You should probably expect this from me every once in a while — that is, in this post I am going to trace some of the Gothic tropes in Shin Mazinger Z. The Gothic is sort-of my thing — or it’s becoming so. Seriously, though, it all makes sense. Trust me.
Actually, it’s the seventh, but I figure now’s as good a time as any to stop numbering them and just admit they’re a (semi-)regular feature. Woo!
Anyhow, this time I’m doing an essay called “Coming to Terms” by Gary K. Wolfe. It’s short, so hopefully I can get this entry done before the scourging weather wipes my house out of the valley in which it nestles.
If you’re following at home, you’ll already know that I started Aria: the Animation. And I just finished it. I know there’s a bunch more of it, but I dunno when I’ll finish it — if I learned one thing (and I’d like to think I learned several, but still), it’s that I can’t really shotgun Aria. You ever eat so much candy that, while still hungry, the thought of sugar makes you ill? It doesn’t mean the candy is any worse, you just really need a steak. That’s sorta what happened to me, though luckily each day found me ready for more. Sleeping off the sugar crash works, it turns out. Anyway, this post might ramble all around a bunch of different topics, but if you’re okay with that, let’s get started.
So with my break in full swing, tons of work to do, and crappy weather all around, I decided to finally start Aria. I thought I would include my thoughts on it here, at least until I have enough thoughts for a proper post on the subject (re: I’m writing a paper and full-length SF.c posts are kinda rough right now).
I’ve recently been badgering nearly everyone I know with this quandary I’ve landed myself in: how does science fiction work, and what does that mean for my study of anime? (go all the way to the end, it has a happy conclusion)
First, let me attempt to reconstruct a twitter conversation for you.
Cuchlann The writer of a work may be dead, but as the work implies a reader, so, too, must it imply an author.
lelangir@cuchlann not always. what about “the word”? street anecdotes ‘n such.
lelangir@cuchlann well then I guess it doesn’t count as “a work” in the institutionalized sense.
Cuchlann @lelangir no, it still implies an author. It had to come from somewhere.
lelangir@cuchlann can’t you just fabricate something? “he said that”, where “he” isn’t really anybody. who’s the author there?
Cuchlann @lelangir what is said still implies an author different from another. Also, it’s theoretically better: it’s either that or a null.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to literary studies lately. I finished my MFA thesis (and thus, if no surprises are waiting for me in the wings, I am finished and have an MFA); with the thesis out of the way, I was free to start worrying about my dissertation years before anyone would expect me to. So I’m reading for it now. Woo.
Anyway. The reading, the conversations, the free time, they’ve all come together to lead me to a new perspective on this thing we do. The preceding conversation is simply an outgrowth of that. I was once described by Daniel as someone who gets the “dead author thing,” and I believe I still do. I just have a new perspective on it, and some other things.
Maka says, Read a book! Or she'll take your soul.
It’s been quite a while since I posted anything worthwhile. I suppose it’s possible that will continue after today, but whatever. This is a little different from most of the AiC entries, as I’m going to post a piece I wrote for my SF literature class. It is much in the vein of the AiC posts, sort-of; that is, when he gave us grad. students the assignment (we’re crashing an undergrad. course), he said it was a completely arbitrary assignment that would never be published anywhere. We’re meant simply to respond to two critical essays he gave us. I riffed on them in the way I will, sometimes, and have no idea if it’s what he wants to see. I’m turning it in tomorrow, so we’ll see. But I just wrote the last paragraph and I’d talked to Pontifus about posting it when it was finished. It is. So, uh, woo. The essays are “On the Origins of Genre” by Paul Kincaid and “Science Fiction and Literature — or, the Conscience of the King” by Samuel Delany. (Kincaid’s most recent book is up for a non-fiction Hugo this year, by the way.)
As you might have guessed, it is the time of year that many of us are bogged down by schoolwork, so while the old SF.c is not exactly dead, it is quieter than we would like to see it. If you cast your mind back, even just a little, you’ll also find this means it’s time for strange fluff.
As happens sometimes your genial host Pontifus and I were chatting just a while ago. Here’s what happened.
We’re nearing the last leg of Northrop Frye’s first essay in Anatomy of Criticism; this time we’re tackling the section called “Thematic Modes.”
You knew she'd show up eventually.
After over two months away — two months of thesis writing and so on — my Adventures in Criticism return. If you recall from last time, we tackled Frye’s first essay, the “Theory of Modes.” Or rather, one third of it. I’m going through the second third now.