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CFP: Monsters and the Monstrous

Nov 30 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

Some readers might be interested to know of this upcoming conference. More info here.

Call for Papers:

For this 10th Anniversary of the Monsters and the Monstrous Project we are looking forward to the future, and so are starting from Franco Moretti’s comment that “the monster expresses the anxiety that the future will be monstrous.” Our focus then will be on Monsters of the Future, no matter from which time or place that future is viewed. So whether the present is Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Romantic, Modernist or Post Modernist it is the ways that, as further noted by Moretti, a “new order of beings” makes manifest the terror of an unknown and uncontrollable tomorrow and the forms these creatures take.

As such the monster becomes not the return of the repressed but an immanent Imaginary that constantly harasses and harangues the borders of the Real. Just as Grendel, Caliban, Frankenstein’s Monster, Dr. Moreau’s creatures and the clones from Blade Runner can be seen to manifest a hybrid future that blurs the borders between human/non-human, the humane and the in-humane, the converse is equally true where the tomorrow they envision is as much degenerative as it is evolutionary. Here, as in Wells’ the Time Machine, or Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness, the future is in fact a portal to the past and that the true anxiety we feel is not for inevitable change but for a monstrous stasis that, like the vampire, will lock us forever in a never-ending present (not unlike Wittgenstein’s immortality of the never-ending moment). This then is a call for monstrous visions of the future, whether it is a new and alien land or one that is only too familiar; for the Post-Human, the Non-Human and the Anti-Human, the Robot, the Golem and the Cyborg, the Pure-bred, the Hybrid and the Mudblood, the Unborn, the Unliving and the  Undead.

Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:

Monstrous Places/Spaces of the Future:
~The city, the town, the home of the future.
~Environmental disasters, global warming, nuclear meltdowns, plagues and terra incognito.
~Dystopias/utopias
~New Worlds, forgotten worlds, undiscovered worlds: Atlantis, Shangri-la. Eldorado

Human Monsters:
~Medical experimentation, cloning, reproduction.
~Cyborgs, robots and inanimate bodies made real
~Hybrids, both real and supernatural, post-human and beyond human.
~Evolution and degeneration
~Actual bodies and supernatural bodies.
~Monsterisation of the human body: fragmentation, surgical modification and bodies without organs

Monstrous Aliens & Alien Invaders:
~Invasions of unknown beings, conquistadors, Martians, heavenly or alien life forms.
~Humans as invaders, Starship Troopers, Iain M. Banks’ The Culture
~Parasites, diseases, flora and influences

Monstrous Generations:
~The glorification of Youth, Logan’s Run and In Time.
~Monstrous adolescents.
~Demonic children and alien babies.
~Middle-aged zombies and serial killers, possessed grandparents
~Romantacising the Monster: Paranormal Romance, dark lovers and heroes, Twilight, Vampire Diaries and Dexter.

Monstrous Politics:
~Protest, revolt and revolution
~Zombie Capitalism and undead labour
~Class, status and the aristocracy
~Post colonialism, diasporas and migration.
~Ageism, sexism, health-ism and separatism e.g, District 9, Metropolis, Matrix, Daybreakers.

Papers can be accepted which deal solely with specific monsters. This project will run concurrently with our project on The Erotic– we welcome any papers considering the problems or addressing issues on Monsters and The Erotic for a cross-over panel. We also welcome pre-formed panels on any aspect of the monstrous or in relation to crossover panel(s).
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 16th March 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 22nd June 2012. Abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs.

Details on submissions here.

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Seeking M/M romance recs for Ham/mukah

Nov 24 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

It’s that time of year again. Yup, it’s the worst named and most absurdly conceived “holiday” since Festivus. It’s HAM/MUKAH!!!!

Every December, I try to read some non-hetero romance. My goal is to read 8 novellas, novels or short stories, and post reviews for eight days. I’ve never actually managed all eight days (I think I did 6 last year), but it’s worth the attempt for the great recs and great reads.

I’m trying to get an early start since I will away — far away — on vacation pretty much the entirety of Hanukkah, which begins at sundown on December 20.

So, have you read any great m/m in 2011? Care to share?

Thanks! And, if you celebrate, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

 

 

24 responses so far

Repost: Sexual Desire

Oct 24 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

Last December, I posted about teaching an essay by Christopher Hamilton. It’s the last reading in this unit on sexual ethics, and since some new folks are following along this year, I thought I would draw attention to it.

Happy Monday!

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YA Books and Censorship

Oct 03 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

On Saturday, I attended a panel on CENSORSHIP IN YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE at a local book festival. It featured four Maine-based YA and children’s books authors.

Carrie Jones is the author of the Need series, and is co-founder of Young Adult Authors Against Bullying, and editor of Dear Bully, a collection in which “Today’s top authors for teens come together to share their stories about bullying in a collection at turns moving and self-effacing, but always deeply personal.”

Maria Padian is the author, most recently, of Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress, and Jersey Tomatoes are the Best.

Charlotte Agell is the author of, among other books,  Shift and The Accidental Adventures of India McAllister.

And Kelly McClymer  is the author of Must Love Black and the Salem Witch Tryouts, among other titles.

I’m only an occasional YA reader (and a mother of an occasional YA reader), and even I am aware that attempts to censor YA literature are all too common. Two prominent cases this year involved YA fiction with gay characters, written by Jessica Verday and Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith. The Wall Street Journal’s attack on “dark” YA fiction (“so dark that kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things”) plays nicely into would-be censors’ fears that children can be led astray by reading.  Since this topic is so important, I thought I would try to report the gist of what the panelists authors shared. I listened carefully and have tried to be faithful to the spirit of the comments, but if you happened to be there, and want to correct the record, please let me know in the comments or via email (jessica@readreactreview.com).

The authors on the panel haven’t been outright banned, but they have had their books challenged in different ways.  McClymer introduced the idea of different levels of censorship. There is outright banning, as when libraries or schools refuse to carry a book. Then there is a kind of pre-emptive censorship editors ask for. Her example of this was an editorial request to remove a reference to a “flyer” (the cheerleader on top in the formations) needing to lose five pounds, for fear it would be triggering to anorexic readers. McClymer explained that there were no other references to problematic beauty norms in the book, and that anyone who knows the world of cheerleading would recognize that this particular position requires a certain weight. But since the line wasn’t vital to the character or plot, she dropped it. Finally, there is self-censorship, the internal voice telling the writer that they have to change something.

McClymer has turned to self-publishing to publish a novel she believes would not otherwise find an audience. It’s a book about a teen who who killed his ex-best friend, whose ghost haunts him. McClymer is also self-publishing some old historical romances, and she noted she doesn’t write historical romance any more because she doesn’t like to write sex scenes.

Agell, a middle school teacher, said that different kids need different books. There is no “blanket audience.” She just tries to stay true to the characters. Padian agreed with this, saying she tries to create the truest characters she can. She mentioned that her current work in progress involves a friendship between a Franco-American boy and a Somali immigrant boy on the same soccer team in Lewiston. (Lewiston has enjoyed an influx of Somali and Bantu refugees in the past decade). Since the Somali boy has a sister, she’s wondered if she should introduce the issue of female genital mutilation. Her question is how she can write about it — if she does — in a way that is really true to the characters.

An author of illustrated children’s chapter books, Agell once had to swap a colorful drawing of a breastfeeding mother with a colorful drawing of the mother sipping a drink. She noted that her India series is about an adopted Chinese girl who lives in small town Maine with her single mother, an artist and breast cancer survivor, who spends weekends with her gay father and his partner. Agell had been asked to write a similar series, but this time not featuring a girl who has “issues.” Her response is that the India books are not “issue” books: rather, they are about a regular girl. During the Q&A, both a social worker, and a mom who had two adopted children objected to the idea that India (or the other characters) are “unusual” kids with “issues”, and thanked the panel for writing books in which the kids they know in real life can find themselves.

Jones described herself as a writer of “upper YA.” She said she writes a lot of kissing scenes that get edited out. She noted that she has written two characters whose sexual orientation is “not heterosexual” but that readers would not know, because her editor asked for certain edits. Jones did not say the editor asked they be removed due to their sexual orientation, but rather, because they did not help the plot. This rang a bell for me, and I remembered that when the Brown/Smith blowup occurred last month, their claims were denied by the editor in question, who took to The Swivet to say:

The book included five character points-of-view (POVs). Our second bit of editorial feedback was that at least two POVs, possibly three, needed to be cut. Did one of these POVs include the gay character in question? Yes. Is it because he was gay? No. It’s because we felt there were too many POVs that didn’t contribute to the actual plot.

It can be very hard to determine whether prejudice is at issue, when our decisions are overdetermined by so many different concerns and pressures. These days, we know a lot about implicit bias and unconscious prejudice (see this page at the Project Implicit site), and we know that so many of us are unaware of the way prejudice shapes our own beliefs and actions. I think it’s less hard to determine when a choice can contribute — in however small a way — to the silencing of a disadvantaged or oppressed social group. These choices certainly had that effect. But it’s easy to sit in the audience and wish that in some cases these authors had made different choices. They have families to support, other pressures of which I have no conception, and they can each point to ways in which their books contribute to society, and add to the voices to marginalized groups.

It was a fascinating, if at times disheartening, session. I came away very impressed by the thoughtfulness they each bring to their work. I’m hoping to read at least one book by each of them before the end of the year, and I’ve already purchased Dear Bully, for myself and my kids.

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Digital Narratives. And the Narrative of Romance Readers as Early E-Adopters.

Sep 29 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

I’ve just come home from a panel at my university on the topic of digital narratives. I thought I would share a bit of it.

The first speaker, a New Media professor, listed five areas of change: new forms of authorship, new relations between author and readers, new methods of publication, new forms of interaction, and new forms of communication and thinking.

She shared different kinds of digital narratives with the audience. Most of the links (as well as the rest of the talk) are collected here. One narrative, Ruben and Lullaby, is an app that is a sort of game where shaking or stroking the screen makes the trajectory of the relationship change. Here is a short video of someone playing it. Another one that looks really interesting is Trauma, a game in which a young woman wakes up in hospital having survived a car crash that killed both her parents. The player acts as a psychologist, and explores four dreams built from photographs mixed with strange, unreal seeming images.

Continue Reading »

11 responses so far

Some Blogs You Might Enjoy

Aug 19 2011 Published by under Genre musings, Uncategorized

I thought I’d give a shout out to a few blogs I enjoy reading. This is not an exhaustive list!


Limecello is a romance reader whose blog is a newer one (2011, I think), although she is a long time member of Romanceland, and has been blogging at various spots for almost ten years. Right now (through August 21, so hurry) she is running a comment drive for charity. Just make a comment, and contributors will give money to Save the Children, to benefit those suffering from the effects of drought in the Horn of Africa. Visit Limecello’s blog for reviews, author interviews, and giveaways.

Sunita is another long time member of Romanceland, who reviews at Dear Author. She’s an academic — a social scientist by trade — who mixes up blogging on issues of interest to romance and other readers with her takes on current events, like the U.K. Riots. Her specialties include debunking science reporting of recent “research”, especially as it bears on readers and reading, and historical accuracy — what it is and why it matters (or doesn’t).

LizMc, a Canadian English professor, is a frequent blog commenter and Tweeter, but she is new to blogging. Like Sunita, she often blogs a unique take on current Romanceland discussions, but she brings her own scholarly and other interests to posts including one on Uncomfortable Reading, and this one on Slow Reading.

Vassiliki and Infogenium are the team behind Shallow Reader. They don’t post much, but it’s like a little fun surprise every time they do. Most recently, we had Alphabet versus Genre, in which Vassiliki, a librarian, is “struggling to decide upon whether I like the genrification of libraries or if I would like fiction, to once again, be a roll call of authors on shelves.”


Heroes & Heartbreakers is hardly a “small” blog: sponsored by Macmillan, with paid administrators and writers, subscribing to H&H in your feed commits you to no fewer than 40 posts a week by dozens of bloggers and authors. I actually don’t subscribe, but I do regularly check in, because the H&H team gathered some of my favorite bloggers to write on a range of topics not usually covered by romance blogs, including not just other genres, like YA and SFF, but film and TV. I think H&H’s treatment of the romance genre as another form of popular culture is very fresh, and I especially enjoy their fun thematic posts, like Sometimes I Want to Slap Her: Anita Blake, Merit, Rachel Morgan, Kitty Norville, and Sookie Stackhouse , and If He’s Hot, He’s an Anti-Hero; If He’s Not, He’s a Villain. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have written a couple of posts for H&H since they launched 6 months ago. It was a great experience, and I would do more if I had the time.)

Lux Lucas is a very new (and infrequent) blogger who takes a literary approach to romance, in posts on Judith Ivory and Epilogues: the Cost of Sentiment. Like Liz and Sunita, this blogger likes to riff on others’ posts, extending the discussion in unusual ways.

 


From the About page:

Open Letters is dedicated to the proposition that no writing which reviews the arts should be boring, back-patting, soft-pedaling, or personally compromised. We’ve all had the experience of reading a review that sparkled—one that combined an informed, accessible examination of its quarry with gamesome, intelligent, and even funny commentary. These are the pieces we tell our friends about and then vigorously debate.

I really like Open Letters. It’s a monthly ‘zine, and also great for linkage and commentary. The writers succeed in avoiding the kind of pedantry that makes me run from most lit blogs, and they also review pretty widely across the spectrum. Recent posts like ‘What a Brain must Mine be!’: The Strange Historical Romances of William Harrison Ainsworth and On the Scent: Materialism, about perfumes, showcases the kind of quirky and diverse topics OLM covers.

What about you? Read any newer/smaller/off the beaten path blogs lately that deserve a mention?

8 responses so far

Hiatus

May 27 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

4 responses so far

Friday Five: 5 Funny April Fool’s Jokes

Apr 01 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

Happy April Fool’s Day!

1. Google Autocompleter. Ever wondered how Google autocompletes your search terms? Ask this guy.

2. SFWA Sues Individuals, Corporations, Nations And God For Copyright Violations: (via @Milerama)

April 1, 2011

At a press conference held today in New York City, helmed by John Scalzi, President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, his Vice-president Mary Robinette Kowal, and a brace of lawyers from the firm Schachner Harness Harshaw & Ming the Merciless, it was announced that SFWA has launched several dozen simultaneous lawsuits aimed at protecting the intellectual properties of its authors, past and present. The defendants include lone citizens, large companies, several sovereign governments, and the Supreme Deity His/Her/Itself.

3. The TBR Publishing, by Jane Litte and Sarah Wendell. I especially love this Courtney Milan offering:

4. From Crooked Timber, a Public Safety Alert:

Washington, DC – The National Governors Association has announced a voluntary product safety recall of sixteen governors, due to a structural design problem that could pose an immediate safety risk to consumers.

“We didn’t know, when we made these governors available to the public, how truly dangerous they were,” said an NGA representative who requested anonymity because he feared swift and remorseless retaliation from one of the defective governors. “In most cases, they seemed like fully functioning human beings. But now it appears that many of them avoided routine safety checks or managed to buy off safety regulators.”

5. Alas, I am too late to link to a local Maine joke. It was the post “LePage Plan Would Sell Off Maine State Parks” about Governor LePage’s supposed plan to sell Baxter State park and other beloved Maine natural areas. Now the page at the Maine Environmental Policy Institute just says “Some people can’t take a joke.”

6. But since that one is gone, here’s one more: Huffington Post erects Paywall for NYT Employees:

In our most popular plan, Times employees can view the first 6 letters of each word at no charge (including slideshows of adorable kittens). After 6 letters, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber.

7. And one more… Relationshifffft Automated Person Purge. From Kodak, “Instantly remove that certain someone from all your photos and videos” (Via David Pogue, who compiled a great list here)

Happy Day!

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