A little birdie told me that the key to avoiding a blogging slump is to “lower my standards”. Hence this post.
1. My friend Elizabeth and I are giving talk on campus in April. She’s a faculty member in the English department who specializes in Minerva Press and the sensation novels of the 18th century. She plans to discuss The Mysterious Warning, by Eliza Parsons, which I am now reading.
Some of you might know this book through your reading of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. The following is from from Wikipedia:
The Northanger Horrid Novels are seven early works of Gothic fiction recommended by Isabella Thorpe to Catherine Morland in Jane Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey (1818):
“Dear creature! how much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read The Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.”
“Have you, indeed! How glad I am! — What are they all?”
“I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocket-book. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time.”
“Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?”
“Yes, quite sure; for a particular friend of mine, a Miss Andrews, a sweet girl, one of the sweetest creatures in the world, has read every one of them.”
Elizabeth and I are going to discuss critiques of Minerva Press novels, and compare them to critiques of today’s romance novels. Both types of novels, despite being separated by two centuries, share many features: female authors and readership, mass market publication, female protagonists, somewhat scandalous plots and characters, happy endings, not taken seriously as literature, etc. And the critiques also share similarities: conventional, formulaic, unimaginative, bad for women, etc.
Elizabeth is going to focus on Mary Wollstonecraft’s feminist critique of Minerva Press books, and she is going to argue, using the Parsons, that in fact the books are more complex and more subversive than Wollstonecraft gave them credit for. I’m going to do the same.
I’d like to focus on one specific book as well, and I think it would be neat to find a romance published in the past 20 years which bears some similarities to The Mysterious Warning. Elizabeth will read whichever book I choose. If you have any suggestions, feel free to make them here.
2. I decided to contribute an essay to a forthcoming book, The Hunger Games and Philosophy. Here’s the title and abstract. Of course, the finished paper will likely look a bit different:
“She has no idea, the effect she can have”: The Gender of Success in the Hunger Games
In contrast to other wildly popular young adult SFF series, such as The Twilight Saga, The Hunger Games features a triumphant female protagonist who succeeds in virtue of her intelligence, strength, and loyalty. Katniss rejects many feminine norms: she is not forgiving, nice, or humble, she refuses to cry, she is untrusting, “sullen and hostile”. She enjoys hunting, her appearance is androgynous, and she has no desire to marry or have children.
Yet, undeniably, Katniss’s gender becomes significant to her chances of success when her fellow competitor from District 12, Peeta, declares his love for her. Regardless of her gender neutral, or even masculine, self-image and lifestyle up to that point, Katniss is positioned as a “feminine lover” for the Games. As she prepares to win the favor of the audience, she adopts traditionally feminine mannerisms, such as giggling, “sitting like a lady”, twirling in a pretty dress, and, later, during the Games, only allowing herself to show emotions appropriate to a young woman in love.
The proposed paper will explore the ways The Hunger Games both relies upon and subverts traditional notions of gender, with a focus on Katniss, as a means to explore the philosophical question of what gender is. Attention will also be paid to Peeta, and how his positioning as masculine, as “active lover”, is challenged by his status as passive recipient of Katniss’s ministrations and aid. The essay will help illuminate some contemporary issues in gender theory, including the social construction of gender, as well as challenges to the very concept of gender posed by some postmodern theorists such as Judith Butler.
3. I registered for RWA in New York City this summer, and I am so excited I can hardly stand it. I actually have family all over the city and on the Island, but the chance to room again with Carolyn Crane was too tempting to forgo. We already have all kind of exciting plans that include matching shoes, an in room fridge, and granola bars, but I can’t say any more about them right now. One of the most pathetic things I have been doing lately is searching for the hashtag #RWA11 on Twitter just to see who else is going and what they are planning to do. I’m so excited to meet several online friends I feel like I have known forever, and to see some of the folks I met at Romcon again.
4. Just prior to RWA is IASPR, also in NYC. I was privileged to read through the abstracts and am so excited for the presentation of some really diverse and fascinating work in popular romance studies. Thinking about IASPR will have to get me though the terrible withdrawal fits I will have when everybody is in Texas in April at the PCA/ACA.
5. I’ve been reading but not reviewing lately. I really liked What the Librarian Did by Karina Bliss, although I am not sure I loved it as much as so many other did. One book I absolutely loved, and wish I had time to review, was Collision Course by K.A. Mitchell. Another book I loved but cannot seem to write a review of was Ziska, by Marie Corelli. Obviously, I also read and really enjoyed The Hunger Games.
6. This has been a cold snowy winter in Maine, and I am so ready for it to be over. Unfortunately, winter sticks with us through at least March. We are heading to Disney World in TWENTY NINE DAYS, not that I am counting. As a result, I am back on the Disney forums, getting into debates about whether the installation of lap bars on Splash Mountain ruins the ride, and whether one should jog left or right to beat the rope drop crowds to Toy Story Mania in Disney Studios. Naturally, I have lunch and dinner reservations for every meal already and have had for weeks. And a spreadsheet.
7. I’ve been working out very enthusiastically, and am consequently suffering terribly from illiotibial band syndrome. I seem to spend half my time lying on the floor rolling on a foam thing. Ugh.
8. I have a new Hospice friend, a retired Melville scholar. He is awesome.
9. I’ve been pretty busy with a variety of things. I am teaching the senior seminar on narrative medicine, and I am so thrilled with the students. I think I will make this a regular part of my teaching rotation. I’ve given lots of talks and had lots of ethics calls at the hospital. I gave a talk to the OR recently and I used an Alternative Pain Chart by Hyperbole and a Half. It went over very well.
10. I changed the pic in my About page. I took the new one yesterday in my office. I was motivated to do so after reading the dead on What People Are Trying to Communicate With Their Profile Pics. I am not sure what I am trying to communicate now.
11. We are going to a 25 course Chinese New Year party Sunday night. You can tell our friends are really into football. A few people on Twitter asked me to take pics, so look for those.
12. I really am going to write that Lover Awakened post, now called “10 Things I Noticed on a Reread of Lover Awakened”. Maybe even later today.
Time to make the breakfasts…
Happy Friday!
