tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post270357946443370808..comments2024-03-27T23:59:01.850-07:00Comments on Writing About Writing (And Occasionally Some Writing): No Apologies! A Defense of Why Speculative Fiction Needs No Defense (Part 1) Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-68581379949551778472014-09-03T12:50:35.865-07:002014-09-03T12:50:35.865-07:00It probably varies some by institution; a departme...It probably varies some by institution; a department with grand old professors who are unrelentingly disapproving of all that they do not consider Real Literature is going to influence both the students and even the less senior faculty. But my survey covered three universities with some real geographical spread (West coast USA, Southern USA and UK), plus reading some academic articles on the subject (ok, over a decade ago, so I might be a little out of date, but trends like this in academia tend to shift only slowly).Ericanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-86606493576885651142014-09-02T14:56:40.009-07:002014-09-02T14:56:40.009-07:00Neat. I had heard some of these ideas, but not the...Neat. I had heard some of these ideas, but not the extent of them. And when I was doing my Bradbury homework, I read somewhere that his prose essentially got him Klingon back turned by "Real Literature" for now and always. Nice to see the next generation said "Whatevs" and picked him up anyway, even if the rest of this hierarchy is unfortunate.Chris Brecheenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-26451019078369238522014-09-02T14:47:44.638-07:002014-09-02T14:47:44.638-07:00One interesting point (from someone who’s seen ins...One interesting point (from someone who’s seen inside the Ivory Tower. Yes, I'm one of those English Literature MAs!) is that even within the larger category of Spec Fic, there are tiers of respectability from the view of Literature (Big-L literature, with all the judgments and connotations that implies). <br />Utopian/Distopian is, I think, easily at the top. And therefore it is actually not unsurprising to see at least one out of the list of Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, 1984 etc. included in a straight up "Literature" class, despite being "genre". If it got its own class or conference panel, I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see popular modern additions like Hunger Games included and discussed with a serious examination of tropes, structure, etc. <br />Next comes sci fi. Though rarely included in a regular "Literature" curriculum, many universities will offer the occasional Science Fiction class, which will probably focus on "classic" sci fi, but may actually reach the present. I myself taught a writing class focused on Sci Fi for our reading and that didn't raise any eyebrows at all (though it got groans from the students; I had zero sci fi fans. Zero!). And I will admit, it is far easier to defend sci fi as “Literature” than some sub-genres, whatever my own preferences might be—and I could write a whole blog post of my own on why.<br />Horror also now has enough age to get some respect: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the like have some respect as "Literature". It's just unfortunate that your average Literary conference is going to be more likely to discuss Twilight (for it's “obvious cultural impact”) than hardly anything else of the last couple decades. (Actually, English conferences will and do discuss Buffy despite being TV, not really a written work (they’ll be discussing the show, not the book tie-ins, I guarantee it) again because of the “cultural impact” factor.) I did hear two separate talks discussing non-linear hyperfiction (as symbolic of our fractured post-modern world and so on) and both examples focused on works of horror (I will attest that one was very post-modern and the other very very creepy, having read them after the talks). I knew someone who did his PhD on werewolf literature (in medieval literature).<br />Fantasy, though also old, comes last, alongside any newer or smaller subgenres. Now, I will say that I also knew someone who did his PhD on elves (in medieval literature). He even gave a talk when the LotR movies first came out about Tolkien’s use of Norse mythology (for undergrads; it was nothing groundbreaking, but still, the talk was given in a university context, so that is something). But for a variety of murky inexplicable reasons, it is even harder to try to convince people of the validity of fantasy as Serious Literature than hardly any other subgenre within Spec Fic. It’s probably a touch above genres like Romance, but only just.<br />To be clear, I agree with you. I was often on the defensive. I railed against it. I had paper ideas involving sci fi books shot down because they were “not significant” though with the implication that if I tried again with one she’d actually heard of or could otherwise prove the cultural significance of, I might get a different answer. Kate Elliott’s work was just not worth analysis apparently, interesting use of Renaissance drama in a sci fi epic or no. Interestingly, if I’d found two other sci fi authors doing the same sort of thing, I might have been able to sell it as a “trend” worthy of analysis.<br />As a last point, I know there are also books with magic or spaceships or vampires that manage to skip over being “genre” writing and go straight into being “literature.” I haven’t sufficiently analyzed what goes into this process, but I can name off-hand the more speculative/magical works of Salman Rushdie as an example. (Not just Literature, but Respected Literature).<br />Ericanoreply@blogger.com