Belief gives meaning, but it’s still just belief.
Posted in Fantasy Literature on December 26th, 2009 by Admin
Art by Alex Grey
Questions and answers are as meaningless as the people who ask and answer them. People search for the meaning of existence and their contribution to it because they have nothing else to do. We are not fighting for our lives everyday, we are not focused on survival 24/7 like most other creatures. We have heating, blankets, food stores, even the true environmentalist like hobos can survive with ease if they plan properly. The thing is we’re bored, so we make up stuff like meaning and quality and fate and destiny and purpose, all of which is personal and relative. one person’s idea of destiny can be totally different than someone elses and so on. but I mean when it comes down to it all, where do you think you came from, some higher human like being? How about apes? How about dirt? Everything you eat comes from dirt and water. In fact, dirt helps sustain all life on earth… Do you?
So perhaps 42 is just a completely random number that some weird guy happened to think of while contemplating what the worst possible response to the meaning of everything could be and perhaps by choosing a number that made no sense at all it would in turn be the best possible answer, for it holds no real meaning what so ever, just like all of us.
Glitter: The Unity College Fantasy Literature & Philosophy Blog
Picture by: Unknown
Static or Dynamic?
Posted in Pop Literature on December 18th, 2009 by AdminTHE HARDEST THING
The hardest thing for people to accept is that we don’t live in a static world. We want things to stay as they are—but that’s not the nature of life! One advantage I have from having lived many years in Detroit is having the truth of change pounded into me as I watched the destruction of my world. What were we told as the city declined, jobs vanished, our world collapsed? “Change or die!”
In every aspect of life we see death and renewal. We see continual change. Those who’ve sought to maintain a static economy, for instance, have been destroyed with that economy. As historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote, by 1980 the Soviet Union had constructed the best late-19th century economy on the planet.
One has to understand that the world consists of constant upheaval.
Today people are thrown by “climate change.” There always is climate change. There’s always been.
ART
Art in particular—the leading edge of culture—has through history progressed by creative destruction. Destroy the old to create the new. Those who fail to recognize this are themselves destroyed. Witness classical music. Symphonies are in trouble across the country. In every way, from financing to styles to instrumentation, they’re unable to compete. Their model no longer works. Protecting that model from competition has made things worse. True innovation—revolutionary upheaval—hasn’t occurred. It hasn’t been allowed to occur. Or, it occurred—outside the system’s walls.
The same situation applies to literature.
Beginning with Frankenstein
Posted in Sci-Fi Literature on December 17th, 2009 by Admin
Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is a text that is frequently used to start a discussion of speculative fiction. It is often pointed to as the first “science fiction” novel, a category that is invented some hundred years after it is published. The name “Frankenstein” is still associated with the genre of horror and every Halloween thousands of children quite readily attempt to personify and embody the monster of Mary Shelley’s imagination. What better place to start our own perambulation through speculative fiction, so I would like to request that you read as much of the novel as you can before we meet for the first time on Thursday morning.Texts for various editions of Frankenstein are easily downloaded from the internet as it is public domain. Project Gutenberg is a good place to obtain a free download copy. There are also many inexpensive paperbacks available. The image reproduced here is The Monster Gazes Into a Pool from Lynd Ward’s illustrations for Frankenstein .
Assignment: Read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein before the first class on Thursday.
During the semester I will expect you to read at least 7 novels, this can count as one of them. To see further what is required in this course and what will undertake please click on the link below to the course syllabus. There is also a link on this page to a printable pdf of the Syllabus which includes the readings. The general requirement for the class is that you read each week and write about what you have read.
Click on the course links to the right of this post to go to the online course syllabus.
Please bring your notebook computers to class; they will be used for in-class reading and writing. Your writings will be required to be posted on your own class blog which I will link to this page. You should set up a blog for this class on Blogger or similar blogging network and send me the url for your blog as soon as possible. You may wish to write about Frankenstein before coming to the first class but you may wait to do so until you understand more about the course. I look forward to seeing you on Thursday when I can answer in detail any questions you have about the course or the individual assignments. Most students who take this course enjoy the readings and find they can manage the course load within the demands of their schedule. Don’t freak out, its an unecessary expenditure of energy. Individualized reading programs for the class are readily constructed, if you have issues that effect your ability to read or write please talk to me as soon as possible. See you on Thursday.
Dr. Steiling
Will President Obama Try to Save Shiva Nazar Ahari?
Posted in Pop Literature on December 15th, 2009 by Admin
Iranian authorities first arrested Shiva Nazar Ahari in 2001, when she was seventeen. Her ‘crime’ was attending a candlelight vigil in Tehran that commemorated the victims of 9/11. Since then, she’s taught Iranian homeless children and Afghan refugees’ children. In 2006, after she became the spokeswoman for the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR), Ahari was kicked out of university, whereupon her troubles really began.
She was re-arrested in June 2009 and sent to Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, where she spent 33 days in solitary confinement. The cells are so small that a short person can’t even stretch her arms or legs. One informed observer has described them to me as ‘human coffins.’ Despite being verbally threatened by Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran’s prosecutor general, who told her she’d be murdered if she didn’t stop working on human rights campaigns in Iran, Ahari persevered. She was released in September 2009 on 0,000 bail and promptly resumed her defense of political prisoners. A month later, she paid a visit to the gravesite of Sohrab Arabi, a nineteen year-old student who’d been arrested in June 2009 for protesting Iran’s sham presidential “election” and was subsequently shot in the chest while in state custody.
In December of last year, Ahari was arrested yet again, along with two other activists, while en route to the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a man considered to be the clerical inspiration behind much of the Green Revolution. Ahari went on hunger strike for two days, then fell ill and was taken to Evin’s prison hospital.
According to the Revolutionary Court, which is due to try her case on September 4, she stands accused of “anti-regime propaganda by working with the CHRR website” and “acts contrary to national security through participation in gatherings on November 4, 2009 and December 7, 2009.” These are the dates, respectively, of the anniversary of the U.S. embassy seizure, which is a sanctified Iranian holiday but last year became a ferment of democratic protest, and the Student Day demonstrations, which commemorate the murder of three Iranians students killed in 1953 by the Pahlavi government. Ahari maintains she was at home on both days.
Snarksmith: new york. gossip. art. politics. pop culture. literature. etc.
Free Molly Norris
Posted in Pop Literature on December 14th, 2009 by AdminThis is a sad story:
What happened to free speech?
Volume 1.1 of the Journal of Popular Romance Studies is Here
Posted in Romance Literature on December 12th, 2009 by Admin
Well, not exactly here, but over here. It’s so hot off the virtual press that I haven’t had a chance to read it all yet, but it does contain one paper with which I’m extremely well acquainted, since I co-wrote it: “There Are Six Bodies in This Relationship: An Anthropological Approach to the Romance Genre” by Laura Vivanco and Kyra Kramer“. In it we discuss, among other things, Glittery HooHas, Mighty Wangs and Prisms.
The Journal has been designed to be somewhat interactive, as Eric Selinger mentions in his Editor’s Note:
the Journal of Popular Romance Studies aims not simply to foster the study of romantic love in global popular media, but also to build a community that includes academics, independent scholars, industry professionals, and serious general readers. To that end, we have made JPRS a free, open-access journal, and we allow moderated comments on all of our articles. We look forward to the discussion that each may prompt, and to the new scholarship that will grow out of these exchanges.
I hope you’ll enjoy reading, and perhaps commenting on, issue 1.1 of JPRS!
Laurie Kahn’s Popular Romance Project
Posted in Romance Literature on December 7th, 2009 by AdminSarah Frantz mentioned in March that “Laurie Kahn‘s Popular Romance Project (on which Eric and I have worked) [...] received 00″ from the Romance Writers of America and she added that
Pending funding, it’ll start as a website with interactive portions led by scholars on particular aspects of popular romance (in fiction, film, pop culture, etc.), and then culminate in the film, a traveling exhibit/program with the American Library Association, and a one day symposium at the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.
The NEH has now announced that it’s awarding ,000 to the Popular Romance Project:
Filmmakers Collaborative, Inc. Outright: ,000
[America's Media Makers Development]
Project Director: Laurie Kahn
Project Title: Exploring the Romance Novel from Multiple Perspectives Across Time and Culture
Project Description: Final planning and scripting for a film, a symposium, and reading and discussion programs on how romance literature reflects universal themes of courtship, love, and intimacy.
At the moment a few test pages are all of the Project that’s available online but they give an indication of the kinds of topics that may be included on the website once it’s completed.
