Yesterday, in my current sf course, we discussed and attempted to define what we mean when we talk about “science fiction.” We read several introductions to the topic, considered a couple of illustrative texts, and decided that any definition of science fiction must be locally situated: i.e., there is unlikely anything we can call “SF” [...]
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Bester’s “Fondly Fahrenheit”
Man, I’m beautifully hot. I can’t think of a more appropriate story to read on a scorching summer day than Alfred Bester’s “Fondly Fahrenheit.”
The Strangeness of Homer’s Iliad
Can Achilles really be the first great hero of our literature? He seems a fool, an infantile narcissist. The first word of Western literature is menin — in old Greek, “rage” or “wrath.” Homer means Achilles’ rage, the kind of rage that has an element of divine fury in it and that destroys armies and [...]
CCCC 2005
I’m off to San Francisco tomorrow for the annual CCCC conference. I’ve never been to California, but I have been to CCCC several times; I’m looking forward to both. I’ll try to report from the conference, depending on the network connections available. My paper is on Friday afternoon with Merry and Phil. I’m also supposed [...]
On Kafka’s Metamorphosis
Not quite a tale of the supernatural, nor a unified allegory, nor a tale of the quotidian, nor a journey through the psychology of the characters, The Metamorphosis, like most of Kafka’s other writings, cannot be interpreted in a new critical manner. We must be comfortable with our discomfort, with our inability to neatly tie this piece up in one pretty bow.
James Baldwin’s "Sonny’s Blues"
The narrator of James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” like many of us, needs to learn how to listen. How many of us truly listen? Or do we just wait for someone we might be talking to to shut the hell up so we can continue our verbal assault without the slightest consideration as to what she [...]
Virginia Woolf and "The Hours"
‘Cause we are born innocent believe me, Adia, we are still innocent it’s easy, we all falter does it matter? –Sarah McLachlan from “Adia” I guess the aspects of Michael Cunningham’s The Hours are similar to those I love about Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: its rhizommatic structure, its stream of consciousness, its marveling in the everyday, [...]