November 14, 2003
Mondo Barbie
Students of Engl 3722: apropos of our discussion of John Varley's "The Barbie Murders," which led to those disturbing disclosures about how so many of us abused our Barbies when we were wee, here is a page that explains how to safely behead a Barbie.
And here is a link to Mondo Barbie, a collection of stories about Barbies, including Varley's.
November 08, 2003
Second blast of the trumpet
I'm teaching a new course on women's writing for January 2004, and am in the middle of putting together the syllabus. For the first class I am planning to introduce the students to some anti-women texts, and so just did a web search for John Knox's The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558). Imagine my surprise to discover that there is a recent horror novel, by Eric McCormack, that uses the same title. I don't usually read contemporary horror, but this review makes it sound something special. McCormack teaches c17th lit. at the U of Waterloo, apparently: he is ONE OF US.
Uh–oh: further searching has turned up another novel, A Monstrous Regiment of Women (2000) by Laurie R. King. What on earth is going on?!??
Unknown artist, portrait of John Knox 1509-1572
November 07, 2003
Rochester, oh Rochester!
We read John Wilmot's "The Imperfect Enjoyment" and Aphra Behn's "The Disappointment" today in my intro. class. A significant number of the young men in the class thought that both poems were tragic. The women were silent on the issue.
(Here is Mark Ynys-Mon's "shrine" to Rochester, with some interesting links: who knew that there was a site called Pornokrates, advertising "historic smut for the discerning voyeur"?)
(Eddie Anderson as Rochester; Jack Benny)
September 23, 2003
On Pope
Here is a link to a blog entry on Alexander Pope posted on Aaron Haspel's godofthemachine.com (culling his readers to a select few since June 2002). Not a fan, but he has some insights. Not a fan of the c18th at all, I would suspect, and since Pope was such a self–conscious spokesperson of "the age" (if we can use the inclusive term for such a vital and changing period), he is damned by definition.
At any rate, my students in English 3204 just read Pope's "An Essay on Criticism" and "An Essay on Man," and may be in the mood for a little Pope–trashing. They liked the former, but he lost most of them with the latter.
September 21, 2003
Sir Gawain and the Green Pimp
I have been struck, (re)reading these old and middle English texts for my intro. class, at the number of elements in them, echoed in c19th texts, that I had previously labeled "modern." Neither angst, ambivalence, anomie, nor anxiety—you see how susceptible I am proving to medieval poetics, particularly alliterative verse—were invented by the moderns. And the nostalgia in which much c19th literature is steeped was part of the English literary tradition from the beginning.
The Green Knight and his talking head.
[Students: click on the graphic. And, here are two other useful sites: 1, 2.
September 20, 2003
From Beowulf to Virginia Woolf...
Preparing for a series of classes on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I've really enjoyed re–reading it—it's been a long time and I had forgotten the careful patterning.
It's my theory that you need (well, I need) to read a text at least twice for it to enter into long–term memory.
Hold that thought: Sally the nasty little she's–lucky–she's–so–cute Schnauzer has just woken up Alex from his peaceful nap in the back of the car; I am following the whole sorry story on the baby monitor. Alex, like his mummy, does not like to be woken prematurely.
September 14, 2003
Madly off in all directions
I'm getting whiplash; I just spent two weeks immersed in Beowulf, and now I am rereading Dryden, Pope and Johnson in preparation for a class on c18th aesthetics. Then, back some centuries to Marie de France's Lanval. [Here is the comphrehensive site for the International Marie de France Society. And here is their logo:]
My sf students have begun to blog. Well, to be fair, some were blogging already; but they have begun to blog for their course with me. I will add their URLS to my list 'o links, as they come online. It's very exciting! There are some who seemed nonplussed by the idea, but there are enough others who are conversant with the internet, and willing to share their knowledge, that I have every confidence they will all be up and blogging soon.
September 07, 2003
Beowulf
Preparing for the first section of my intro. class, I was disconcerted to discover that there is a computer project called Beowulf. Their site is hosted by the Scyld Computing Corporation. I hope all those concerned read to the end.
I have a confession to make: I had never read Beowulf until I came to prepare for this class; the earliest texts I studied as an undergraduate were Chaucer's. I have been enjoying it immensely.
[first page of sole existing MS]
I am fascinated by the irony that what is commonly believed to be one of the foundational literary texts in English is saturated with the same nostalgia that later (Romantic and other) writers evince towards the past.
And, I would recommend it to anyone who decries the gore and violence of contemporary popular culture:
the bloodshot water
surged underneath. It was a sore blow
to all of the Danes, friends of the Shieldings,
a hurt to each and every one
of that noble company when they came upon
Aeschere's head at the foot of the cliff.
Everybody gazed as the hot gore
kept wallowing up and an urgent war–horn
repeated its notes: the whole party
sat down to watch.
[Seamus Heaney's translation, Norton Anthology]
Students: here is a useful site from Anne Savage at McMaster U, and another from Georgetown U.
August 09, 2003
SF books, course
The trip to Shediac wasn't an entire waste; apart from the glorious swim, we stopped in at Champlain Place in Moncton on the way back and while the others went on the rides at Crystal Palace I snuck off to Chapters and got a couple of books: the lastest volume of Gardner's Dozois's extremely useful series, The Year's Best Science Fiction, which has some great stuff in it, Aye, and Gomorrah and other stories by Samuel Delany, and Salt by Adam Roberts, author of Stone (see post of 25/7/03).
I am about half–way through Delany's collection and am enjoying it very much. Here is Claude Lalumière's brief review. I am including two of the shorter pieces in the course kit for English 3722: "Contemporary Science Fiction: Gender and Sexuality," which I'm teaching in September (next month!!): "Aye, and Gomorrah" and "Among the Blobs." They, and Joanna Russ's "When It Changed" and Eleanor Arnasons "The Potter of Bones," are together in a class I've called "Cruising and Herbal Tea" (is that terrible?). Arnason's story is in Dozois's collection.
I'm organizing the course a little differently this year; I've taught it in two previous incarnations, and both times I organized the material chronologically. This time, in order to make connections clearer, I've grouped the readings into four main categories: "Men and Women," "Homosex," "Genderbending," and "Beyond the Body." In "Men and Women" we'll read Charlotter Perkin's Gilman's Herland and Sheri Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country, as well as some short stories: C.L. Moore's “Shambleau” (1933), Leigh Brackett's “The Woman from Altair” (1951), Cordwainer Smith's "The Ballad of Lost C'mell" (1962), James Tiptree Jr.'s "The Women Men Don't See" (1973), Pamela Sargent, "Fears" (1984), Connie Willis's “All My Darling Daughters” (1985), Pat Murphy's "His Vegetable Wife" (1985), and Rick Wilber's “War Bride” (1990). In "Homosex" we'll read the four mentioned above, and Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang (last time I taught it I had them read Delany's Dhalgren and almost had a rebellion. Too bad—and shocking—that Stars in my pocket like grains of sand is out of print). In "Genderbending" we'll read Theodore Sturgeon's Venus Plus X, Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Octavia Butler's Dawn, and John Varley's "The Barbie Murders" and “Picnic on Nearside” (1974). And one other that slips my mind. In the final section we'll read Ballard's Crash, William Gibson's "Burning Chrome" and Candas Jane Dorsey's "(Learning About) Machine Sex" (1988).
It's been fun putting the readings together, but difficult; there is endless choice. So, I've just tried to choose some texts that are representative of different tendencies or themes.
July 02, 2003
Here are the two entries of my abortive blogger blog
Tuesday, July 01, 2003: An inauspicious beginning to this blog
Have posted nothing for June. Spent the time tinkering with my web site instead, and still am not happy with it.
Have not continued to read Ryman's Was; got sidetracked by Roy Porter's Enlightenment: Britain and the creation of the modern world, which is proving very helpful in my thinking about English 3204: c18th Prose and Poetry, which I have taught for a couple of years now but am in the process of revamping. He is such a deft, persuasive writer, and Enlightenment is just the kind of intellectual history of the period to provide a useful context for students. I will not ask them to read the whole book, of course, or we would never get to the literary texts. But I plan to reproduce some passages in their kit (through CanCopy of course; all legal and aboveboard).
See Porter's obituary in The Guardian (March 5, 2002).
Monday, May 19, 2003: Reading Ryman
I've just started reading Geoff Ryman's Was. I've had it on my shelf for awhile but have been reluctant to read it; my friend Glenn told me some time ago that he found it a difficult novel to read. Ryman is coming to a sf conference in Guelph that I was thinking of going to—won't be, but that's by the by—so I decided to finally read it. Glenn was right; it is very difficult. I can't seem to read more than a few chapters at a time; not my usual practice. The novel, as far as I can tell—I'm not very far into it—is a layering of the story of an ill man in the 1980s (probably AIDS) with a retelling of the story of Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz. It is the latter strain that is discomfiting; Dorothy is an unloved orphan, foisted onto her harsh Aunt and taciturn uncle in the ironically named Manhattan, Kansas. The kicker, for me, is that Auntie Em is cruel to Toto. So, small doses.
Here is an interesting article by Steffen Hantke: "There's no place like home": Geoff Ryman's Was and Turner's Myth of National Childhood."