All the online happenings … a week late.

Links of Interest:

Yesterday I interviewed Milena, a Croatian romance and SFF reader, who has written an article on Romanceland to be published in Croatia’s Centre for Women’s Studies journal.

It’s Read an Ebook week. Books on the Knob –which will round up the deals daily — explains:

For those who are new to ebooks, this is a promotion started by Rita Toews, where ebook publishers and authors try to entice us to try them out by offering free and discounted books.

A writer’s blog I have been enjoying a lot lately is Tracey Cooper-Posey’s/Teal Ceagh’s. She’s an erotic romance author who blogs about such topics as The Perils of Writing Erotic Romance and Love ‘em or Hate ‘em — What Amazon is Doing for the e-Book Business is Phenomenal.

10 Rules For Criticism from A Commonplace Blog (inspired by the Guardian’s 2 part series featuring advice from 29 contemporary writers, each of whom was asked to produce ten rules. It took some very undeserved flak, IMO. Why would anyone think that writing is the only human endeavor that successful veterans can’t offer advice about?). Here’s a snippet:

(1.) You are not a makeup artist. You shouldn’t be applying anything, least of all someone else’s “system.”

(2.) In fact, give up the dream of a system altogether. There is no general system or theory of literature; there are only particular texts, with their own particular system of law, which demand a particular respect.

The Guardian Books Blog on why The Best Contemporary Japanese Novel is a Manga (The Legend of Koizumi, by Hideki Ohwada).

When’s the last time you read an A+ review? Here’s one by Sandy M at TGTBTU on Sylvia Day’s The Stranger I Married.

The big action in feminist philosophy online last week was reaction to the NPR report on recent research on sexual assault on college campuses. Very distressing. Here’s the summary from NPR of the research:

There’s a common assumption about men who commit sexual assault on a college campus: That they made a one-time, bad decision. But psychologist David Lisak says this assumption is wrong —-and dangerously so.
…
It might seem like it would be hard for a researcher to get these men to admit to something that fits the definition of rape. But Lisak says it’s not. “They are very forthcoming,” he says. “In fact, they are eager to talk about their experiences. They’re quite narcissistic as a group — the offenders — and they view this as an opportunity, essentially, to brag.”

What Lisak found was that students who commit rape on a college campus are pretty much like those rapists in prison. In both groups, many are serial rapists. On college campuses, repeat predators account for 9 out of every 10 rapes.

The NPR comment thread is over 300 comments long. Then Matthew Yglesias posted on it, and his ambiguous comments upset a lot of people, and spawned another huge thread (he has since updated and clarified). See this post at Feministe for a feminist take on the original Yglesias wording.

The American Scholar is talking about Reading in the Digital Age (from Books Inq.). It’s very long — it makes my blog posts look like haiku — but it’s a thoughtful meditation on what is changing and what might be at stake. Here’s a passage:

MY REAL WORRY has less to do with the overthrow of human intelligence by Google-powered artificial intelligence and more with the rapid erosion of certain ways of thinking—their demotion, as it were. I mean reflection, a contextual understanding of information, imaginative projection. I mean, in my shorthand, intransitive thinking. Contemplation. Thinking for its own sake, non-instrumental, as opposed to transitive thinking, the kind that would depend on a machine-drive harvesting of facts toward some specified end. Ideally, of course, we have both, left brain and right brain in balance. But the evidence keeps coming in that not only are we hypertrophied on the left-brain side, but we are subscribing wholesale to technologies reinforcing that kind of thinking in every aspect of our lives. The digital paradigm.

Marg at Reading Adventures is talking about the Book Blogger Hop. 89 bloggers have already signed up, but few from romance.

A New Yorker review of Sexual Ethics for the New Millenium, a new book by psychology professor Paul R. Abramson. Here are the principles: do no harm, celebrate sex, be careful, know yourself, speak up and speak out, and throw no stones. Got it? Now you can go have all the sex you want, minus that unpleasant moral residue!

A NSFW commentary at Racialicious on a series of racialized, hypersexualized images of Disney princes. Sometimes I am really happy to say “your kink is not my kink”. And this is one of those times.

Finally, Steampunk Week begins today over at The Book Smugglers with an Introduction and Primer.

Personal:

The governor announced that the university system budget for next year is projected to be $6 million higher than previously thought. No one knows whether it is too late to save the two “mystery” programs in my college that have already been targeted for elimination, but it definitely relieves the pressure for next year. I’m still holding my breath until we get official word.

This week is my second week of spring break, although I actually have a very busy schedule at my other job. I have a presentation on fluctuating mental capacity, one of the hardest things to deal with as a clinician or an ethicist (and no, not MY fluctuating mental capacity, the patient’s!). There’s also work on code status for brain dead patients who are organ donors. While always treating the body with respect, at what point can we focus solely on the needs of the recipient, and stop treating the dead patient as a living being? Finally, I am coming up on my annual review, which means I have to subject myself to a battery of diabolical computer modules on things like blood borne pathogens and moving the heavy patient. Somebody decided I had to complete all the same modules a physician’s assistant completes, which is super fun because, you know, Aristotle and Hegel talked all the time about pharmacy formularies, interpreting labs tests, and suturing. Like lima beans, I know it is good for me, but I do not enjoy it.

Spring is here (by which I mean temps in the high 40s). We’re getting the garden ready and I couldn’t be more pleased we’ve made the turn in the road away from winter. (Now watch, there will be a huge snow storm!)

The WifFi only iPad is available for preorder March 12 and will ship April 3. Units with 3G will be available a bit later. This really is not “personal.” Because I am not buying one. Really. I’m not.

On the blog this week:

The third and final installment of my summary of An Aesthetics of Junk Fiction, followed by a summary and discussion of the first two chapters of Feminist Popular Fiction by Merja Makinen. I’ll also write a review of Julie James’s latest, Something About You, because I think my Romanceland passport will be revoked if I don’t.

Finally, a big THANK YOU to everyone for your help with transitioning to Read React Review. And thank you for sticking with it!

1. Links of Interest

Post of the week: The Book Smugglers’s first Cover Matters column takes on whitewashing.  It’s long and detailed and comprehensive and persuasive. I believe this important topic deserves nothing less. Go read it.

Georgette Heyer is on tour!

Beginning Monday March 1, 2010, Georgette Heyer will be going on a virtual tour of the blogosphere. Check out these participating blogs where you’ll find reviews of a number her works, as well as general information posts about this classic author.

An excellent post by Richard Herley, a author who has just concluded a 2 year experiment: he offered his books as free downloads, asking for payment if readers enjoyed them. The post connects up a wide range of issues, including how readers buy, why writers write, and how the digital age is changing reading habits. (from Books, Inq.). At one point, he worries:

People brought up on hyperlinks will not be receptive to the linear experience of a novel or short story.

Author Janet Mullany at History Hoydens explores the difference between good friends and improper relations in Georgian England. Of Jane Austen, she writes:

For Austen, true intimacy and love is between sisters, not friends.

(From BookNinja) Michael Schaub, managing editor of BookSlut, is interviewed by Willamette Week Online. Very funny. Among the interesting bits:

OK, yeah. I’ve gotten some nasty emails from writers whom I’ve reviewed negatively. There was this guy… Toby Young. He wrote a terrible book called How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which was then made into a terrible movie. Basically, this guy is just a dick, writing about his experiences being a complete dick. I thought it was charmless and poorly written, and I said as much. It’s a real job hazard, having to read crap like that all the way through.

Keira at LoveRomancePassion is really doing yeoman’s work trying to keep up with and organize all the blogs in Romland. Check out 50 New Romance Novel Blogs. And did you know she has created a Google bundle with hundreds of romance blogs?

In big philosophy news this week, a letter by the founder of modern moral philosophy (and geometry and a lot of other things), René Descartes, was found at Haverford College in PA . In it, he talks about writing Meditations on First Philosophy, a text that I and every other philosophy professor in the western world will make you slog through if you take one of our classes.

The Tools of Change publishing conference happened in New York last week. Luckily I don’t have to spend any time telling you what I think, because Don Linn’s summation of the conference does it for me.

2. Great Taglines in Romanceland

I’ve been shopping for a new tagline for this blog, and just like when you are shopping for a new car, and you suddenly take a keen interest in all the other makes and models on the road, I have a new appreciation for great tag lines in romance blogging.

Here are a few I’ve admired recently:

Bodice Ripper Reviews: Honest Insightful and Funny, Dammit

Save Black Romance: It Tastes Better When its Chocolate…

Leontine’s Book Realm: Home of the Beefcake Preview Club and the Smutty Society

Moriah Jovan: All the things your mama told you not to talk about in public

Lurv á la Mode: A feast for the reading romanticist

Smart Bitches Trashy Books: all of the romance, none of the bullshit

Right now I’ve got “because litblogs aren’t just for literature”. I am self-consciously trying to create a space for folks like me (and most of you) who read romance and literary fiction, both. We’ll see if it sticks. [changed, temporarily, to "Rethinking Romance fiction"]

The theme creators call the banner design “flames”, and that’s what it looks like to me, but people are seeing … other … things. This is kind of a Rorschach test. Tell me what YOU see in my new header and I will predict what kinds of books you enjoy. (kidding!) [Changed to dirty brown.]

3. Random

I nuked my old blog, and did not do any forwarding due to various complications, not least my innate laziness and selfishness. You can find any old Racy Romance Reviews post, with comments, here at Read React Review, by using the search function (top right), but your old Racy Romance Reviews links won’t redirect here. I am very sorry about this inconvenience.

To subscribe to this blog, just click here, or scroll to the bottom and click the RSS icon.

I’m on spring break for the next two weeks, and for the first time in 8 years am not going some place warm. Expect a lot of posts as I don my slanket, brew a pot of tea, and park myself in front of my kitchen woodstove for a fortnight.

Happy week!

The weekly “if it’s new to me, it’s news” post of links, commentary and inanity

1. Links of Interest

Post of the week: Kenda’s appreciation of one my favorite films, Starship Troopers, a movie that represents one of the best cinematic parodies of ultra right wing politics ever made.

The plagiarism case everyone is talking about. The New York Times reported on 17 year old German writer Helene Hegemann’s plagiarism, in her celebrated recent release, “Axolotl Roadkill,” of the book “Strobo” by a writer who goes by the name of Airen. Hegemann calls it “mixing and matching.” As the Times puts it:

Ms. Hegemann finds herself in the middle of a collision — if not road kill exactly — between the staid, literary establishment in a country that venerates writers from Goethe to Mann to Grass, and the Berlin youth culture of D.J.’s and artists that sample freely and thereby breathe creativity into old forms. … “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity,” [she says.]

Der Spiegel online defends Hegemann. Laura Miller at Salon provides the rebuttal.

Accomplice Press gets the shout out from Katiebabs and Lusty Reader. Their new romance line, Curvalicious,

will be short novella length love stories with happy endings featuring beautiful, strong, intelligent plus-size heroines. They will showcase woman who know who they are and don’t feel the need to lose weight or change their bodies to get the man of their dreams. These enticing romances are designed to build self confidence in their readers while entertaining them with intriguing plots and well developed characters.

Note the last sentence and what it implies about whether fiction can have effects on readers. Also, Animejune’s question about whether heroes, too, would be curvy, was not answered.

You can hear Virginia Woolf using words like, “incarnadine” and explaining why “you cannot use a brand new word in an old language” if you hop over to Kate’s Book Blog and listen to the radio clip.

The gals at Risky Regencies are narrowing down their choices for the Georgette Heyer Readalong. Georgette Heyer’s Regency World will be reissued in August of this year.

The great Boosktore/Blogger Experiment of 2009 has officially ended as the last holdout, Michelle Buonfiglio/B&N announced they have parted ways.

I enjoyed this list of the 10 most unreliable narrators in fiction by Henry Sutton in the Guardian.

Also from the Guardian, an article, and 50 interesting comments, on writers crowdfunding their to be written books.

Book Blogger con has announced its keynote speaker. They also have a page listing all the bloggers who will be in attendance. I think that’s such a great idea. Anybody do that for cons like RT, RomCon or RWA? If not, I will host a page for bloggers attending RWA, when we get closer to the date.

Nominees for the 2010 Audies (Audiobooks of the year) were announced. I haven’t listened to any of the romance noms:

ROMANCE
For excellence in narration, direction, engineering, mix, and an abridgment when applicable of an audiobook of romance, including romantic suspense, historical romance, and other romance subgenres.

A Rogue of My Own, by Johanna Lindsey, narrated by Rosalyn Landor
(Brilliance Audio)

Dark Slayer, by Christine Feehan, narrated by Phil Gigante and Jane Brown
(Brilliance Audio)

The House on Tradd Street, by Karen White, narrated by Aimee Bruneau
(Listen & Live Audio)

The Untamed Bride, by Stephanie Laurens, narrated by Simon Prebble
(HarperAudio)

What I Did for Love, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, narrated by Julia Gibson
(HarperAudio)

The TLS Online is talking about romance, medieval style.

Medieval romance created and authorized the making of fictions in Western literature. Its preoccupations – the failure of idealism in social institutions, the self-realization of the individual, the tensions and anxieties within the family, the agency of women, and the pressures of masculinity – reappear throughout the centuries, in the successor to romance, the novel, as well as in a multitude of other media from primetime television to opera. Romance’s varied contexts, its long history and its development into new forms in the twenty-first century, whether drawing on the national myth of Arthur or on the popular plots of romances such as “Sir Gowther”, in which a devil sires a baby on a desperate mother, all provide, as these four books show, fertile ground for thinking about our past, our present and our future.

Obviously “romance” means something different here than we are used to (excluding medievalists from that “we”), but this essay reviewing four books that explore medieval romance is fascinating.

Writer Ann Somerville’s unhappiness with m/m romances deepens, as she explains in this post.

Mark Athitakis’s American Fiction Notes on Book Reviewers– Who Needs ‘Em?

Robin’s open letter to publishers from the point of view of a frustrated reader over at Readers Gab had me ruefully nodding my head:

Ironically, the more paraphernalia I have acquired to enable ever more diverse and numerous book purchases – dedicated digital reader, multi-function devices, multiple software downloads to read various DRM formats – the more difficult it has been for me to buy and read as many books as I would like. And seriously, I don’t think it’s supposed to work that way.

D.G. Meyers is talking about “Fiction’s Job” at A Commonplace Blog. As a gal with a Jesuit education, any post that quotes GK Chesterton is alright by me. Links to several other interesting takes on the question as well.

2. How To Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing, by Paul J. Silvia, is a terrific (but not cheap, at $9.48 for only 150 pages) little book I just downloaded to my Kindle and read in one short sitting. This is the book Nora “ass in chair” Roberts would have written about writing … if she were an academic in a psych department, that is. Silvia tells us right away that this is not the book for you if you are looking to improve your skills or engage in deep psychotherapy about your “psychic blocks”. As to the latter, he writes, “we won’t talk about unleashing your inner anything. Put your ‘inner writer’ back on its leash and muzzle it.”

Despite this, the author uses studies in psychology to explain how certain things keep us from writing. For example, the first chapter lists “specious barriers” to writing. “I can’t find time to write” is the first one. This is a false belief, but it persists because it is comforting. Instead of “finding” time to write, Silvia tells us we must “allot” time to write. He jokes,

When people endorse this specious barrier, I imagine them roaming through their schedules like naturalists in search of Time to Write, that most elusive and secretive of creatures. Do you need to “find time to teach”? Of course not — you have a teaching schedule and you never miss it.

Other chapters on “Motivational Tools”, “Starting Your Own Agraphia Group”, and “Writing Journal Articles” are also very good, but be warned that Silvia focus on psychology, so you have to make allowances if you are coming from elsewhere. Also, this is a book for academic writers of research articles and books, not fiction writers. One last gem:

Your first drafts should sound like they were hastily translated from Icelandic by a nonnative speaker. Writing is part creation and part criticism, part id and part superego: Let the id unleash a discursive screed, and then let the superego evaluate it for correctness and appropriateness. Rejoice in writing your gnarled and impenetrable first drafts, just as you rejoice in later stamping out your fuzzy phrases and unwanted words.

Such good advice for the perfectionist in all of us!

3. Personal

First, I am back on Twitter, as @RRRJes (bastards wouldn’t let me re-activate the late great @RRRJessica. But it’s ok. With the nickname, now it feels like everyone who replies to me is my best pal.)

A blogging conundrum. I’m chafing under two restraints on this blog. One is writing under a pseudonym. (The other I am not ready to talk about yet.) Maybe it’s the Aristotelian in me, but I like to be whole. I’ve wanted to point students and colleagues in the direction of posts, but I hesitate. And I’ve even thought about having students blog with me when I assign a romance novel next year in Ethics and Literature or Feminist Theory. And why not? I don’t write about work or family or personal life in a way that would compromise me or anyone I know. I also don’t feel ashamed about reading romance novels. I read them and enjoy them and I don’t care who knows it.

But there is one thing I occasionally do on this blog that I think could be awkward: read and review erotic romance. Now there is a difference between privacy and shame. Compare: I have a sexual relationship with my spouse, of which I am not ashamed, but I would hardly talk about it to anyone else. Similarly, it is one thing to say, abstractly, “I sometimes read erotic romance”, but another to talk about and review specific books, using explicit words. It’s just personal (I know, I know, how “personal” can something be if you post about it on the internet?).

Maybe it’s that erotic romance edges closer to pornography, (it’s not porn, but on the continuum, it is closer, because it shares with porn an intent to arouse), and that makes it feel closer to talking about my real sex life and less like talking about literature.

When many people review erotic romance they will say things like “it hit all my buttons” or “it was really hot” and they are not speaking metaphorically. Now, why does it feel ok to log all of my other emotional reactions to a book (“It made me sad,” “It made me laugh”. Etc) but not the sexual one? This is a legitimate part of a book review: if someone is writing the kind of sex scenes that make me giggle, that’s a literary failure, isn’t it? And conversely, writing good believable sex scenes is a literary success. So, I can’t defend my desire to keep that stuff off the table — it’s just a personal preference (I know others make different choices).

In short, one of the costs to me of connecting this blog up to my professional website and being more open about it, is that this would have to become a PG-13 rated blog. But the cost of blogging pseudonymously, is that the more I blog, the more serious I get about research in popular romance studies, and that has to be done under my own name.

Right now, I am leaning to cutting out the R-rated stuff and taking professional ownership of my work here, but I am on the fence. On the other hand, random people in RL probably don’t give a shit about what I do in my off time. The people in RL I have told about this blog do not ever actually read it (bastards). So it maybe doesn’t matter either way.

This is just what I am thinking about right now. Thought I’d share. Feel free to share back.

HAPPY WEEK!!

1. Links of interest (It turns out I can live without Twitter longer than I can live without my Google reader). Keep in mind, I make no pretense of being “newsy”, so some of these are pretty stale in blog years.

Laura Vivanco gets interviewed for a fantastic piece on romance by the Yale Herald (why does a student newspaper succeed where so many major media outlets fail?), and offers a sharp critique of the Carroll article I mentioned last week at Teach Me Tonight.

Carolyn Crane is a member of the League of Reluctant Adults and she is exposing their secrets!!!

Why Are there No Fat Vampires? from Womanist Musings.

“Can Authors Balance Privacy and Publicity in the Internet Era? at Nathan Bransford — read it for the comments. And Magdalen talking about the same thing on the very same day.

“The Adulterous Wife”, Toril Moi’s negative review of the highly anticipated new Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier translation of The Second Sex in the LRB. Moi’s piece isn’t just a review but a fascinating comparison between the two translations and meditation on the problems of translation.

The Era of Casual Fridays, (via (from Books, Inq.) a blog by Mark Richardson, professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto and Robert Frost scholar, meditates on the profession of English, asking

Is it possible to be compromised, even corrupted, by what we write and read and teach, and by how we write, read, and teach it?

In “What’s Up With All the Romances?” the Witchy Chicks ask why romances get all the shelf space in the supermarket, Walmart and even bookstore. Something I’d never considered, so used I am to thinking of romance as the underdog.

AnimeJune’s Instant Classic, “How to Exploit the Dead For Fun and Profit” criticizes the trend of new paranormal twists on old favorites novels.

Author Emily Bryan is continuing her series Regency Men Undressed, and she’s down to the underthings.

Harlequin Spice author Victoria Janssen’s blog had its first birthday Friday. Happy Anniversary, Victoria!

Janicu is offering helpful advice about BEA and the Book Bloggers’ Convention, talking about bookish spots in NYC to visit and admire.

A number of personal posts floated my boat these past days:

Harlequin Presents author Kate Hewitt talks about the personal memories that inspired The Greek Tycoon’s Reluctant Bride. It turns out Ms. Hewitt, whose married name is Mrs. Thermopolous, IS the reluctant bride of a Greek Tycoon. Kidding!

Mandi of Smexy Books told her tale of true love over at Fiction Vixen. It’s very funny!

2. Flurry of Posts on the In Crowd … Katiebabs and then Karen Scott and then Mrs. Giggles posted on the question of an “in crowd” in romance blogging. Sarah Tanner followed up with the question of bloggers responding to comments. Everyone else has put their own spin on it. Here’s mine.

For me, the fact that blogging has made me feel like part of a community is one of the most surprising things about it. (The other surprising thing is that I am developing a research interest in popular romance scholarship. This is a bit afield of the biomedical ethics I have been working on the past several years, but I’ve hatched a scheme to connect vampire romance to bioethics in a totally unexpected and bloody way). I wonder sometimes if one of the needs Romland meets for me is to seem to have a group of girlfriends — not couples friends, and not colleague friends, — in a way I really haven’t since I was an undergraduate. It’s fun.

As for being snubbed, I guess my feeling is you can’t make people notice you or admire you or like you. The other side is that they can’t demand it of you either, which is a big relief, to me at least. We all owe each other a basic level of respect if we cross cyberpaths (though we can and do argue about what that entails in specific cases), but beyond that, nada.

Of course, sometimes we won’t get that respect, and sometimes we’ll fail to give it. We’re human beings, some of us humaner than others. This is where the thick skin is so important, even more online than in real life, for obvious reasons.

I was surprised how quickly Katiebabs’ post turned, on Karen’s blog, into a discussion of DA and SBTB, because to be honest, I don’t think big blogs have any sort of monopoly on in-group formation. I mean, you have the Katiebabs/Book Smugglers/AnimeJune Clique (SBAK). Don’t think it’s a clique? Fine. When’s the last time Ana invited you to her place in the UK? And how about those SoCal bloggers? It’s so exclusive I would have to move 3000 miles to join it!! Then there’s the m/m clique — you know who you are. There’s the SPRS Mafia (led by SarahF. and Eric, but An Goris is the Enforcer). And Kristie(j)’s clique is so exclusive no one even KNOWS who is in it.

So it was a bit of a non sequitur to me at first that the discussion went to the long thread at Karen’s about DA and SBTB. My theory is that people trying to make sense of what it means for there to be leaders in the Romanceland community. When I post on something, my few hundred readers, which includes few if any people of influence or standing in the industry, assume it is some random woman’s opinion. When someone at DA or SBTB post, their thousands of readers — which include many influential people in the romance and book publishing industries — assume it is a representative opinion. There’s a difference. The level of sophistication about the industry, the influence, the connectedness, and the visibility beyond the Romland blogosphere of SBTB and DA and others seems new (and I argued it is here). So people are going to talk about them. Like I am doing right now.

I have nothing helpful to actually say about it, but those questions are more intriguing to me than in-groups, which are like the weather — unpredictable, impossible to control, and boring to talk about.

3. What I’m teaching this week (sort of a mini rant)

I’ve mentioned on the blog that most everything I teach and everything I do in my consulting work is very controversial and fraught. Here’s an experiment in talking a little about one of those things on the blog.

We’re finishing an abortion unit in one class. The textbook has one article from a feminist perspective, and it’s by a “pro-life feminist”. By my lights, a feminist perspective has to acknowledge the gendered nature of the issue, the fact that only women become pregnant and bear children, that in most societies the burden of early child care falls disproportionately on women (whether in unpaid or low paid domestic labor), that women’s status as feminine is linked with their status as mothers in a different way than men’s status as masculine is linked with their status as fathers, and that there is gender injustice in most societies. There are lots of pro-choice arguments in favor of abortion that aren’t feminist and I teach at least two of them. I think the feminist pro-choice point of view is so important that I assign an article on e-reserve, but it boggles the mind that I have to do this.

But back to the pro-life feminist piece. I am happy to teach a good anti-choice article from a feminist, just as I teach a range of other anti-choice essays, but I have never found one. The “feminist pro-life” essay in the textbook is so riddled with falsehoods (recycling pro-life movement myths about “post abortion syndrome”, and links between abortions and cancer, for example) and lapses in logic (i.e. that recognizing that we should support women who choose to bring unexpected pregnancies to term with public funds if necessary somehow implies we should prevent those who choose to abort from doing so; or that, because 19th century feminists were pro-life, so should 21st century feminists be.) that I have to ask myself whether my rationale that it is a useful way to explore commonly held falsehoods and faulty arguments is strong enough. I think it’s the last time I’ll teach that one.

4. Personal

I hope you had a good Valentine’s Day, if you wanted to, and I hope you successfully ignored it, if that was your desire. My husband bought me something I’ve wanted, an electric tea kettle, and made me a pot of tea. We get our tea from Upton Tea Imports. We don’t do a lot of romantic things for Valentine’s Day. We’ll have to take whatever measure of comfort we can in our phenomenal sex life. (Kidding!) (Wait… Not kidding!) (Erm. Ahem.)

Doug Fieger, lead singer of the Knack (and Jewish, I might add), the band that brought us “My Sharona”, is dead at 57.

Some of you may recall “My Sharona” from the shit 1994 film Reality Bites, starring Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder. Yours Truly remembers “My Sharona” from the 45 I bought in 1979.

As for blogging, I have lost my reviewing mojo. Yes, I wrote that snarky review on Friday, but that’s different. I have a host of half-finished reviews. I still want to read, and I still want to blog. But I hope the reviewing slump passes.

I’ll have to write a review this week for Keishon’s TBR challenge. My book is Kathleen O’Reilly’s first (I think) book, a 2001 Jove historical called Touched by Fire starring the challenge’s February theme, a virgin hero.

I am running a contest. Winner can choose four books from a selection. But you have to write a purple prose paragraph to enter. Warning: the thread is already a brain bleeder.

HAPPY WEEK!

1. Links:

a. I can’t do a Links of Interest section since I nuked my Google reader, but I will mention the contest I am running — the winner may choose any two books from those listed.

b. Also, on the subject of book bloggers and conferences, I discovered –or rather, Kristin of Fantasy Cafe discovered and told me about –  a new one, the Book Blogger Convention, May 28 in NYC, which overlaps with the Book Expo America.  The Keynote One featured speaker is Ron Hogan, speaking on Professionalism and Ethics in Blogging (EDITED TO ADD: thanks to Natasha from Maw Books setting me straight on that. Keynote TBA). I confess I don’t know anything about Ron Hogan, but I see that Thea of The Book Smugglers is on a panel about Marketing, and Mandi of Smexy Books is on the list of attendees. Looking around the BEA website, it looks to me like it’s for industry professionals — authors and editors and the like. The Book Blogger Convention has affiliated with BEA, and is offering admission to BEA with your BBC badge. You can enter a contest for free admission to the Book Blogger Con — contest ends Friday. It goes without saying that I am thinking about going.

EDITED TO ADD: Katiebabs had a long, informative post about these events, based on insider knowledge and her attendance in 2009. Sorry I did not see it the first time.

c. I was really shocked to read author Laura Kinsale’s comment on Dear Author’s conversational review of her new book, Lessons in French (which I still haven’t read). In response to a reviewer’s (and some responders’) comment that the book was “melancholy”, Kinsale wrote “Piffle Diffle”  and “Just. No.” and “I draw the line at melancholy”.

I’d like to say something about this, because she made a similar comment here, and I find these sorts of comment potentially chilling of the kind of discussion readers must have if fiction is to flourish in a society (note that “potentially” is a pretty generous way to interpret the intentions of someone who basically tells people to cut it out).  Authors don’t get to tell readers how to experience their books, and that is what one is doing, even when one adds “winks” and jokey asides to one’s comment. An author can say “Huh. I am really surprised you experienced the book as melancholy because that was not my intention while writing it”.  Or — and I know it sounds crazy — but one might even consider saying something like, “Huh. Maybe I didn’t write as clearly as I wanted to, if so many experienced genre readers and thoughtful people failed to hear the tone I was going for.” (I do this if a majority of my students get a quiz question wrong. I assume the fault is mine, in the way I worded it.). But telling a reader “Just. No.” and then pointing out that other (Presumably better? More careful? Smarter?) readers read it the way the author intended in order to buttress one’s view is, as she herself put it, “an author behaving badly”.

Romance readers are not passive automatons, thoughtlessly imbibing authors’ words. Reading is an interaction between reader and text, and it is unique every time. The relationship that is forged between the author and the reader requires respect on both sides.  The reviewers of Lessons in French demonstrated that respect by carefully reading the text and engaging in thoughtful dialogue with others about it. If only the author had done the same.

2. Personal

a. My work situation: Still confusing. No one knows what the hell is going on, although some signs have me thinking positively. But I found out something good:  Tenured faculty get severance pay for 18 months if let go (clearly, I have never read my contract in all these years. What a revelation!). What this means is that I do not have to job hunt right this minute. So that’s something to be not unhappy about.

b. My husband’s promotion to full professor became official this morning. He is such a hot ticket, that guy. He was tenured and promoted to associate prof a mere 24 months before he submitted his documents for full. I love you and am so proud of you! We are having a BIG PARTY!!!

3. Summary and discussion of “The Paradox of Junk fiction” Noel Carroll, Philosophy and Literature, 18(2), 1994 (p. 225-241)

“The Paradox of Junk Fiction” is an essay by Noel Carroll, a very well known philosopher of fiction and film. He defines “junk fiction” as, basically, genre fiction with “extremely limited repertoire of story types”.  Examples include Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark, and Agatha Christie. With junk fiction “we read for story.” Junk fictions tell the same story over and over again, says Carroll, with “minor variations”. Junk fiction readers read these variations against a “well-established background of narrative forms.” The reader “knows in some sense how the story is going to go”. He writes, “If you have read one Harlequin romance, it might be argued, you have read them all. You know how it will turn out.”

(By the way, the term “junk fiction” refers to Thomas Roberts’, An Aesthetics of Junk Fiction, which I am about to read. According to Carroll, Roberts addresses a slightly different question, namely how genre readers can speak so ill of the books they love.)

So, the paradox is that people read junk fiction for the story, for the “page turning” aspect. But these readers know antecedently how the story will turn out. What to do?

Carroll rejects pretty much outright the first option, which we can call “biting the bullet”. That is, accepting the paradox as it stands and admitting that, yup, we are irrational. For example, you could take a Freudian approach and say junk fiction operates to meet some unconscious need, either wish fulfillment (he cites romance here) or manifesting deep anxieties (horror).  My problems with such Freudian interpetations are their (a) inability to be disproven, and (b) tendency to make readers passive. So I agree with Carroll here.

Another possibility is offered by Roberts, who says that junk fiction is genre reading and genre reading is system reading, it is intertextual. Reading individual stories may be simple, but the system is complex.  What interests genre readers are “convergences, contrasts and extensions” in story type. It;s the fine grained appreciation of difference genre readers seek (that the apparent heroine is killed off early on in Psycho, for example, is even more enjoyably shocking to those versed in horror, because they know it is not supposed to happen).

Carroll admits that most fans read “comparatively” in a genre, but he denies that this is the core element of junk fiction reading. Many junk fiction readers just read for story, and they don’t perform these fine grained comparison. (for example, when I chatted with a bank teller about JR Ward. she doesn’t know JR Ward wrote any other books besides the one she’s now reading, never mind the subgenre paranormal romance. so, while I am very attracted to Roberts’ theory for other reasons, I don’t think he has described all genre readers.)

But Carroll appreciates that Roberts may be on to something: maybe readers of junk fiction get other kinds of enjoyment besides narrative enjoyment out of their stories. For example, the enjoyment of  “readerly activities of interpretation and inference”. And guess what genre he uses as an example here? Romance! I almost passed out when I saw that. Carroll cites Betty Neels’ The Quiet Professor. Click on the passage below to enlarge:

Junk fiction engages the reader in a “transactional process”. As readers, we enjoy “self rewarding cognitive activity”. Readers also derive pleasure or satisfaction from a range of moral and emotional activities and judgments they make as they read.

Carroll pauses for a minute to distinguish his preferred resolution to the cultural studies’ solution of “recoding and rereading” texts. That is, readers of junk fiction don’t really read for the story the author is telling, rather they read for their own recoded version. Romance readers who read JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood as a love story between Butch and Vishous might count as recoders in this sense. But the classic example is the one Carroll uses — native peoples cheering when the white man gets killed in a western. Carroll reject this idea: he thinks lefty cultural studies folks overstate drastically the amount of resistant reading that actually occurs. And he thinks it’s better on philosophical grounds to dissolve the paradox of junk fiction using readers that are not arbitrary, but actually “proposed by the text in a structured way” (he really reveals his hand when he suggests recodings are arbitrary. I doubt they are.).

Next Carroll responds to the objection that ALL reading, even of what he calls “ambitious fiction*” (i.e. literature) is cognitively, emotionally, and morally challenging in the way junk fiction is. Carroll admits it — such fictions may even “stimulate more readerly activities” than junk fiction. “Ambitious fictions” may be more consuming, and there may be a continuum of engagement required (after all, genre fiction is meant to be easily and quickly read. But we are not to confuse this with the claim that junk fiction readers are passive. they aren’t and they can;t be, if Carroll’s proposed solution is to work), but it’s all of a piece. nevertheless, this is not a problem for his argument, he says, because all he is trying to do is dissolve the paradox of junk fiction.

[*Carroll's term "ambitious fiction" is not a helpful descriptor of non junk-fiction. I'm betting he was looking for a word for literary or modern fiction that doesn't diminish junk fiction. First of all, the jig was up when he adopted the term "junk fiction". but second, "ambition" fails utterly to distinguish literature and genre writers, since they are all about the most ambitious people you could hope to meet.  The only way "ambitious" distinguishes the two kinds of writing is if you implicitly smuggle in extra words like "ambitious to write a great novel", but you're back where you started. ]

So, to recap, a paradox occurs when two incompatible statements both seem true. In this case, it’s:

1. Junk fiction readers read for story, and if knowing the story they will lose interest in it.

2. Junk fiction readers are genre readers. Genre is formulaic, so junk fiction readers already know the story.

Carroll proposes to reject (1) as false, dissolving the paradox.

Does anyone sle see a problem with defining junk fiction as “fiction you read for story” and then arguing that “junk fiction readers don’t really read for story: they read for cognitive, emotional, and moral engagement”?

Personally, while I agree that genre fiction readers read for both story and for the other readerly activities Carroll lists, as well as for the comparative activities Roberts mentions, I would jettison #2. We don’t know the story.

What do you think?

It’s Monday morning somewhere, isn’t it?

1. Links of Interest (these may not all be super fresh, I’ve been away):

An article I missed was My Trouble With Courtesans, by Lynn over at AAR. Good reading, and yet another version of the “it’s just fantasy defense” erupts in the comments. I am starting to think, “It’s just fantasy” should be banned from Romanceland, since it is never used for any good purpose, and usually has the effect of misdirecting or ending the conversation, as if somehow the fact that something is fantasy means it is removed entirely from the realm of human politics, morality, relationships, actions, and indeed human significance and meaning in general.

Another oldie is Editorial Ass’s link to Fran Lebowitz telling us we’re doin’ it wrong when we read Jane Austen. As EA puts it:

Lebowitz says that Americans, who are generally unironic, think of Austen as a romance writer and an archetypal Victorian; they don’t realize she wasn’t a Victorian writer and furthermore was a moralist, not a romance writer. She wasn’t telling fairytales; she was showing us how to behave.

I came to Austen from Alasdair McIntyre’s After Virtue, so I always thought she was a moralist. but I don’t see that as in much tension with romance, since I think a lot of romance is thuddingly moralistic as well.

M/m writer Ann Somerville has been writing a terrific series of reflective posts on straight women writing m/m. I especially like: “Oh look, the straight woman is speaking again. Quick, make her stop.”

I am so excited to read Lessons in French that I am behaving like my English Shepherd with a new bone: he is so overwhelmed that he hides it under the sofa cushions and then paces around nervously. But thankfully, other readers have fewer hangups, and the reviews have started trickling in. This review by Nicola O. of Alpah Heroes pretty much gets at what I love about both Kinsale and Nicola.

I was so proud to see the blogosphere react swiftly and decisively over the whitewashing of covers in recent weeks, and few have been swifter or decisiver than the Book Smugglers. They’ve just debuted a terrific new feature, Cover Matters. In their words:

We want this feature to dedicate more separate space to a topic that has always intrigued, irked, and befuddled us. In these posts, we plan to touch on not only racist cover practices (as with Liar and Magic Under Glass), but other cover issues too (covers in poor taste, misleading or completely inaccurate covers, and, of course, covers that manage to get it right). We are writing these pieces because we do care about cover issues – whether they be about whitewashing, slenderizing, homogenizing, etc. Cover Matters does not have any agenda beyond creating a space for an ongoing discussion of book covers.

Who knows why Bloomsbury changed their minds this time around, and who knows what effect the blogosphere had, but I can’t help being at least a little bit reminded of the famous Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Beverly at The Season Blog has published one of the few blog posts critical of self-publishing that I have seen of late. She explains why she no longer tales a chance on self-published writers.

Although I find it interesting that this article was published in the Fashion and Style section, the NY Times is reporting on a recent Pew Research Center study that shows that

Based on a study of Census data, Pew found that in nearly a third of marriages, the wife is better educated than her husband. And though men, over all, still earn more than women, wives are now the primary breadwinner in 22 percent of couples, up from 7 percent in 1970.

While the changing economic roles of husbands and wives may take some getting used to, the shift has had a surprising effect on marital stability. Over all, the evidence shows that the shifts within marriages — men taking on more housework and women earning more outside the home — have had a positive effect, contributing to lower divorce rates and happier unions.

In very very sad news, the NYT is going to start charging me for reading it online. *weeps*

Over at the Witchy Chicks, Anya Bast has advice on writing that, while it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, is so true and so clear, everyone who has ever tried writing anything should read it.

Heloise has joined the ranks of ebook readers, and reports on her brandy new Nook here.

And last but not least, Tumperkin is glomming Sarah Mayberry! Wheee!!

2. Solo blogging: the pros and the cons

It’s been very difficult to get back into the swing of blogging since I got back. I’m behind on work (missed a week of classes), the kids are very jetlagged and needy, and my husband is still in South Africa. I love solo blogging because it’s the one area of my life where I can express myself without worrying (much) about uptake, and I am in complete control — if I want to blog 10 times a day or 1 time a month, I can.

On the other hand, I could really have used someone to help pick up the slack. Someone who has “got my back”, who can help out, and whom I can help out when needed. Someone to brainstorm with, share good blog news with, complain about other people to, you know the drill.

Then again, I ask myself, why do I want someone to pick up the slack? Who cares of there are no posts for a while? Well, I’m not sure I can express this, but there’s a certain momentum you can feel when you have been blogging for a a while. It ebbs and flows, but I think everyone settles in to a certain pace (at least for a while). When I feel the blog slipping off that pace, I don’t like it. It’s like running: no one cares if you run fewer miles in more minutes one day in your little neighborhood, and it truly doesn’t matter … but YOU know the difference.

I know a lot of folks who read this blog are solo bloggers. I’d be curious as to how you would describe your experiences. Do you ever think the grass is greener on the group blogging side?

3. A few more pics from our South Africa Trip:

A Mosque in Durban

We happened to run into two young men here, whom we had sat next to the day before on a crowded Durban beach. They remembered us, and offered us sweet meats (which is a traditional offering).They had come from Johannesburg, but knew all about this mosque.

This is called "bunny chow", but don;' worry: it's chicken

Ostrich carpaccio

View of Cape Town from top of Table Mountain

Our cabin at a farm in Oudtshoorn

This seemed like such a great idea. And then we realized what it meant to have a tin roof and 160 species of birds dancing on it at 5:00am…

Shanty Town

We thought about doing a tour of these shanty towns with their lack of electricity, clean water, debris and rat problems, violence, and unemployment, but decided against it. Just smacked too much of colonial privilege, although I can see the other side: that the money that comes in helps the people, and getting a first hand view would provide a more complete picture than the one I just described, gained from the windows of our rental car.

A postmodern display

I was totally fascinated by this postmodern display at a Cape Town museum. Instead of scratching and redoing everything, the curators overlaid postmodern interrogation of the binary oppositions inherent in museumship (?). the result was the most reflective, transparent display I have ever seen. This was from a mixed media display by the artist, Fritha Langerman, which “aims to draw attention to some of the contemporary debates surrounding biomedical visual and material culture.” It tackled head on issues of cultural representation, and the tension between culture (mutable, organic, integrated) and museum classification (immutable, inorganic, divisive). Still thinking about it.

Electronic walk in Tsitsikamma forest

I have to giggle when I see this photo. It looks like a nature loving family out for a hike, right? In fact, our cabin safe wasn’t working, so my husband insisted on putting every electronic device we had with us in my backpack. He’s “wearing” a Kindle, 4 iPod Touches, a Sony PSP, a Nintendo DSi, a netbook, and two cell phones. We got lost about 10 minutes after this picture was taken and returned to our cabin to read and play video games.

4. This post was written in memory of James Mitchell. I haven’t watched All My Children for 30 years, but I still can’t believe Palmer Cortland is gone!

I am working on a post — really! I’m like 500 words in! — connecting moral repair to the moment of ritual death in romance. I have reviews of Victoria Dahl (Lead Me On), Lauren Dane (Laid Bare), Joey Hill (Natural Law) in the works, as well as a N.E.A.R. review of a nonfiction book about the Columbine school shooting.

Happy week!

Greetings! We are just back from our trip, which was wonderful, and I thought I would share a few photos (plus I am too jetlagged to string two sentences together). I took 1000, so consider this an awesome feat of restraint. Some of these are romance related — things I found in SA bookstores — and a few are personal. I hope to get back to real romance blogging later this week.

In Durban, pron is considered romance?

(Note the Penthouse volumes on the top right)

We ate incredibly well.

Not "the wild" exactly, but kids loved this.

A Christian bookstore (giggle)

My youngest knows what sex is now.

Lovely covers in Joburg

On safari. Waiting for a herd to pass.

So beautiful.

Afrikaans romance. Whites only?

I tried to find a translation for the intriguing sounding “My Liefling is ‘n Wolkeman”. I am guessing that this attempt (not mine) was not all that successful:

Severe Danie de Wet has six daughters, about whom he is like a volstruismannetjie watch. Anke is his “probleemkind” because of her love for Braam Venter, who won Euro’s Dublin, but he wishes ill to his meat-Merino and his girl. By Nora Roberts

Well, hello...

Just like markets in rural Maine!

Cape Town restaurant

I hope you all had a great few weeks.

It’s time to say goodbye to 2009. Here are a few terrific things about the year that was:

Romance reading and blogging:
1. A super year for contemporaries: New or new-to-me authors like Julie James (esp. Practice Makes Perfect), Sarah Mayberry (esp. Anything For You), Janice Kay Johnson, Jill Shalvis, and Victoria Dahl, as well as new-to-me reads by old favorites, like Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Ain’t She Sweet?) and Jennifer Crusie (Manhunting).

2. Stand out historicals: Judith Ivory has become one of my favorite writers, and I enjoyed new books by Sherry Thomas, Meredith Duran, and new-to-me authors like Jennifer Ashley and Jo Goodman and Jo Beverley.

3. Paranormal in 2009 was more of a mixed bag. But gems included Meljean Brook’s Demon Forged — the strongest ongoing paranormal romance series bar none, Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten, and the continued excellence of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series, with the phenomenal 9th installment, Dead and Gone.

4. My reading horizons were broadened: I read black and African American romance/women’s fic (I especially liked Dorothy Koomson’s My Best Friend’s Girl), m/m romance (I especially enjoyed Sean Kennedy’s Tigers and Devils), young adult (Rachelle Mead’s Vampire Academy) and fantasy with strong romantic elements (Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Sharing Knife).

5. I got over my hatred of male audiobook narrators thanks to finding a good one for Judith Ivory’s The Proposition.

6. The Winsor Lists — a lark that ended up engaging dozens of bloggers and readers alike. For one day, I got to call myself a community builder. Just so fun.

7. Blogging with family: my husband about Not Quite a Husband, my son about Here Be Monsters! and my Mom about Outlander.

8. One of my favorite bloggers, and a role model for me in blogging, Tumperkin of Isn’t It Romance? agreeing to join me occasionally for joint reviews or one of her trademark thoughtful meditations. Our post on Excruciating Moments is one of this blog’s most read posts.

9. New or new-to-me blogs like AnimeJune’s, Sarah Tanner’s, and MagdalenB’s.

10. Continued excellence, experience, and straight talk (which I always appreciate, even if I disagree) from established bloggers like Kristie, SuperWendy, Karen Scott and Azteclady, Keishon, Nicola, Katiebabs, Christine, Jill, Holly and co, Sybil and co, Kenda, and Jane L and co. I’ve learned something about the romance genre or business from every one of you this year. (And you have each made me tear my hair out at least once).

11. Just plain fun (as well as great reviews/insights) from Ana and Thea and Carolyn Jean. I love watching the Book Smugglers take over the world, and I cannot wait for CJ’s triumphant debut as a published author in 2010.

12. Academics in Romance: Laura Vivanco of Teach Me Tonight, such a great blogger and commenter here and everywhere she goes on line, the IASPR crew, and attending the PCA conference. Can’t wait to see Sarah, Eric, and the gang again in 2010 (and will miss Laura once again).

13. I averaged 4 posts per week, for a total of 192 in 2009, the blog readership is growing, and I still love blogging to pieces.

Home life:

1. English Shepherd Pups. When our 13 year old border collie mix passed away in 2008, I couldn’t imagine a different dog in my house. A year later, I can’t imagine life without Wellie and Kitchie (Wellington and Kitchener). They are worthy successors to The Greatest Dog Who Ever Lived.

2. Kindle 2.0. Putting aside the issues with DRM and lack of folders, this is a terrific product. I can instantly download tons of books for the best prices, and sometimes even free. Easy to use, durable, and decent for tweeting or surfing when away from my laptop. I no longer read paper books unless I have to.  I love love love it.

PS. And for everyone who told me to “wait to buy an ereader”, my reply is: I’ve had 10 fantastic months of reading with my Kindle 2.0 and haven’t seen a product that is better yet.  I’m very glad I did not take that advice.

3. Slanket. So warm. So soft. So worth the hit to my self-image. And SO superior to a Snuggie (and the views of people in California or Texas or South Carolina who whine when the temp dips below 50 degrees F do not count.)

4. iTouch. I’m not sure what I did before I had the iTouch calendar or the ability to surf the web (and narrowly miss crashing into innocent students and trees) as I walk from building to building on campus. I don’t do much fiction reading on it –  it strains my eyes — but it will do in a pinch. Love it.

5. Quality Gin. We ended up at a party this summer where gin flights were served, and my eyes have been opened to the inferiority that was the Tanqueray I used to drink. Hendricks (small batch Scottish gin infused with cucumber and rose petals), Citadelle (with 18 botanicals including juniper — best w/tonic), and even new-to-me types of gin, like Plymouth Dry, Old Tom, and Holland gin. I’ve been inebriated for 6 straight months. (kidding!)

6. Netflix Download Play. Convenient. Awesome. And now we have a TV we can connect the laptop to.

7. Lancome Cils Booster XL — super-enhancing mascara base. Pure vanity, but I am delighted that I’ve finally defeated my short skimpy lashes.

There was lots of good work stuff, but mentioning that would be the worst combo ever of bragging and boring. I will say that teaching Gaffney’s To Have and To Hold in my ethics and fiction class was a very challenging experience that helped me grow as a teacher. I can’t wait to teach another one.

I’m teaching an undergrad feminist philosophy course in the spring. Who knows … maybe I’ll manage to get a Harlequin Presents on the syllabus.

Happy New Year!!!