as
"Mormon
>fundamentalists." There's no such thing! No, we don't dress funny.
Those
>ladies you see in the cheesecloth bonnets are somebody else--some other
>"cult," I suppose.  I dress like any other middle-aged fat woman you
know--in
>outfits designed to hide the bulges! About our only funny thing about
eating
>is that we don't use coffee or tea, which doesn't seem too extreme to
me, and
>we don't drink alcohol, which makes us much healthier. In fact, our
food
>guidelines, which we've had for 150 years, sound just like the latest
wisdom
>from the nutritional experts: go easy on the meat, eat fresh fruits and
>veggies, use whole-grain products--makes sense to me! As for being
clannish,
>our leaders are trying to get us to get over that already. Mormons are
human
>beings, and people have a tendency to be more comfortable with people
who
>share their world views. We're all God's children, and he loves us all,
so who
>are we to look down on each other?  As for Moonies, I've read so many
>distortions and lies about my own faith in the press that I tend to
hold back
>on believing what I read about any organization!

Well... speaking as an ex-Mormon, I have to say that the church has
a rather chequered past.  I think there has been a steady, slow
moderation of Mormon beliefs since that time (fortunately they
have a steady supply of prophets!). I think they are completely
respectable now.

For another view of the Mormon church, you should check out an essay
by Theresa Nielsen Hayden, an editor at Tor books about getting
excommunicated from the Mormon church.  It is a very thoughtful
essay, and expresses some of the reasons why I am no longer a Mormon
rather well.  It is online at

http://www.panix.com/~pnh/GodandI.html

This is not to cast aspersions on the church in any way.

BTW, that essay is from a collection by her, _Making Book_, which
is also very good.  Reflections by a highly intelligent feminist
fan.  If it was more widely available I would have recommended it
for the BDG.  It is in print from NESFA press, and I think there is
ordering info on Theresa's website.

> I think Card is a wonderful writer of children--he's like Steven King
>(otherwise not a favorite of mine) in that regard.  And he writes about
>damaged children very well too.  And I do think that's important.
>
>He has a son with a pretty severe case of cerebral palsy; that's one
reason
>he's interested in the difficulties of disabled kids.

I agree with this, but sometimes Card creeps me out with the apparent
enthusiasm with which he damages children in his fiction... He is
also one of the best genre writers on fatherhood; when I became a father
I went on a OSC reading binge for about 6 months.


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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 09:01:36 -0500
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From:         Jane Franklin <JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: OS Card and his attitudes
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Barbara, thank you for an interesting answer.  I just wanted to clarify,
real quick, that I personally don't think that Mormons eat, dress, or
marry in ways any odder than my own.  Given my addiction to diet soda,
probably much less odd than my own, or at least healthier.

When I was in Salt Lake City, I did notice that many young women seemed to
dress a little more conservatively than they do here--nothing unusual,
just slightly longer skirts, slightly longer haircuts rather than the
super short one that's popular here.  But for all I know they weren't
Mormons, although they did seem to be at more Mormon places--the big
temple and so on.

If people reading this are ever out West, Salt Lake City is well worth
visiting.  I wish now that I'd read up on it a bit more before going (I
meant to, but didn't have time)  The architecture in particular is
fascinating and the lake (although a bit smelly) is very beautiful.  The
north end of the lake, where the two railroads were joined to make the
transcontiniental line, is amazing territory.  There's scrub grass like an
enormous lawn stretching away to hills and then small mountains and big
mountains.

And if you are looking for anything at all by Card, the Deseret bookstore
in downtown has the most complete selection I have ever seen.

Actually, I just twigged to the fact that the Alvin Maker series is based
somewhat on Mormon history--after reading it for the sixth time or so.

=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 09:19:04 -0500
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From:         Jane Franklin <JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: OS Card and his attitudes, also Mormon church

> I think Card is a wonderful writer of children--he's like Steven
King
>(otherwise not a favorite of mine) in that regard.  And he writes
about
>damaged children very well too.  And I do think that's important.
>
>He has a son with a pretty severe case of cerebral palsy; that's
one
reason
>he's interested in the difficulties of disabled kids.

I agree with this, but sometimes Card creeps me out with the
apparent
enthusiasm with which he damages children in his fiction... He is
also one of the best genre writers on fatherhood; when I became a
father
I went on a OSC reading binge for about 6 months.


(It's so exciting to talk about Card with people who've read a lot of
him.  A truly rare pleasure.)

Card does damage his child characters quite a lot.  Hart's Hope and
Songmaster seem to me to be the most extreme examples.  For me, it's
always been...almost reassuring, maybe.  Because these children are
nothing like regular children and they have nothing like regular
childhoods.  But they live, they win.  I like to read about Card's
child characters because it tells me that all the "normal" things you
believe about how life is supposed to go don't always happen.  Also
that  a life can be worthwhile without being happy and that doing the
right thing won't always make you happy.  The American expectation of
happiness is quite the burden.

It does trouble me that one of Card's themes seems to be that no just
society can be established without cruelty and the destruction of some
people.  Consider Emperor Mikhail in Songmaster.  He kills lots of
people quickly and mercilessly and the implication is that a society
where you can be summarily executed for some wrongdoing is the best
possible one.  Also that people can't live without some absolute
authority.    A lesser theme might be that the people at the top
destroy themselves for the good of the whole, or the King's house is
all the world etc etc.  On the other hand, it's pretty impressive that
Card has themes he reiterates and develops over the course of years.


As a side note, Harlan Ellison is another science fiction writer who
has grown less homophobic over the years.  Although I have large
problems with him.

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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 11:27:31 EDT
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From:         "Demetria M. Shew" <DMadrone@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: BDG Nomination: THE FEMALE MAN
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In a message dated 10/6/98 12:04:08 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
m_stanton@POSTMASTER.CO.UK writes:

<<  it'll be interesting to see why
 feminists think it's so good. I hope it's not for that same reasons that so
 many feminist scholars have heaped praise on Katherine Phillips or -
 especially - Aphra Behn. >>

My, this is funny!!!!   I suppose we should like more dainty writers?
  How can you not like  Aphra Behn????

Madrone (having read THE FEMALE MAN twice, like a house on fire)
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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 19:26:19 +0100
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From:         Mike Stanton <m_stanton@POSTMASTER.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: BDG Nomination: THE FEMALE MAN
Comments: cc: ajhs@usa.net
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On 6 Oct 98, at 11:27, Demetria M. Shew wrote:

> My, this is funny!!!!   I suppose we should like more dainty writers?
>   How can you not like  Aphra Behn????

I like much of the work _attributed_ to Aphra Behn; unfortunately I don't
know which of those works I've read were _actually written_ by Aphra Behn.
Indeed I doubt if anyone does. May I suggest that you re-read Greer 1995 p.
172 (especially the last paragraph), and p. 173-213 (especially the last
paragraph on p.196)? For your convenience I've given part of p. 172 below.

My knowledge of Behn is not superficial. Another member of this list and I
have been examining Behn's work using what Andrew Morton calls "literary
detection" for some years now.



Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk)
__________________________________________________________

Greer, Germaine 1995. "Slip-shod sybils : recognition, rejection and the
woman poet". London : Viking (Penguin Group). 517p. ISBN 0-670-84914-6.

"Katherine Philips is a major poet of the Restoration period, yet only now
are academics beginning to invest energy and resources is establishing her
text. The problems that continue to present themselves at every turn are by
no means unusual; when it comes to Aphra Behn we have even less reason to
suppose that the versions we have before us now are in any sense authentic.
Feminist scholars who clamour for women's work to be included in the canon
assume there are texts attributed to women that actually represent what
women wrote and the way they wrote it. The further back we go from our own
time, the more unlikely that is. A single new discovery could discredit a
good deal of the close textual criticism on which many feminist academics
have staked their reputations and their careers" (Greer 1995 p. 172).
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 19:39:48 +0100
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From:         Edward James <E.F.James@READING.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: OS Card and his attitudes, also Mormon church
In-Reply-To:  <19981006131519.25310.qmail@hotmail.com>
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> >Date:    Tue, 6 Oct 1998 00:58:48 EDT
> >From:    "Barbara R. Hume" <Lurima@AOL.COM>
> >Subject: Re: OS Card and his attitudes
> [snip]
> > As far as the Homecoming series goes, I think it's very impressive
> that he's
> >writing about the book of Mormon, simply because it may dispell some of
> the
> >tremendous prejudice against Mormons.

Card wasn't writing _about_ the Book of Mormon in the Homecoming series,
he rewrote the Book of Mormon (without telling the unwary reader that he
was doing so). And I am not sure that he was doing anything to dispell the
prejudice about the Mormons; for a start, the series confirmed _me_ in my
otherwise baseless assumption that the Mormons are homophobic.

> >_No_ Mormons are polygamous; the practice was outlawed in our church in
1890. The polygamists you hear about in Utah are not Mormons, but the
press insists on referring to them as "Mormon fundamentalists." There's no
such thing!

I have seen teleivison programmes (in the UK) about these polygamists.
They call themselves Mormons; they claim that "orthodox" Mormons have
abandoned the ancient customs; therefore, by most definitions, they are
fundamentalist Mormons.

Edward James
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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 15:35:39 -0400
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From:         "Stahl, Sheryl" <SFStahl@CN.HUC.EDU>
Subject:      Re: BDG: Shadow Man discussion begins
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> How did you like the representation of the five "genders"?  Were you able
> to figure out a way to pronounce them?  Did they seem realistic to you?
>
> Jennifer
> jkrauel@actioneer.com
>
I very much enjoy Scott's work, unfortunately I left it at home and don't
remember anyone's names.  I thought the idea of five genders to very
intriguing but I didn't find her charachterizations of them to be very
convincing.   It seems to me that the tendancy in our own society is to move
away from stereotypes (at least try!) - to use gender nuetral language - to
recognize the spectrum of sexual attractions, etc.  I would have guessed
that a society with 5 genders would have even more reason to move in this
direction also - it wasn't clear to me how you could tell what gender the
person was (the off planet society)  Even with just 2 genders, it is not
always easy to tell at a glance if a person is male or female.

I was not really satisfied with the ending - it seems that the final image
is to create/maintain stereotypes - even in the future a 'man' would stay
and fight - while the herm way is stategic retreat.

my 2 cents
sheryl
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 12:24:11 -0700
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From:         Jessie Stickgold-Sarah <jss@PA.DEC.COM>
Subject:      Re: BDG Nomination: THE FEMALE MAN
In-Reply-To:  Your message of "Tue, 06 Oct 98 19:26:19 BST."
              <80256695.00654838.00@osiris.postmaster.co.uk>
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>I like much of the work _attributed_ to Aphra Behn; unfortunately I don't
>know which of those works I've read were _actually written_ by Aphra Behn.
>Indeed I doubt if anyone does. May I suggest that you re-read Greer 1995 p.
>172 (especially the last paragraph), and p. 173-213 (especially the last
>paragraph on p.196)? For your convenience I've given part of p. 172 below.
>
>My knowledge of Behn is not superficial. Another member of this list and I
>have been examining Behn's work using what Andrew Morton calls "literary
>detection" for some years now.

Do y'all think we could have a little more explanation and a little less
citation? I don't mean to impugn your credentials, valid scholarly techniques,
and relevance to this forum, but I have no idea what you're talking about.

jessie
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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 13:32:38 -0700
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From:         Pamela Bedore <pebedore@SFU.CA>
Subject:      Grad Program Question
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Hello,

I'm finishing up my MA thesis on alternate sexualities in feminist science
fiction, in the English department at a small Canadian university.  I'm
looking into continuing this work, though perhaps in a more
interdisciplinary program, at a larger school (probably Canadian or
American).  So far I've looked into Cornell, Brandeis, Browne, Rochester,
U of Toronto and McGill.  Does anyone have other suggestions, or know of
people I should be talking to at these universities?  Or have good or bad
things to share about any of them?

Thanks,

pam bedore
pebedore@sfu.ca
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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 16:34:35 -0400
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From:         "Janice E. Dawley" <jdawley@TOGETHER.NET>
Subject:      Re: BDG Nomination: THE FEMALE MAN
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Mike Stanton wrote:
> That said, I have to admit that the book was extensively discussed on
> content_analysis with a similar but less harsh consensus being
> reached. If the book is selected for discussion, it'll be interesting
> to see why feminists think it's so good. I hope it's not for that same
> reasons that so many feminist scholars have heaped praise on Katherine
> Phillips or - especially - Aphra Behn.

I, like Madrone, am puzzled by this comment, but for a different reason,
I guess. I've never read any Aphra Behn and have never even heard of
Katherine Phillips, so maybe you could clarify by letting us know what
reasons feminist scholars have for heaping praise on them.

As for why I like *The Female Man* -- it's funny, insightful, cathartic
and mind-bending. We don't have to wait for the BDG to discuss it!

--
Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT
http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm
Listening to: Elliott Smith -- either/or
"Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 13:48:15 +0000
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From:         Allyson Shaw <allyshaw@EARTHLINK.NET>
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Stahl, Sheryl wrote:

   I thought the idea of five genders to very
> intriguing but I didn't find her charachterizations of them to be very
> convincing.
>  it wasn't clear to me how you could tell what gender the
> person was (the off planet society)  Even with just 2 genders, it is not
> always easy to tell at a glance if a person is male or female.

I have to agree.  While I admire the premise, I was disappointed.  It
seemed that the world, and the people in it were not rendered as fully
as they could be to make these distictions and attitudes clear.  I'm
hoping discussion will shed light on this book, as I didn't get much
from it and often was confused by the character's motivations and
attitudes.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 18:42:47 -0400
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From:         Rudy Leon <releon@SYR.EDU>
Organization: Syracuse University
Subject:      Re: BDG: Shadow Man discussion begins
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I read the book a few moths ago, and haven't had a chance to go
back and review it yet.  However, I have been eagerly looking
forward to discussing it...  One of the things that has stayed with
me is that I was really dissatisfied with the way the sexual
orientations were dealt (or *not* dealt) with.  The definitions were
less than illuminating, and the only sexualities I was able to
discern where straight and not straight...  Why did Scott go to
such effort to ambiguously define the 10 sexualties and then ignore
them?  Is it because I missed something and they were extensively
dealt with below my radar?

Did anyone succumb to the desire to produce a chart in order to
understand the sexual preferences?  I came so close to doing so,
and may still...

I really enjoyed the book, it is much more *Science* fiction than
what I usually read (which says more about what *I* read than
about Shadow Man)

On 6 Oct 98, , Stahl, Sheryl wrote:
> I was not really satisfied with the ending - it seems that the final image
> is to create/maintain stereotypes - even in the future a 'man' would stay
> and fight - while the herm way is stategic retreat.

This bugged me too; a little bit too innate and essentializing for my
more progressive understanding of what Scott was going for.
Rudy Leon
PhD Candidate
Dept. of Religion
Syracuse University
releon@syr.edu
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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 18:46:18 -0700
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From:         Jennifer Krauel <jkrauel@ACTIONEER.COM>
Subject:      BDG: how many genders are there today?
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At 03:35 PM 10/06/98 -0400, Sheryl wrote:
>I thought the idea of five genders to very
>intriguing but I didn't find her charachterizations of them to be very
>convincing.

I wonder if the gender spectrum would have been more convincing if the
story were played out on one of worlds recognizing multiple genders.  It
seems Scott was more interested in the effect of repression on multiple
genders than in exploring the genders themselves.

>It seems to me that the tendancy in our own society is to move
>away from stereotypes (at least try!) - to use gender nuetral language - to
>recognize the spectrum of sexual attractions, etc.  I would have guessed
>that a society with 5 genders would have even more reason to move in this
>direction also - it wasn't clear to me how you could tell what gender the
>person was (the off planet society)  Even with just 2 genders, it is not
>always easy to tell at a glance if a person is male or female.

I'm only passingly conversant with the leading edge of gender exploration
today, for example Kate Bornstein's work, but I would be really interested
to hear what someone like Kate would say about this book.

For example, I bet she would challenge the idea that there are only two
genders today.  I remember reading something recently about the modern
practice of selecting a gender for babies born with ambiguous genitals or
genes and enforcing it surgically or with hormones during infancy, in some
cases resulting in people (in this case women) with very limited capacity
for sexual pleasure, or none at all.  It seems being "normal" is perceived
as more important - for the parents and doctors, anyway.  I can't remember
offhand if Scott's characters on the 2-gender world were thus physically
altered; certainly Warreven wasn't.

So I think Scott didn't have to look very far to see what like kind of
repression might look like.

Jennifer
jkrauel@actioneer.com
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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 21:06:39 -0500
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From:         Neil Rest <NeilRest@TEZCAT.COM>
Subject:      Re: BDG Nomination: THE FEMALE MAN
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At 08:08 AM 10/6/98 +0100, Mike Stanton <m_stanton@POSTMASTER.CO.UK>
replied to me:

>> [The female man] seemed to me a reasonably straightforward
>> 'alternate historys' on the theme of, "Gee, what would I
>> have been like if I'd been born in different worlds?"
>
>On the most superficial level perhaps. On the same level you could describe
>_King Lear_ as a "tale of a domestic dispute"!
>
>That said, I have to admit that the book was extensively discussed on
>content_analysis with a similar but less harsh consensus being reached.

I didn't mean to be superficial, and most certainly wasn't being harsh.  I
was replying to one or two puzzled comments on the overall structure of the
book.  If my phrasing suggested that I was slighting the nuances and
intelligence of the book, I misspoke.

>> ... of uncertain availability.
>
>At 04:30 GMT on 6 October 1998, a search on Amazon.com reported:
>"Availability: This title usually ships within 2-3 days". Our new copy was
>bought in a New York bookstore evidently without problem six weeks ago.

Hey, the first edition I picked up last year, when I reread it for the
first time in ages, was the first time I'd run into a copy in years.  I
assumed it was out of print, but am happy to be wrong.


Neil Rest
NeilRest@tezcat.com
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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 23:03:47 -0800
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I have to admit, this is probably my least favorite Scott  book, and
certainly the one I had the most trouble with.  When I finally DID feel
familiar with the world, it was because I had grasped thefact that neither
outsiders nor natives to the world were comfortable with or understood, or
even wanted to truly understand their own sexuality.  They wanted the world to
be as they preferred to see it, through rose-colored blinders.  I think the
scene that brought this home to me was the one where the lead character is
very uncomfortable because he doesn't want to enjoy the arousal when his
partner tries to stimulate his breasts.
        I found the labeling very confusing; but then, I don't like what we currently
use for labels, either, with the third person always assumed to be male.  I
often ffind myself deliberately breaking the rules of grammer to say things
like, "one must find their own way in life."  This does't make me happy; I
just haven't found a more satisfactory way of talking.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 00:15:28 -0500
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From:         Heather MacLean <h.maclean@ZIPCON.NET>
Subject:      Re: BDG: how many genders are there today?
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At 06:46 PM 10/6/98 -0700, you wrote:

>I'm only passingly conversant with the leading edge of gender exploration
>today, for example Kate Bornstein's work, but I would be really interested
>to hear what someone like Kate would say about this book.
>
>For example, I bet she would challenge the idea that there are only two
>genders today.

I just had a whole lecture about two months ago by someone in the Ingersoll
institute here in Seattle, where gender politics are huge. The Ingersoll
institute began in the 70s, I believe, and was primarily begun for what they
used to call transvestites--their scope has broadened incredibly since then.

There are as many genders as there are people, pretty much--I think this is
what I get from the issues I've heard debated. The two primary sex
identifiers, female and male, are merely a beginning, and the genders
associated with the two sexes can be used as a "base" only in the broadest
stereotypical sense. Who among us would say that in order to be considered a
woman, you have to have long pointed red fingernails, in Western culture at
least? Yet some cross-dressers choose to make painted fingernails, rouge,
and lipstick signs of their femininity. In the lesbian community, someone
who enjoys dressing with these accessories might be termed "femme," whereas
a more stereotypically "butch" dyke would stomp around with boots and plaids
and a short haircut (people tend to assume I'm butch when I'm not femming,
for example, because of my athletic build).

In Seattle I know many transgendered folk: people who cross the physical
sexual boundaries to one degree or another, either via hormone treatment, or
actual surgery, or just binding their breasts and having people address them
as males. FtMs (female to males) seem to be more common than the reverse,
and then there are non-gendered people too. Note: none of these genders have
any predictable link whatsoever with sexual orientation: I know as many FtMs
who have women as their partners as men. It's interesting: if you're a
lesbian, and you change your gender to identify male, do you become
straight? What about if you have a mastectomy and testosterone treatment,
but don't do genital reassignment? *grins* Anyways, it's cool. I love this
place. =) For once, I can be who I am--I cross gender-barriers quite easily
(most often I identify as tomboy), and people don't try and coerce me to dig
in my heels (shall they be those of steel-toed boots, or 4-inch spike
heels?) on either side of the duality barrier.

Coupled with Seattle's vast propensity for body-mods (piercings, tattoos,
and even more radical transformations), I see a trend into a very
cyber-punkish world where gender becomes completely irrelevant, where you
own your body and can remake it as you please, and as you change. So little
seems to be under our control in these modern days... and this, I think, is
our society's way of adapting...

Heather
=)
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              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Robin Reid <Robin_Reid@TAMU-COMMERCE.EDU>
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Mike Stanton... on _The Female Man_:  "If the book is selected for
discussion, it'll be interesting to see why feminists think it's so good. I
hope it's not for that same reasons that so many feminist scholars have
heaped praise on Katherine Phillips or -
especially - Aphra Behn."

The Head of my Department who is not a feminist scholar and moreover is a
Man (may or may not be a femininist--I haven't discussed the issue with him)
and who does film theory and the Renaissance thinks Aphra Behn, whose work
he has studied intensively, is One of the Best Writers in the Whole
Universe.  Feminist are not the only ones who praise Aphra Behn......I don't
know Katherine Phillips (meaning, I haven't read her work or heard about
her).  I've read _Orinocco_ (may be misspelling the name) in a women's lit
class and came away wondering how it is the author of _Robinson Cruesoe_
(cannot rememvber his name at the moment) got so much praise yeaers later
when he obviously stole a whole lot from Behn while she got so much
damnation.  For those who don't study lit, for years _RC_ was considered to
be the "first novel" written in English; recently, some have been arguing
for Behn's novel about an African slave brought to England (??; it has been
a lot of years) as being the FIRST novel written in English.  (Earlier in
China Lady Murisaki wrote _The Tale of the Genji_ but that's another story....)"

There has never been widespread agreement on what is the best/worst
literature--it changes every generation and sometimes oftener.

Robin
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 08:30:38 -0500
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Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Tessa Vaughn <tessa@IO.COM>
Subject:      Re: OT - Feminist sf Books for sale CHEAP online
In-Reply-To:  <360B5602.6C097EC4@cas.et.tudelft.nl>
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Another book I found while browsing at Book Express was

The Armless Maiden, ed. Terri Windling.  I highly recommend this book.
It's an anthology of stories, poems and essays, which use some sort of
fairy tale theme. The main focus of this book is surviving child abuse but
there's quite a number of stories about women who are true heros, taking
charge of their own destiny and even getting a little revenge in the
process.  Hardcover $4.49

They also have copies of Shadow Man for $7.99

Tessa
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 09:36:46 EDT
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From:         Phoebe Wray <Zozie@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: OT Katharine Philips
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My quick and dirty notes, since people are asking... Katharine Fowler Philips
(1632-1664)... was called "the matchless Orinda" in her time.  Not an
aristocrat but the daughter of a London cloth merchant, she nevertheless
married into gentry and was "socially acceptable.  She translated neoclassical
French plays with great success.
She was precocious, went to boarding school.  At 16 she married a man 38 years
her senior.  Seems to have been a good marriage.  He was a friend of Cromwell,
but she had royalist sentiments, and husband indulged her in those.
Her translations of Corneill'e *Pompee* was performed at the Theatre Royal in
Dublin in 1663.  (This was an excellent theatre.)  Her translation was
considered the best of a French tragedy and she was admired for it.
Encouraged by this, she started to translate Corneille's *Horace* but died of
smallpox before she finished it.  She was 32.  (Her translation was later
completed and performed at Court in1668.)
Her works were published in 1667.  She also wrote the songs to be sung between
acts, working with various composers, and these, too, became popular.

best
phoebe
zozie@aol.com
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 14:57:35 +0100
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From:         Edward James <E.F.James@READING.AC.UK>
Subject:      Joanna Russ again
In-Reply-To:  <199810071323.IAA15970@etsuodt.tamu-commerce.edu>
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On Wed, 7 Oct 1998, Robin Reid wrote:

> The Head of my Department who is not a feminist scholar and moreover is a
> Man (may or may not be a femininist--I haven't discussed the issue with him)
> and who does film theory and the Renaissance thinks Aphra Behn, whose work
> he has studied intensively, is One of the Best Writers in the Whole
> Universe.

I am a Head of Department, and am not a feminist scholar and moreover am a
Man (my or may not be a feminist, but at least am on FEMINISTSF) thinks
that Joanna Russ is One of the Best Writers in the Whole Universe. Well, a
slight exaggeration, perhaps, but THE FEMALE MAN has been in my top ten,
or top five, of science fiction books ever since I first read it. And am
looking forward to teaching it again this year; it does always seem to
create more ferocious divisions among students than anything else.

But, then, I have never taught Aphra Behn...!

Edward James
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 09:12:47 -0500
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From:         Jane Franklin <JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: OS Card and his attitudes, also Mormon church
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Card wasn't writing _about_ the Book of Mormon in the Homecoming series,
he rewrote the Book of Mormon (without telling the unwary reader that he
was doing so). And I am not sure that he was doing anything to dispell the
prejudice about the Mormons; for a start, the series confirmed _me_ in my
otherwise baseless assumption that the Mormons are homophobic.

I suppose what I see as prejudice against Mormons is hating them for
things they don't do or from a misunderstanding of things they in fact do.  
Now, when I visited Salt Lake City and went to see the Temple, I saw a set
of large engraved tablet-type things that intermingled the Constitution
and quotes from the Book of Mormon and some capitalist proseletizing.  
Conservative, patriotic, capitalist religions aren't my personal thing.  
But when I talk to people and they bring up Mormonism, they treat Mormons
with far less respect than they show for other conservative capitalist
religious folks.  Scary old Jesse Helms is okay.  Evil old Ronnie Reagan,
of Iran-Contra and death-squad support fame, is fine.  But Mormons--no,
Mormons are silly.  That's what I mean.  Card may--or may not--write
homophobic books.  Getting mad at Card about something he actually writes
is legitimate; so is debating it.  Having a lot of half-baked ideas about
Mormons isn't, and that's what reading actual writing by an actual Mormon
writer may debunk.  (Not to suggest that anyone on the list has half-baked
ideas;  I was just thinking about friends I have)

As to Card re-writing the Book of Mormon without warning the unwary, that
doesn't concern me too much.  Lots of people from other religions rewrite
their own myths as literature, and it hasn't destroyed the world yet.  To
me, it's kind of a treat when I discover something about a book that I was
unaware of before.

There may well be Mormon fundamentalists.  I read a rather disturbing
article in Salon magazine (online magazine, sorta silly) about polygamy
and its effects on women.  It's just that where I come from, most people
dismiss Mormons because of their polygamy (which is rather odd, since I
don't see that polygamy would neccesarily be bad.  These people who claim
to be Mormons who practice it seem to practice it with bigotry and sexism
though)  It just seems to me better to know what Mormons actually do and
why so that the debate can proceed on fair terms.

=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 11:34:20 EDT
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From:         "Demetria M. Shew" <DMadrone@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: BDG Nomination: THE FEMALE MAN
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Ah.  So now we hear that there were no women writers because no one can prove
they wrote what they wrote.  And your opinion of Shakespear, and who exactly
wrote his works?

Madrone
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 11:43:31 EDT
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From:         "Demetria M. Shew" <DMadrone@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: BDG: Shadow Man discussion begins
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In a message dated 10/6/98 2:44:38 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
allyshaw@EARTHLINK.NET writes:

<< it is not
 > always easy to tell at a glance if a person is male or female. >>

But you know...I thought that was part of the idea.  It annoyed me, and then I
thought, wow, look how important it has become to be able to asign gender.
And I thought that the difficulty in grasping personality was because I am
used to attaching gender-attributes automatically, and when gender was not
clear I didn't know what to pin on the person and so was left feeling the
personality was incomplete...when it wasn't, just perceived so.

Which raises the question...how much personality of a gendered person don't we
see, because we have already assumed characturistics?

Madrone
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 09:07:34 -0700
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Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
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From:         Karen Brighton <kbrighto@FRED.FHCRC.ORG>
Subject:      Re: BDG: how many genders are there today?
In-Reply-To:  <19981007014746598.AAA96.320@jennifer.actioneer.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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> For example, I bet she would challenge the idea that there are only two
> genders today.  I remember reading something recently about the modern
> practice of selecting a gender for babies born with ambiguous genitals or
> genes and enforcing it surgically or with hormones during infancy, in some
> cases resulting in people (in this case women) with very limited capacity
> for sexual pleasure, or none at all.  It seems being "normal" is perceived
> as more important - for the parents and doctors, anyway.  I can't remember
> offhand if Scott's characters on the 2-gender world were thus physically
> altered; certainly Warreven wasn't.

The most powerful part of the book, to me, was the anguish over Warreven's
friend who was badly beaten.  They were anxious to get the friend to an
offworld hospital because their doctors may decide to "fix" the gender
while fixing the wounds.  So, yes I would say physically altering
individuals to fit into the 2-gendered socieity was going on, and rather
common too.

Karen
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 09:54:55 +0100
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              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
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From:         Maryelizabeth Hart <mystgalaxy@AX.COM>
Subject:      not paying attention
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Sorry to post this to the list, but I can't find the addy for BDG votes.
Can some kind soul help me out?

My votes:

BROWN GIRL IN THE RING
CHICKS IN CHAINMAIL
GIBBON'S DECLINE AND FALL
WILD SEED

BTW, looking forward to reading PARABLE OF THE TALENTS, Octavia Butler's
long awaited continuation of PARABLE OF THE SOWER! Out soon, and I think
we'll get to see Octavia at the store this winter. Yay!

Pax,


Maryelizabeth
Mysterious Galaxy                    619-268-4747
3904 Convoy St, #107                  800-811-4747
San Diego, CA 92111                    619-268-4775 FAX
http://www.mystgalaxy.com
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 22:19:58 +0100
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
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From:         Mike Stanton <m_stanton@POSTMASTER.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: BDG Nomination: THE FEMALE MAN
Comments: cc: ajhs@usa.net
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On 6 Oct 98, Janice E. Dawley & Jessie Stickgold-Sarah
wrote:

> I've never read any Aphra Behn and have never even heard of
> Katherine Phillips, so maybe you could clarify by letting us know what
> reasons feminist scholars have for heaping praise on them.

> Do y'all think we could have a little more explanation and a little less
> citation? I don't mean to impugn your credentials, valid scholarly
> techniques, and relevance to this forum, but I have no idea what you're
> talking about.

I hope what follows will make my allusions a little clearer. I've used
'Western Canon' in the sense of 'the literary works "authoritative in our
[Western European] culture"' (Bloom 1995:1).

The authors whose works comprise the 'Western Canon' are overwhelmingly
male (Bloom 1995 Appendices A - D). To redress this, feminist scholars have
clamoured for the inclusion of more female authors although until
relatively recently, there were few good female published authors. Another
problem - for older writers - is serious doubt over which works 'actually
represent what women wrote and the way they wrote it' (Greer 1995:172). In
general 'scholars who struggle to get women poets admitted to the
canon...have been stymied in the past by a lack of reliable texts' (Greer
1995:xvii).

Two female Restoration poets, Katherine Philips (d. 1664) and Aphra Behn
(d. 1689), are examples of such authors. Most of their work was
'modernised' (as Greer puts it) or extensively edited by male editors to
make it more marketable. Even so, Behn (like others) had to write 'bawdy
plays' etc to survive, 'because nothing else would sell' (Greer 1995:193).
Some attributed work was probably downright forgery (Charles Gildon and
Samuel Briscoe, for example, published much fraudulent work under Behn's
name - Greer 1995:196). Even during their lifetimes, it's uncertain how
much artistic control the women had or whether they actually exercised it.
Yet the "work" attributed to both writers has been closely analysed and
effusively praised by certain feminist scholars - the praise even
extending, in Behn's case for example, to work definitely that of Gildon
and/or Briscoe.

The comment about 'literary detection' (Andrew Morton's name for a group of
computerized text-analysis techniques) was meant to show that I have first
hand knowledge of the problems in establishing Behn's text.

If you're interested in more information, I'd suggested you read Germaine
Greer (author of _The female eunuch_ and a highly influential feminist
thinker) for Philips and Behn, Harold Bloom's "The Western Canon" and
Morton's "Literary Detection".






Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk)
_________________________________________

Bloom, Harold 1995. "The Western Canon : the books and school of the ages".
London : PaperMac (MacMillan). 578p.

Greer, Germaine 1995. "Slip-shod sybils : recognition, rejection and the
woman poet". London : Viking (Penguin Group). 517p.

Morton, Andrew Queen 1978. "Literary detection : how to prove authorship
and fraud in literature and documents". [London] : Bowker. 281p.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 22:21:57 +0100
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Mike Stanton <m_stanton@POSTMASTER.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: BDG Nomination: THE FEMALE MAN
Comments: cc: ajhs@usa.net
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On 7 Oct 98, at 11:34, Demetria M. Shew wrote:

> Ah.  So now we hear that there were no women writers because no one can
> prove they wrote what they wrote.  And your opinion of Shakespear, and
who
> exactly wrote his works?

Madrone

I know nothing and care less about 'traditional' literary analysis; my own
interests lie in CATA - computer-aided text analysis. But it seems obvious
that before anyone can properly evaluate a _writer_, a set of reliable text
attributable to that writer must be established.

The opinions I've quoted are mine only by derivation from published studies
especially that by Germaine Greer - a feminist with impeccable credentials,
an excellent writer and a first-class scholar.

I'm not sure how we got onto William Shakespeare unless you're referring to
my 1986 seminar presentation. If you are, I'd remind you that mine was only
one of 9 papers devoted to showing the absurd lengths to which computer
analysis of text can be taken. I knew that paper would come back to haunt
me!



Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk)
__________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 22:25:12 +0100
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              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Mike Stanton <m_stanton@POSTMASTER.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: BDG Nomination: THE FEMALE MAN
Comments: cc: ajhs@usa.net
Mime-Version: 1.0
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On 7 Oct 98, at 8:23, Robin Reid wrote:

> The Head of my Department who is not a feminist scholar and moreover is a
> Man (may or may not be a femininist--I haven't discussed the issue with
> him) and who does film theory and the Renaissance thinks Aphra Behn,
whose
> work he has studied intensively, is One of the Best Writers in the Whole
> Universe.

Robin

Apart from knowledge derived from playing Sir Jasper Fidget in an amateur
production of Wycherley's _The country wife_, I know little about the
pre-1700 Restoration playwrights. So although I've (obviously) read all of
Behn I can get my hands on, I know too little about early Restoration plays
or verse to presume to judge her work. Our interest in her is purely in the
application of computer-aided text analysis.

Indeed we started working on her text by accident. We were at a booze-up
after a colloquium on Samuel Pepys when the subject of text analysis came
up. A well-known academic specialising in Oliver Goldsmith suggested we
have a shufti at Behn and contributed the first test samples.

>  Feminist are not the only ones who praise Aphra Behn......I
> don't know Katherine Phillips (meaning, I haven't read her work or heard
> about her).

It's sad how poorly known many women poets are even amongst feminists.
Philips was a major Restoration poet but I'd never heard of her until a
roommate at University introduced me to her work.

>  I've read _Orinocco_ (may be misspelling the name) in a
> women's lit class and came away wondering how it is the
> author of  _Robinson Cruesoe_ (cannot rememvber his name at
> the moment)  praise yeaers later when he obviously stole a
> whole lot from Behn while she got so much damnation.

Probably _Oronooko_ (1688) and certainly Daniel Defoe (1660 - 1731). Don't
know that I can agree with the plagiarism suggestion because _RC_ was based
on Alexander Selkirk's 1704-09 marooning in the Juan Fernandez Islands.

> There has never been widespread agreement on what is the best/worst
> literature--it changes every generation and sometimes oftener.

Of course you're dead right.

I'd like to suggest that any feminist who hasn't read Gremaine Greer's
"Slip-shod sybils" should do so because it's a fascinating book which is -
literally - un-put-down-able.


Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk)
__________________________________________________
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 13:41:42 +0000
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Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
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From:         Allyson Shaw <allyshaw@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: not paying attention
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Maryelizabeth Hart wrote:
>
> Sorry to post this to the list, but I can't find the addy for BDG votes.
> Can some kind soul help me out?

I think it's terriergraphics@cybertours.com
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 13:43:22 +0000
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              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
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From:         Allyson Shaw <allyshaw@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: Tale of Genji
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Robin Reid wrote:
  (Earlier in
> China Lady Murisaki wrote _The Tale of the Genji_ but that's another story....)"

I'm pretty sure Tale of Genji it Japanese.  :)
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 13:56:23 +0000
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Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
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From:         Allyson Shaw <allyshaw@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: Shadow Man
Comments: To: shander@cdsnet.net
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Sharon Anderson wrote:
>
> I have to admit, this is probably my least favorite Scott

I've never read anything else by her and wouldn't, really, after reading
this one.  But I'm curious-- which is your favorite and how does it
compare to Shadow Man?

 I had grasped thefact that neither
> outsiders nor natives to the world were comfortable with or understood, or
> even wanted to truly understand their own sexuality.  They wanted the world to
> be as they preferred to see it, through rose-colored blinders.  I think the
> scene that brought this home to me was the one where the lead character is
> very uncomfortable because he doesn't want to enjoy the arousal when his
> partner tries to stimulate his breasts.

Yes-- I noticed this too-- in a world that seemed so sensual-- the
dancing and music, fabric and glass in the markets, the use of different
drugs, etc, it was strange that the characters dealt with each other in
mostly unsensual ways, or that, as Sharon points out above, their
sensuality is guarded or considered troubling.  I would think by
rendering the body's sensuality more fully in the novel, the ambiguities
would have been more convincing.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 14:20:19 +0000
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
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From:         Allyson Shaw <allyshaw@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: BDG: how many genders are there today?
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Jennifer Krauel wrote:
>
> I wonder if the gender spectrum would have been more convincing if the
> story were played out on one of worlds recognizing multiple genders.  It
> seems Scott was more interested in the effect of repression on multiple
> genders than in exploring the genders themselves.

I was thinking this as well-- or at least have a community-- the "trade"
workers or the "odd-bodied" having a subculture where we could glimpse
an inkling of this recognition and acceptance.

>
>  I remember reading something recently about the modern
> practice of selecting a gender for babies born with ambiguous genitals or
> genes and enforcing it surgically or with hormones during infancy, in some
> cases resulting in people (in this case women) with very limited capacity
> for sexual pleasure, or none at all.  It seems being "normal" is perceived
> as more important - for the parents and doctors, anyway.  I can't remember
> offhand if Scott's characters on the 2-gender world were thus physically
> altered; certainly Warreven wasn't.

As Karen pointed out in her post, Warreven is worried that Haliday will
be surgically altered after the beating while (s)he is unconcious and
taken to surgery for her other wounds And I do remember this surgical
alteration you mention above being an old custom in the book that is now
seen as old fashioned-- but I've looked for the passage and can't find
it, so I don't know if it was Tatian or Warreven's thought.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 16:38:54 -0700
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
              <FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
From:         Joyce Jones <hoop5@EMAIL.MSN.COM>
Subject:      BDG Shadow Man

The premise of this book was fascinating, but the book itself fell very far
short of its promise.  The characterization was almost nil, I felt no
emotional involvement with anyone.  The offworlder Tatian did have the start
of a personality, the rest of the characters seemed to be in the book only
to further ideas.  Now, I suppose most characters exist for that purpose,
but I have heard other authors state that once they began a book the
characters seemed to have minds of their own .  They start writing a story
then are surprised at the direction the characters take them.  There seemed
to be no surprises here for this author.  She knew what she wanted to say,
and kind of penciled in characters to say it.  There's a great deal to be
discussed about gender, how we express it, how society mandates expression,
how we discover its essence.  I'm wondering why Scott chose this subject if
she didn't have enough emotional involvement with it to flesh out some
believable characters.  Or maybe she is emotionally involved with the
subject but for some reason didn't want to express that emotion.  Perhaps
she should have written a series of essays instead.  They would have been
interesting and better expressed her point of view that this very restricted
novel.

Before reading Shadow Man I also purchased Trouble and Her Friends.  If it's
written in the same bland style, I don't have any interest in reading it.
So, those of you who have read both, is this Scott's normal style or did she
make a change for Shadow Man?

Joyce
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Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 17:19:15 -0700
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From:         PK <search@THINKERS.NET>
Subject:      Create your own free literary page
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Authorpage: thinkers.net offers list members web space where
you can create your personal, editable, instantly created webpage.
http://thinkers.net/authorpage

AuthorBase: A searchable global database of Living Authors, journalists and
creative writers of any genre. You can add your brief profile
http://thinkers.net/authorbase

WISDOM: Thinkers.net is a search engine and directory for Literature,
Languages, Thoughts, writers and other literary and academic people.
It is non-lucrative, non-commercial.
If you have a literary page you could add to the search engine & directory
by simply adding to http://thinkers.net/add.cgi

sincerely
Phil clearwater
Editor - Wisdom at http://thinkers.net
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Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 17:44:43 -0700
Reply-To:     Sandy.Candioglos@intel.com
Sender:       "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
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From:         Sandy Candioglos <Sandy.Candioglos@INTEL.COM>
Subject:      Re: BDG Shadow Man
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I've read several of Scott's books in the last few weeks, specifically
Shadow Man, Point of Hopes (written with a co-author), Dreaming Metal, and
I'm in the middle of The Kindly Ones right now.  It seems to be a pattern
that her books (at least the ones she writes by herself) are VERY MUCH
centered on some global political struggle.

In Kindly Ones, it's the "code of honor", and the "ghosts" it creates, and
it's pretty easy to follow (either that, or I'm getting better at reading
her books).
In Point of Hopes, there was an undercurrent of politics under the whole
thing, but it only served to flesh out the world, it wasn't the CENTRAL
theme of the book, by any means.
In Dreaming Metal, it was between two governments and/or two types of people
on a single planet (I never did really "get" the political parts, but I got
pretty into all the tech and the sub-plots, and that got me through it - I
actually enjoyed the book overall, and I felt that if I re-read the "report"
on the planet carefully, I'd understand the political aspects).
In Shadow Man, it was the "trade", and the artificial limitation of five
genders to two.  I never did get the political parts in this book, either,
and the rest of the story refused to grip me.  It seemed like maybe she bit
off way more than she could chew in one novel-length book with this idea.

So, if, in Shadow Man,  the central point is the political struggle, then
the characters ARE going to be secondary to that; if the author already has
this full-blown "situation" in her head when she sits down to write, then
having to lead the reader to understand the build-up to the situation is
going to be frustrating, and it's my impression that the build-up to the
political situation needed much more introduction than it was given.  To me,
it felt like the very idea of the five genders deserved a whole book of its
own, with maybe a personal, relationship conflict to drive the plot, rather
than something global and political.  The combination of the new types of
people with the political situation just seemed like too much to grasp all
at once.

Maybe I'll re-read it (now that I'm thinking about it, I'd like to re-read
Dreaming Metal again, too, to really understand the conflict better), and
see if it's any better after reading other of her books.  Overall, I was
really disappointed on the first read.

  -Sandy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joyce Jones [mailto:hoop5@EMAIL.MSN.COM]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 1998 4:39 PM
> To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU
> Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG Shadow Man
>
>
> The premise of this book was fascinating, but the book itself
> fell very far
> short of its promise.  The characterization was almost nil, I felt no
> emotional involvement with anyone.  The offworlder Tatian did
> have the start
> of a personality, the rest of the characters seemed to be in
> the book only
> to further ideas.  Now, I suppose most characters exist for
> that purpose,
> but I have heard other authors state that once they began a book the
> characters seemed to have minds of their own .  They start
> writing a story
> then are surprised at the direction the characters take them.
>  There seemed
> to be no surprises here for this author.  She knew what she
> wanted to say,
> and kind of penciled in characters to say it.  There's a
> great deal to be
> discussed about gender, how we express it, how society
> mandates expression,
> how we discover its essence.  I'm wondering why Scott chose
> this subject if
> she didn't have enough emotional involvement with it to flesh out some
> believable characters.  Or maybe she is emotionally involved with the
> subject but for some reason didn't want to express that
> emotion.  Perhaps
> she should have written a series of essays instead.  They
> would have been
> interesting and better expressed her point of view that this
> very restricted
> novel.
>
> Before reading Shadow Man I also purchased Trouble and Her
> Friends.  If it's
> written in the same bland style, I don't have any interest in
> reading it.
> So, those of you who have read both, is this Scott's normal
> style or did she
> make a change for Shadow Man?
>
> Joyce
>
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Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 21:36:30 -0400
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
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From:         ME Hunter <hunter@APOCALYPSE.ORG>
Subject:      Re: BDG Shadow Man
In-Reply-To:  <001301bdf24b$a7cf6da0$9b4a2599@default> (message from Joyce
              Jones on Wed, 7 Oct 1998 16:38:54 -0700)

I, too, was extremely disappointed with _Shadow Man_ when I read it (which
was not recently). I remember feeling at the end that there really hadn't
been much "story" in that book, just presentation of this idea of five
genders without even good exploration of that idea, much less of the
characters and scenarios hinted at.

_Trouble and Her Friends_ is much better, for whoever was asking if it was
worth the read. The rest of her stuff seems to range somewhere around the
_Shadow Man_ level. Cool ideas, less cool stories, writing not quite as
polished as we've seen her do.

I like Melissa Scott. I keep reading her work. I wishshe'd do it better.

E
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Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 21:43:23 EDT
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
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From:         "Demetria M. Shew" <DMadrone@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: BDG Shadow Man
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In a message dated 10/7/98 4:43:15 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
hoop5@EMAIL.MSN.COM writes:

<<  I'm wondering why Scott chose this subject if
 she didn't have enough emotional involvement with it to flesh out some
 believable characters.  >>


Wow.  I didn't get that sense of the book at all.  I felt that there was a
layer that was really challenging me:  in most stories, whether the charatures
are straight or gay, as soon as the their gender is described the reader can
sit back with the usual possible story lines (who can, or is, having sex with
whom).  You know:  eager young thing goes to work in big office where handsome
boss is.  No surprises in this possible story line.

But in Shadow Man, even charactures who were attracted to each other had to
sort out whether sex could be acceptable.  What, then, is attraction?  How
much of attraction is appearance, how much personality how much culturally
accepted gendered behavior, how much propinquity?  I thought this was such
great stuff.

And...when we read a story, I think we are ready to sit back and be a part of
whatever love/story develops.  But we had to go through that uncomfortableness
too, didn't we?  How many of you thought Tatian was going to have an affair
with the herm?  Would we have been comfortable if he had?

And she took it to the larger question:  how much does gender expectation have
to do with public behaviors, with group behavior?  If the herm (don't have my
book right here) had been living the gendered male life, then zhe (?) might
have gone ahead and done the male thing of fighting an impossible fight.
Instead, a real choice was made to learn first and act carefully towards a
purpose.  Could someone living as a male have done that?  What a wonderful
question to ask.

Also, I had no problem with the genders:  male female herm, functionaly female
herm, functionaly male herm.

Madrone
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Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1998 23:01:31 EDT
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
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From:         Phoebe Wray <Zozie@AOL.COM>
Subject:      OT Behn
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In a message dated 10/7/98 9:16:25 PM, Mike Stanton wrote:

<<Even so, Behn (like others) had to write 'bawdy
plays' etc to survive, 'because nothing else would sell' (Greer 1995:193).>>

My caveat  (and it is with Greer, not you Mike) is the "had to" in this
sentence.  Restoration plays *were* bawdy, and yes that's what "sold" at the
moment, the return of clothes of a color other than brown, so to speak, and
the general national exuberance at the restoration of the monarchy.  There
would be no particular reason to write in some other style.

I greatly admire The Female Eunuch but there has been a lot of work done in
women's studies on this period since it was published.

This is not SciFi -- but some of the maunderings about who wrote what and
whether or not a (gulp) woman would write such salicious stuff are definitely
fantasy.

smiling,
phoebe
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Date:         Thu, 8 Oct 1998 13:32:48 +1000
Reply-To:     "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature"
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From:         "Ms.Devilspin (jenn)" <phoenix@HEMLOCK.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>
Subject:      Re: web sites
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Does anyone know any good feminist sci fi and cyberpunk web sites?

~*If you're not living on the edge,
         you're taking up too much space.*~