Feminist SF Wiki - User contributions [en]

Ellen Klages

2006-06-14T06:15:44Z

68.175.110.44:

==Bibliography==

* See [[SpaceBabe]], [[Tiptree Auction]]

David Levine

2006-06-14T06:15:10Z

68.175.110.44:

[[Ellen Klages|Ellen]] impersonator.

Justine Larbalestier

2006-06-14T06:05:27Z

68.175.110.44:

==Bibliography==

==External Links==

* http://www.justinelarbalestier.com/Musings/index.htm

Justine Larbalestier

2006-06-14T06:02:53Z

68.175.110.44:

==External Links==

* http://www.justinelarbalestier.com/Musings/index.htm

Cheryl Morgan

2006-06-14T06:01:23Z

68.175.110.44:

==External Links==

* [http://www.emcit.com/ Emerald City]

Lori A. Selke

2006-06-14T06:00:44Z

68.175.110.44: added link

==External Links==

* http://pantryslut.livejournal.com/

Gyn/Ecology

2006-06-14T05:54:43Z

68.175.110.44:

[[category:1978 Publications]]

Mary Daly

2006-06-14T05:54:08Z

68.175.110.44: first page

Author of ''[[Gyn/Ecology]]: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism''.

Old skool feminism. Very cool.

[[category:1928 Births|Daly, Mary]]

Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity? (WisCon 30 Panel)

2006-06-14T03:37:25Z

68.175.110.44: /* Panelists */

==Panelists==

[[Karen Joy Fowler]] (moderator), [[Margaret McBride]], [[Lori A. Selke]], [[Joan Haran]], [[Cheryl Morgan]]

==Transcript Notes==

{{FillerNeeded}}

mod KJF: what brought you to sf & feminism

MM: subscription to science fiction book club as an adult.

LS: learned both sf & feminism at mother's knee; getting phd in chemical engineering while she was growing up. collision came when i read "when it changed" ... i was 18, 19, 20; an adult but not by much. that was the first joanna russ i ever read

JH: i also read sf & fantasy and all kinds of fantastic literatures as a child but once i went to college a sense of shame about that crept ... i continued to read fantasy. that makes no sense to me now. in early 90s i did a master's in gender studies. they gave us this very extensive reading list. this was my first encounter with feminism, was doing a master's in gender studies. one of the books was shulamith firestone's dialectic of sex. her thesis about taking reproduction outside the body seemed to me at that point incredibly attractive. the other thing she said was there was no utopian literature for women and i found that hard to believe. i thought that A) she was writing science fiction and B) there was other science fiction.

piercy & firestone, piercy & donna haraway

CM: introduction.

KJF: Watching [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award|Tiptree Award]] process several years & something has repeated itself several times. fresh jury begins discussing the kind of book they want, settles on the kind of book, the kind of experience they want. generally turns out they want to be reading [[The Left Hand of Darkness]] and want to be 19 years old. that's what they're trying to create. many many months and books later they begin to scale down their expectations and look for changes that are more subtle & have a less profound change in their thinking. i've seen this so many times that i've wondered -- at our age, and with our reading histories, is it in fact possible to have that experience again?

KJF: when was the last time a book really profoundly rocked you? how long ago was that? and what sorts of impacts do you find when you read now?

JH: sometimes reading a book doesn't have its impact on the first thing. i did work on starhawk. finally struck me that there was a male POV ... 1992, 93. the other text was ShadowMan - thinking about gender & sexuality, the way that melissa scott wrote about that, thrtu, embodying relationships made sense to me. that queer theory for example you can slip off the page when you read about something ... the bodily experience of those characters has done as well as it is in shadowman. that helped me to imagine myself and to imagine other others in a way that makes a lot more sense. so again roughly the same time. and there have been texts that approach that since then but i think that for me but part of it is having the time to go over and over a text, because i read fast, i'm plot-driven to start with, i have to know how the story turned out, and then i go back and read parts again that occur to me; i can't do that the first time b/c i read to fast. texts need to bear second, third, fourth, fifth readings to get rushes from them, to do theory-building. IMHO reading superficially one reading doesn't do that for me.

KJF: you said you came to these texts having nbeen taught to read for gender issues - would you say you've been trained to do that or is it a more natural way for you to approach a text.

JH: no it's efinitely training. my first degree was enligh shitory and the teaching was looking at a text in that context, and it was all class, come the revolution all will be solved, and gender was not an issue. like that point of my life like many women of a certain privilege i hadn't come across gender as a disadvantage, but then once i went into the workplace i realized oooohhh - things are different for girl. something about my social reality made it possible for me to realize reading differently - training - the other thing, in terms of theory building, it's not just about me reading the text, but about talking to other people about text, so it's not just about the text but about texts that can create conversations, and talking to other people who read differently, illuminates other stuff for me that i missed b/c of my own reading blinkers.

CM: one of the things that first struck me when i read the title is that sure reading is a feminist theory building activity but coming to wiscon is a really serious feminist theory building activity. in terms of recent books & things it's getting hard, this comes back to a panel we had yesterday: is feminist sf so five years ago. and to a certain extent we decided it was b/c things have changed. back when i was a teenager it was great to imagine a world with female pilots and presidents and fighter pilots and now all those things have happened. we haven't won the war but we're now fighting in the trenches not doing easy things like advancing across the land. but the type of book people can write now is different than the type of book people could write back in the 60s. plus when you're 19 it's easier to impress you with the big ideas & when you get older you get more sophisticated & ask more from a book. most of the books that have blown me away over past few years are literary style rather than content. probably river of gods by ian mcdonald b/c he introduces in that a character who has had a sex-change operation to become neuter; someone who elected to get out of the gender game altogether; and if you look at the book, it's all based on what actual transsexuals go thru, but rather than what someone goes thru mtf or ftm it's what somebody would go thru to have no gender at all.

LS: took a course in feminist theory in college taught by someone who was really really rigorous and i don't think then i've had that reaction to a story; b/c i'm hyper-critical, it's really hard to blow me away with a story; which is why i think we do it with a narrative to begin with rather than writing shulamith firestone - that's science fiction. narrative is to slip the ideas in and make you think wow and have it come up later but that doesn't work any more. John Kessel / Stories for Men. i read it as a book before it won the tiptree. for me it really did make me - it was the first sophisticated treatment of what it would be like for boys; the other side of a feminist utopia. it wasn't oh this would be horrible; it was hmm there are some sophisticated subtle effects. things i look for now yeah the big idea is great but what are some of the unintended consequences. and i can still be brought up short by that kind of book or story.

KJF: but less of a wow and more of a hmm.

LS: yeah but that's okay, i'm really suspicious of a wow; i'm really suspicious of things that are supposed to blow my mind or things that really did blow my mind b/c i tend to think i' being propagandized rather than really changing my thinking b/c i'm not being critical

MM: i teach freshmen in college; i'm still involved w/ the 19-year-olds. i'm teaching a class this time of juniors & seniors of all tiptree winners & hosrtlisted so getting a lot of that this time. but for my own personal reading it is a little more of the well that's an interesting question, hmm, where is that going to go and what would that do. so even if it's fairly subtle -- troll did some interesting things. i was on that jury. and troll did some interesting things for me as did sea of trolls by nancy farmer. which is a YA and i hadn't read a YA which was doing -- it was very subtle yet still some interesting things. ... TROLL what made it work for me - a gay man in finland who finds a troll and for various reasons falls in lust ? with the troll. how much is your sexuality affected by what you don't want to do, how much of it is a dark thing going on, and what really made troll work for me is the philippino mail order bride, and mail order brides, even tho most of us would totally cringe, they're an accepted part of our society, and how do we juxtapose that with the fact that everyone is so concerned that he fell in lvoe with a troll. ... as long as it's doing the theordore sturgeon thing, at least making me ask some questions, i'm willing ...

KJF: joan talked about a kind of text that leaves room for the reader, a participatory sort of reading as opposed to a text that walks you thru it; i want to discuss & add to it something that lori just said -- i wonder if part of being a feminist sf reader is a kind of innately confrontational reading, a sort of -- instead of slipping right into a book and being willing to go wherever the writer takes you, is part of the way we read is a kind of prove it, show me, let me think about it first sort of reading? speak at will.

CM: i picked up on it when lori mentioend it as well and was wondering whether being less trusting of gosh wow was actually an artifact of changes in society as much of changes in us becoming more suspicious and things. back when i was a teenager there was only one source of news in the UK; the BBC; so actually having science fiction novels that said things that the BBC would never say was interesting & important. now these days we have a lot of media, different versions of the news; possibly that's making us more suspicious in our reading & less willing to accept gosh wow.

KJF: will point out now feminist news channel

JH: one of the things i was thinking about when i mentioned that point was i think for me some of it is about narrative strategies in terms of leaving a space. it's not necessarily that you are engaged in a one-to-one conversation with the narrator. i personally love narratives with multiple POVs where in the interstices the gaps and the kind of disruptions b/w different narrative POV characters where you can see the stuff that doesn't fit - example - just b/c i've been working with it, gwyneth jones' LIFE, the narrative works backwards & forwards b/w these two different women; one a passive-aggressive scientist and this sort of camille paglia type cypher. jones is using them to look at different aspects of feminism, so sometimes they work as real characters, and sometimes they are much more advancing a politics. but b/c she is giving you those different perspectives, and ... she's giving you as the reader multiple points of identification and also the opportunity to have either one and follow the narrative one way or the opportunity to move b/w those points of view & have a much more complicated way first time thru which i'm generally too stupid to do

CM: everyone's too stupid to read gwyneth's books

JH: no this is why i have to read books over again b/c i do suspend my disbelief and i do get fully embodied, embedded in one of the characters, and it needs me to read it again to get those kinds of differences. in starhawk novel i was talking about there are two main female POV characters and those were the only ones i could read the first several times i read the book; it was when i finally read it several times and heard the voice of that other character. sorry i'm not just kind of rambling.

KJF: life is a really copmlicated and interesting book and my first time thru it i had - there's a rape and another great injustice of another sort as well and i was so focused on expecting that to be resolved in some way, the perpetrator to be exposed, the woman to come to some sort of action, and just waited for that - so to me one of the interesting things about it was to think, okay, that's not a necessary part of the plotline any more. it seemed to me - i'm not saying this very clearly - it seemed to me in the end much more real & interesting that it didn't resolve in the ways i longed for it and waited for it too and left me with much more to think about b/c it didn't

MM: when i was thinking ... of what i did woith my students, that's what happens when they move from fiction to theory when they start to ask themselves what does this has to do with my life? where do i see the fiction playing out in the things that have to do with me. again i'm working with fairly young people who often have read no theory so how do we move from the fiction to theory and i gess what i'm thinking is that the two work together - theory gives you language & a way to approach a particular issue and the fiction can also give you language & metaphor and a way to approach a particular issue.

KJF: this raises something i've been thinking about in terms of this panel & my life. when i had that early experiecne that your students are still enjoying, the book swere very useful to me in terms of my own life. it's been hard. the kind of sexuality issues in particular about an aging woman which are for obvious reasons the kinds of things i'm interested in now it's very hard to find books about those kinds of things to find what i'm experiencing now. so along the same lines as when was the last time a book changed something for you i've also added when was a book really useful to me. when i was first married and reading all that feminist science fiction it was would change me so completely that i was utterly unfit to live in the real world, my husband would tiptoe around and say let me know when you've finished that book, and there would be a very painful process of readjusting. but maybe i just don't let it happen any more, maybe it was too painful.

LS: some people use books for escapist purposes. finding something that speaks your language and lets you go somewhere else is a good thing. i don't get that experience reading but i'm also a writer and i do get it writing and that's why i do it.

MM: these were painful. i'm thinking of [[Kate Wilhelm]]'s [[The Funeral]] - one of [[Harlan Ellison|Ellison]]'s anthologies, [[Dangerous Visions]], and it was just PAINFUL to read b/c it felt uncomfortably true. and some of the other ones too where, they were very important for me, but also so discouraging of what i thought was going on in my life and what i thought was going on around me - i don't want hopeful books exactly but i want to feel what can i do with this book or this story that somehow changes the way that i'm thinking, changes the world around me, or sees a potentail way -- LIFE did some of that for me, made me think about things in a different way; it's not exactly a hopeful book, but at least it's not totally a funeral of all is lost, all is gloom, and funeral was that way for me.

JH: can i say something

KJF: please do

JH: one of the reasons i liked [[Life]] and it brings me back to other books - one of gold coast books / pacific edge - thinking about utopia as something fully formed and complete is wrong thing to do; utopia is about struggle forever; and that seems to me the best description of utopia that i can imagine; and i think for me that's useful b/c it is about process & struggle & movement. it's not perfect by any manner or means but it's - some of the things that she's doing with that are really useful, and that idea, struggle forever - so i think hope, hope is about, i think, being able to take action; you don't know how it's going to turn out but you think you can do. novels or any kinds of texts that help you believe you can do things are really useful. books aren't just useful to me to think about stuff, they're to help me hold myself together; that's one of the reasons i read to hold myself together b/c sometimes the struggle forever is about too hard. it doesn't always have to be theory; it can be about speaking to you or parts of you in ways that other parts of the world don't.

CM: maybe i'm just old & cynical but i've gotten to the stage where nobody else is going to hold myself together but me and i read books for other reasons the style or whatever. they occasionally say interesting political things but i no longer expect solutions from them.

MM: but even if it's a light little touch that makes me go this story couldn't have been written 10 years ago - there's a very light-hearted story, kissing frogs, and it's a story where a person who is transgendering puts a want ad to meet somebody, and the story couldn't have been written, couldn't have been published, i think 20 years ago, and the fact that it can and even be listed for a tiptree makes me feel hopeful about the world.

KJF: what about it makes you think it couldn't have been published then?

MM: i don't think a character treated very lightly, very humorously, that's in the midst of transgendering -- could that have been published 20 or 25 years ago? a story that treats the whole concept of transgendering and going thru that so commonplacely that it's treated humorously, i don't think that could have been done.

CM: certainly there have been characters for a long time, angela carter, i think the point you're making is that the character is treated sympathetically.

MM: the author didn't have to do a lot of work; b/c audience accepted it; and i think that's a hopeful.

KJF: i think a theory is that perhaps i'm too cynical

LS: cynical

KJF: easy for me to forget how much progress really has been made since i was growing up then and now b/c in some ways the vision that i got from these books was a sort of all or nothing, either we win or we lose, and i've been very surprised in some ways by the focus on masculinity - something i've begun to hear a lot about. because in the 70s when i was first encountering this stuff & hearing about it it was very clear to me it was for both sexes; partly b/c i had children; very clear that the male role was oign to have to change for feminism to succeed the way i wanted it to. the shock of feminism that women would work outside the home & come home & do all the work there as well was not what i was envisioning. what i longed for was such a deep & profound change that it's hard for me to take the pleasure in things that perhaps i ought to take in the things we have accomplsiehd.

MM: at that point i needed to have my consciousness raised. i was a very young woman who had been raised in a very stereotypical world and i needed painful and needed the rug pulled out from under me. i actually had a young woman write to me who was 20 who had never thought much about gender. student who wrote to her @ 20 had never thought of gender. i was probably there at 20 as well. problems int he world. i'm willing to read the painful works occasionally but i want them to raise questions for me. fantasy & sf for me are to disrupt reality but not to break it down so much that it can't be built back up.

CM: a couple of things in this clearly as you get older there's a lack of willingness to change, you have more to lose, the job the family all that kind of stuff. i like to think i'm not like that possibly b/c i don't have much to lose, no job, not much social status ... but i think after you've thrown yourself enthusiastically in something for 30 or more years everything involves people and everything involves people involves politics & is struggle & won't work the way you thought it would.

JH: don't know if it was what i said about masculinity you were thinking nabout. when i was reading WOTEOT and firestone it wasn't that men had to change, but it was that they had to change the way way i thought they had to change.

KJF: and so they should

JH: but i want them to change how i want them, not the way you - i don't care about you - and fiction reminds me of other POVs that are useful. but i'm a bit suspicious of linear progress models of history but also of subjectivity identity or whatever. but i have to keep learning and forgetting the same lessons over and over again. and maybe this is one of my kind of things about re-reading. a lot of the talk on the panel has been about fiction as a progression and i think you're making interesting and real and valid points about things being made possible that weren't possible before but going back to stuff written in another period of time is still useful now is one of the ways that i do theory. stuff doesn't have to be novel to be useful. i'm going to stop there.

KJF: the always amazing UKL. the last time i read TLHOD a couple of years ago i had a different kind of thinking about it. part of which was to some extent it is literally true, and i can't defend this very well, and i would have to defend male and female in ways i am incapable of doing, but her aliens become male or become female depending on the outer stimulus that's provided at the time, and that's something that we fit ourselves in as well - something that i was taking purely as grounded & a thought experiment i can now take in a different way

MM: we need to keep this in print b/c there are still people coming up who are 20 who have never thought about gender & need the painful works.

vonda: MM said a little while ago that you weren't looking for hopeful books ; is it impossible for a hopeful book to pull the rug out for under you. (confusion about hearing im/possible)

LS & MM: oh yeah it's possible

VM: i get pages with 300 of abuse of women and with blurbs that say you'll love this book and i don't think people needed to write that book after suzy mckee charnas walk to the end of the world.

KJF: there's your blurb right there: "didn't need to be written; go read some suzy mckee charnas"

VM: 300 pages of wallowing in the abuse of women to prove that abuse of women is bad, which, duh. he kept pestering me; publisher said but you don't understand vonda the way you can tell the bad guys is that they're abusing women.

MM: i agree with you but there are people who haven't read suzy charnas but they might read something new. so i think there are still some reason for those books to be written.

VM: but shouldn't sf go beyond that and have some attention paid to it beyond that's a hopeful book & i'm too cynical to read it

CM: i think there are plenty of good books around; that's not an issue. but at the same time i think there are people who need to be shocked out of their complacency, realize they aren't as well off as i am.

LS: hope is great it's the actual -- rearrange my thinking doesn't happen, and if it were to happen i would have to realize that someone was snowing me, but hope -- pandora experience here are tons of things being thrown at you

KJF: I would turn that around and ask you suzy mckee charnas' book aside, is there a book without hope that could still be a valuable book or would that not be a helpful experience.

VM: a book without hope (stuttering)

KJF: i'm thinking that would be a great title

VM: you can write it

KJF: i can write it, i can read it, i can publish it

VM: i've had the experience of writing what i thought were hopeful books nad being told i'm not a feminist. "You're a feminist?" not serious ... maybe the light at the end of the tunnel, light shining on us for last 30 years, is having an effect

gavin: thinking of [[Laurie Marks]]' fantasy series, bad things happening to men and women, yet hope that people will live together - trying to get beyond the cynical thing.

VM: not trying to say there shouldn't be bad things happening or even drama or melodrama in a book, but the assumption taht bad things happen b/c you're female or a kid, i just with my own work i want to get beyond that.

CM: laurie's book are an excellent example - in them, people working hard on politics, trying to learn from each other; that's particularly helpful b/c someone learning what needs to be done.

aud: add to that short story series of matter of seggri; i found that to be very powerful & very hopeful

aud: theory-building - lots of different aspects. one of them is 19yo experience, getting in touch w/ inner 3yo and make you say "why" - book sthat get inside me and shake of my theoretical base are books that see something that i've never seen even tho it's right in front of me - for me gwyneth jones WHITE QUEEN & north ... did that for me

LS: troll did that for me. i can't articulate my response to troll in any meaningful way whatsoever but it did make me go hmm.

MM: i'm not sure i can say why but the first thing that came to my mind were the stories that retell fairy stories and that made me go hhhh-- why was that particular trope always there in the fairy tale and what happens when we come at it from another point of view

KJF: it's not a text so i don't know if it's a fair responsen to your question or not but i have been of course as many of us have been living in the US for the last several years and i've become very conscious of the whole war narrative, we're going to war, we've been attacked, and the tremendous power of that storyline, and my reaction has been very much, what an unnecessary part of the world war seems to me to be but how much the people who aren't actually going toff to do the fighting seems to thrill to that storyline. not so much of the war itself but over the power of that narrative.

CM: i think a lot of the really interesting stuff i've read of late has to do with state of world, gender politicds. thinking of short story that --? wrote about iraq war; about bulldozing iraqi soldiers alive in trenches.

aud: in terms of where is tarted as a feminist sf reader to do and where i look for and what i look for -- id idn't know vonda was there -- but i started with dreamsnake, and it struck me as a very humane, and it was incredibly helpful, and it was a young woman character taking action in her universe for change, in a very loving & assertive way, and that was earthshattering for me at the time. and here i am 25, 30 years later, and having studied women's studies in college, the world around me today has become a place where the % of things that i thought were movable issues compared with the % of things i thought were intractable and things i thought were given have completely changed. i used to believe early on, that everything was movable and changable, and some intractable and i didn't have a bead on them and then they'd be movable. and i sit here today and look at the world - touched by venom did a lot of controversy - and part of the story is that women are horribly treated, and is this news, and i don't think it's news, but the reality is you don't need a book to find it, it goes on in places of war, poverty, etc. so now i find myself not just a place of movable intracdtable etc but hopelessness b/c maybe given is a bigger % than i'd ever considered based on biology & nature of universe and that's what has me reading now for things like joan said holding myself together as a person, as opposed to wows, b/c i'm getting wows for the world, and i'm all for a hopeful telling, and i think laurie marks' is a very hopeful view of the universe, but that given is scary.

matt austern: congentical agenesis of gender ideation - a story i recently read that said something about gender i'd never seen before. the first story i'd seen that asked what kind of mind you'd have to have to not see gender beofre.

KJF: impact on me, b/c how had i not noticed the gradations, 2 sexes, 3, four, and then i read that book and think oh right it's 25 or 30. also thinking about flexibility of sexuality in that book/story

gavin: read john varley short stories i'd never erad before, amazed to find, closest person to have written kissing frog story in 1976 if tiptree wasn't doing things like that. john varley now seems to write heinleinian space opera for kids with some gender stuff but ...

CM: i haven't read JV's stories myself but 2-3 years ago we had a panel w/ transgender issues and the message i got was it was superficial

gavin: and yet you can't change the gender of the charadcter even superficially without changing expectations of reader etc b/c you don't know waht author intended

gavin: another thing is there much of gender stuff in new or old space opera

CM: character in -- ? cass? city by Al Reynolds (alastair) - character mentioned having changed sex a long time ago

JH: justina robson's occasionally on edges of that & i think she's really interesting but i don't have time to read enough fiction in the way i want to. i've started reading her and am interested. i don't want to get into progress models but i do think different generations do things in different ways - different generational models. want to say something about feminism, not just about gender; sexuality ,race, class, and multiple other hierarchies of oppression, and so it doesn't have to be about - that doesn't have to be the lens to consider feminist theory-building to be organized about it necessarily

LS: gavin are you suggesting that space babe is a feminist building

CM: "living next door to the god of love" character who is a god

KJF: eleanor arnason's ring of swords is one of the texts i reaturn to a lot

MM: "light" which won the tiptree has elements. sometimes space opera that has so much going on if i were to look @ gender i would have to read again there's too much. but to go back to the point about gender not being main aspect of feminism; i sat down before this panel 7 said what have i read about in theory; and i made a list and i think you will be able to come up w/ sf that does something with every single one of those
bodies - technology - nature environment & assoc w/ feminism - language - race & colonialism - boundary & borde rblurring - power issues categorizing & universalizing -

KJF: is it possible to love a book which is absolutely offensive on its sexual politics. can you give me an example of a book that you love despite every moral fiber of your being.

MM: i find them useful & use them in my classes ... eg: 1972 a sentence that is not a character, a male writer wrote this, very well-known sf writer, the universal voice, "she handled the car skillfully, ofr a woman, particuarlyly for a beautiful woman."

aud: the fmeale man / joanna russ - does wonderful things for politics in terms of women's state of being, but also nasty things to say about transwomen that come straight out of janice raymond ...

LS: the first earthsea book. i actually have that more these days with movies.

KJF: my family is completely looking at me these days, 'are you crying?' of course not! nonsense

JH: sheri tepper's gate to women's country which i do love, but her feminism a deeply troubling feminism, eugenic, totalizing, that's scary, but there are aspects that are very seductive b/c of the parts i think she gets right, but i think she gets it right based on a completely dodgy & biologist premise that i wouldn't want to indulge for a minute. but when people represent it as a utopia i want to (slap myself on forehead); have you read it? some books that areally fucked but are also really satisfying to my feminist totalitarian, but i want other books that make me

MM: i will be trapped, b/c yes i have great problems w/ GTWC, but from stylistic, with the play, it works for me, and it also works as a teaching tool

CM: i do tend to react particularly badly to books that i disagree w/ the obvious politics of it but if the politics are bad i tend to hate the book but i have this awful feeling that there all these books that i really enjoy that if i sat down to think about the politics & gender assumptions i would hate them.

KJF: well we will go from here and work on our level of outrage and hopefully on our level of hopefulness.

(the end)

==External Links==

* [http://www.emcit.com/wordpress/?p=2591 Thoughts from Cheryl Morgan]

[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]]

Loose cannon

2006-06-13T22:12:21Z

68.175.110.44:

A crazy kind of feminist who might unpredictably explode in the face of sexism or other stupidity.

See also: [[loose canon]]

[[category:Kinds of Feminists]]

Loose cannon

2006-06-13T22:11:58Z

68.175.110.44:

A crazy kind of feminist who might unpredictably explode in the face of sexism or other stupidity.

See also: [[loose canon]]

Saga of the Renunciates

2006-06-13T21:31:15Z

68.175.110.44:

By [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]]

Part of the larger cycle of the [[Darkover]] novels.

See [[Free Amazons]]

The Two of Them

2006-06-13T21:30:22Z

68.175.110.44:

by [[Joanna Russ]]

Extra(Ordinary) People

2006-06-13T21:30:02Z

68.175.110.44:

by [[Joanna Russ]]

Talk:Sheree Renée Thomas

2006-06-13T15:58:38Z

68.175.110.44:

Preferred with or without the accent in Renee? Renée? I've seen it both ways in places that look relatively authorized.

Sheree Renée Thomas

2006-06-13T15:58:09Z

68.175.110.44:

==External Links==
* [http://www.africanwritersabroad.org.uk/Events/Sheree%20Thomas.htm African Writers Abroad]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheree_Thomas Wikipedia]
* [http://www.readercon.org/bios/thomas.htm ReaderCon biography]
* [http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=60828237 MySpace]
* [http://blackpotmojo.blogspot.com/ BlackPotMojo]

Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World (WisCon 30 Panel)

2006-06-13T15:55:41Z

68.175.110.44: /* Works Cited */

==Panelists==
[[Nalo Hopkinson]] (moderator), [[Nnedi Nkemdili Okorafor-Mbachu]], [[Sheree Renée Thomas]], [[Andrea Hairston]]

==Works Cited==
* [[Sheree Renée Thomas]], ''[[Dark Matter anthology series]]''
* [[Pearl Cleage]]
* [[Ben Okri]] ([[The Famished Road]] (Nigerian))
* [[Toni Morrison]]
* [[Alice Walker]]
* [[Amos Tutuola]] ([[The Palm Wine Drinkard]] (Nigerian)
* [[Ngugi wa Thiong'o]] [[Wizard of the Crow]] (Kenyan)
* [[Helen Oyeyemi]] ([[The Icarus Girl]] (Nigerian/UK)
* [[Cosmos Latinos]] edited by [[Sandra L. Bell]] and [[Yolanda Molina-Gavilán]]
* [[Mack Reynolds]]
* [[Angelica Gorodischer]]
* "[[Incubus]]" (William Shatner movie with Esperanto)
* "[[Code 46]]" (Tim Robbins movie with polyglot language)
* "[[Bedouin Hacker]]" by filmmaker [[Nadia el Fani]] (Tunisian film; finished 2002?)

==Other Works (SRT/NNOM)==
* Cosmos Latinos edited by Sandra L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilán
* Moses Isegawa (Abyssinian Chronicles / Uganda )
* Véronique Tadjo (uncollected short stories / Ivory Coast)
* Alejo Carpentier (Kingdom of This World / Cuban/Swiss), coined the term 'the marvelous real' that appears to have been mistranslated to 'magical realism'
* Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, The Moor's Last Sigh / Indian/UK)
* Iwan Jooste (Isobel Stellar & the Ubuntu Song / South Africa)
* Zakes Mda (The Heart of Redness / South African playwright now living in Ohio)
* SABLE magazine edited by Kadija George (Kadija Sesay / UK publication)
* Nega Mezlekia (The God Who Begat a Jackal, Ethiopia)

==Transcript Notes==

{{FillerNeeded - panelists introduced themselves, discussed some writers, discussed Alejo Carpentier's 'the marvelous real', Walter Mosley's recent comments at the National Black Writers Conference @ Medgar Evers College on conservative readers, 'literature' vs. 'genre' snobbery, etc...}}

... (FIRST 3O MINUTES OF THIS PANEL MISSING!!!) ...

SRT:
* not enough translation in the US
* editing 3rd volume of dark matter on Africa
* let's put in this in perspective. places like Africa and India - HUGE. It's not like what it appears on the map. You spend two months in India and you've only seen three cities! Massive cultures and languages
* have to find work. some of it is not in native languages but written in other languages; e.g., malagasy in madagascar, some written in german, french. story about james bond kind of saviour set in a pan-african future where economy is very different; some of this sf/f is not in english; in french. challenge of finding these works, getting them translated, and then seeing what they have to say about the world. 2 things going on - finding works in english, finding works in other languages. communications with other authors in other languages. conversations with contemporary writers and scholars who, once you explain what you mean by 'science fiction and fantasy,' may introduce you to their contemporaries and colleagues

NH: translation is not word for word. look at me i'm a big black man; in french that translates to 'fat black man' which he was but the meaning is quite different.

audience: problem in india, people don't want to write in english the language of colonizers, but they have 11 languages of their own. views?

NNOM: complex thing. would it be better for them to write in english as opposed to their native tongue. it's a complex thing. i wish there was a language other than the language of their colonizer.

AH: if that's a problem you can find a language - or again i think we need to become multilingual. not so readership can be all in one language - but we need to have more translators so that this problem is not so great. there are 11 languages, 11 different ways of seeing the world, that's bountiful, not a problem. wow we need to have communities without us all speaking the same language

NNOM: but if they had all these 11 different people - if they had to do an anthology in one year what would they do.

SRT: that's the thing, you don't do it in a year. if you really care, you give it the time it deserves, you honor it. that's the process.

AH: find another language, the one you want, it doesn't have to be the language of the colonizer, it's what you pick and what you learn. in europe everybody speaks english.

audience: india has a language -- sanskrit

audience - it's labeled as fantasy if it's not judeo-christian belief system
why is da vinci code not marketed as fantasy - it's fantasy. why not marketed that way

nalo: some would disagree with you

audience: late mack reynolds did a series of novels in which members of african diaspora doing development work for english/french excolonials told all their respective lords & masters, drop dead; everybody use esperanto as the pan-african language; and developed a pan-african revolution. did five or six or eight - ? based on these premises. esperanto with its flaws is not the language of any of the former colonizers. didn't have political burdens that swahili had and so on.
audience: fascinated with alejo carpentier's original meaning of 'the marvelous real' later mistranslated to 'magical realism.' as a non-academic my understanding of the term as used in western literature is i'm going to write a piece of fiction, stick a non-scientific miraculous event in it, explain it, and if it's explained it's fantasy or sf and if it's not explained it's magic realism, a miracle.
*SRT: why do i have to explain it if it's part of the original culture, why should i have to turn around and have an 'as you know bob' when it's part of the culture?
*aud: but to me that's fantasy
*SRT: to me that's real

audience: speaking of translation / africa. angelica gorodischer also on a panel and listed many writers. cosmos latinos - a lot of those writers she mentions are translated in that volume.

SRT: translators are very organized - free-lancers waiting for work. i know one in san francisco alone who works w/ random house & other places but he's looking for work. he's fluent in spanish, translates well-known writers. i had one international residency experience, only american there, what is the south african book that won the nobel prize a couple of years ago - john coetzee - i met his translator; he was excited because he got the news that his translation from dutch to english won; and the whole conversation was that there was so many people who have great work and would love to have their work translated, but it's not a reciprocity; and that's a specific publishing issue in the market that affects how we as readers get access to these works.

AH- in the academy there are lots of people who love to do this but don't know of the work and then have to worry about whether it would look good on resume.

audience: i'm hearing question that science fiction is valued - term third world - i question it - when i look at india i look for reasons why i see eleemnts in language et cand i know in my heart that's not full reason why they are living ... language when it changes, when people migrated and how far they moved before language changed, and what i learned from is language changes when there's something in common b/w those people that is not there with others. 11 languages - i hear that there are riches and wealth that i don't have access to. so still the question of science fiction what is it what does it mean and does it have a meaning in those languages and communities that have their own languages and meanings. magic realism is just a marketing niche term. so what does science fiction mean across the 12 languages of india in the communities where they're writing it b/c that's where it will have a value to others. so where is the piece common to us all that i will be motivated to absorb.

jeanine - i came across magical realism before i knew the term - it didn't strike me as fantasatic - strikes me as a presumption for degree of rationalism - in all these stories of history, things that people don't offer explanation for like elves fairies etc b/c you're supposed to know what they are. readers are now expecting authors to write to their cultural lives instead of inviting readrs to step out of their experience into another. that's supposed to be at the heart of speculative fiction.

nalo: third one and then - yes

audience: try to keep it simple & not convoluted b/c a lot of things evolved that i want to ask about. mainly that we're talking about dominant culture and first world and a lot of these things are euphemisms for one another and -- the way the northern hemisphere is being developed right now. and the way it isn't in southern hemisphere - aforegone conclusion taht southern hemisphere is going to fall apart. i don't see enough hope / imagination to that other than screaming enclaves of progressive people trying to think about things differently but when there's no money difficult to see how that could be. so i worry that survival of people fm anywhere in southern hemiphsere or poor folks in northern hemisphere becomes dependent on idea that only thru diaspora can survival happen and only shooting an arrow thru culture can connection e made and we're talking about translation & what can be made available thru that or not. life or death ... existing diversity, b/c diversity keeps shifting and moving forward further. i want to know from all of you as you prepared for this panel & this give & take question of how can 3rd world writers impact sf and how can sf make a difference in 3rd world countries or members of people who consider themselves part of 3rd world cultures / countries / identities what do you guys think what is the role of sf in terms of social justice/action. is it that the literary community is for all its great things inherently, the deep stuff of racism is so thick that breaking past that - is it possible; if it were possible, how; what's the call to arms & is there one.

SRT: i'm going to be perfectly honest that i don't know what you just said but will try to answer two of the things I thought I heard from you. 1) what can sf or 'marvelous realism' do for the 3rd world. one it can contribute to our recordkeeping and help us understand the world better. not all 3rd world writers may be interested in that project. some don't want to educate you but some want to tell their own story. but it can enrich all of us, lift all our art & understanding & thinking about the world. 2) their work just contributes to the sense of wonder. i personally am bored w/ certain tropes. you can tell the same story 50 times and a new writer brings their essence to the story & makes you feel it all differently. but it will contribute to the whole sense of wonder. why we are here and love science fiction it's not all just about social justice. people i know who read it are looking for that hit. they are contributing just we're not necessarily plugged into that process. they don't need our permission to create it. i'm not saying that's what you're saying that's what i wanted to get out there.

AH: imagine agency. Silas Siakor. he's a liberian activist who works for rainforests helped to topple charles taylor - we can imagine agency from people we didn't imagine it from before. people having amazing experiences being full human beings.

nnedi: problem of label of magical realism - it's a load of [crowd laughter] it's got to go. i don't believe magical realism is any different from fantasy, i don't. i've read plenty and they're all fantasy to me and i don'tn see anything wrong with it and it doesn't take anything away from authors. in terms of sales and marketing categories - but the problem w/ label of magical realism for me as writer & my own experience is for epopele who aren't automatic readers of f/sf it turns us away from writing that. and when i started writing i was naturally inclined to writing things w/ weird things going on; it's just how iw as inclined. and my profs would veer me away from that; it's bad fiction to write things like fantasy & sf so i ended up turning to magical realism and they were fine with that.

AH: i'm sorry shoot those professors.

nnedi: category is a problem in that area. eventually i ended up just saying 'f it' and writing fantasy . i eventually found and started reading f/sf and this is waht i want to do. but that label of magical realism at least w/ the african writers i know it keeps them from even thinking of writing fantasy & science fiction b/c they know all the authors who write magical realism stuff and they're given lots of respect etc. and get residencies etc.

audience cynthia - writing about experience of being colonized from perspective of the colonized people

commentator - magical realism; it seems that what would make magical realism different from fantasy is that it's realism, pretty classic realism, but it employs elements that don't fit w/in ... a bunch of authors from czeck and former soviet union etc. who also have had similar elements - just bizarre w/ a bizarre sense of humor. one more thing, speaking of third world. i think it's a bit too simplistic to speak of it in terms of continents - b/c each state no matter where it ranges in economic scale of who's the most rich and most poor ... lots of pressure to produce social realism. the dullest possible literature.

cheryl - thing about labels is it's all about controlling languages. first world is europe, 2d world is america,

aud: taking romance, magical realism -

AH: pearl cleage, toni morrison ... in terms of cultural appropriation i think you just need to have more writers, writing these stories so their stories are known as well as the others. i hear the same tropes all the time ... suspicious and hostile rather than open. lots of wonderful playwrights. wonderful movie 'bedouin hacker'.

aud: i speak out of pure simple greed. i have seen really good fiction out of the third world written by american writers. some of it has problems especially old stuff. but lately i've seen american writers doing really good stuff. my thing is that there is a crapload of really good stuff out there and i want to see it. i attended a panel like this at worldcon in boston a couple of years ago and [[? she mentioned that #1 short fiction sf magazine int he world is in chinese. i want to read this. my comment is pure greed. somebody, somebody,

aud: we've been talking about reading & writing. i'm doing work now around a place in latin america. the literacy rate is only about 25%. this is of course very much class-based, if you're upper-class 95% of people read and middle class it goes down. and of course the country's changed. there's a rich 7 vibrant culture that comes mostly out of middle class. it's not a culture of - singers, improvisers on the street. it's a culture, music and of sculpture, and i'm wondering if multiculturalism of this sort is or ought to be multimediasm.

AH - that's a really good topic or issue. it may think about something that Ngugi wa Thiong'o is coming out a - book published in kenya in installments - 900 pages - each book eh sold, and it sold really well there in kenya; each book eh sold is performed to multiple people - so each book gets to at least 20 people. there's a whole performance tradition so his books - it's a storytelling tradition and he's from an oral culture - and it's translated - so i perform it in my language and you perform it in your language etc. - he was jailed for doing plays like that and was run out of the country for doing plays like that. ... strong set of people going off & doing that in nigeria, also in south africa. ... two actors, performed it all over, literally, came to amherst mass - they performed it, and then everyone knew about it. so it got beyond literacy, beyond the cultural barriers of language.

nnedi - one of his characters was so popular and well-known that government put out a warrant.

janice - really quick comments i hope. first as someone who wants to read chinese magazines, i'm also interested in this too. there' putting together a conference in chungdu just before worldcon 2007 b/c we could combine those 2 things so talk to me. 2d thing - i get disturbted when i hear people ask what do you want us to do b/c it's not their problem it's our problem. i like to remember bell hooks, we have our own brains, we should start figuring out what we want from these fascinating rich cultures and doing it in a way that accepts the beauty of it and enriches us. b/c i don't know about you but i'm tired of trying to make western culture work. thank you. hope that was short enough.

SRT: would you mind if i just bullet things that came up & give you a list?
# only about 5 or 6 years ago Haiti annnounced Kreyol as its national language; after 200 yrs...
# who knows name of william shatner movie w/ esperanto? / incubus
# recently saw film called code 46 w/ tim robbins also imagined future w/ polyglot int'l language so i don't know what it was; very interesting; very common; world was diverse but divided into areas based on genetics
# music is the intl language; i know how cheesy that sounds but really a lot of things, a lot of problems we have on the text, somehow they're not communciated thru the music - and - music i just wanted to say that; exmaple hiphop; you can introduce different ideas, science fictional ideas in music that don't get the same critique; i've seen diff artists intro very sf ideals into their music & its being listened to in 3rd world & who knows what effect is
# join carl brandon society & list, we share info on that on the regular
# i'm trying to connect w/ more academics & address issue that nnedi mentioned about labeling; if i say i'm looking for sf works by african writers, they look at you oddly, they don't know any; but then if you say, i'm looking for works that do this that and the other - and then they say ohhhh - you mean.....semantics
# finally, read a book, read a goddamn book

AH: read a book, read a book, read a motherfucking book

[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]] [[category:linguistics]]

Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World (WisCon 30 Panel)

2006-06-13T15:54:55Z

68.175.110.44: /* Works Cited */ fixing links

==Panelists==
[[Nalo Hopkinson]] (moderator), [[Nnedi Nkemdili Okorafor-Mbachu]], [[Sheree Renée Thomas]], [[Andrea Hairston]]

==Works Cited==
* [[Sheree Renee Thomas]], ''[[Dark Matter anthology series]]''
* [[Pearl Cleage]]
* [[Ben Okri]] ([[The Famished Road]] (Nigerian))
* [[Toni Morrison]]
* [[Alice Walker]]
* [[Amos Tutuola]] ([[The Palm Wine Drinkard]] (Nigerian)
* [[Ngugi wa Thiong'o]] [[Wizard of the Crow]] (Kenyan)
* [[Helen Oyeyemi]] ([[The Icarus Girl]] (Nigerian/UK)
* [[Cosmos Latinos]] edited by [[Sandra L. Bell]] and [[Yolanda Molina-Gavilán]]
* [[Mack Reynolds]]
* [[Angelica Gorodischer]]
* "[[Incubus]]" (William Shatner movie with Esperanto)
* "[[Code 46]]" (Tim Robbins movie with polyglot language)
* "[[Bedouin Hacker]]" by filmmaker [[Nadia el Fani]] (Tunisian film; finished 2002?)

==Other Works (SRT/NNOM)==
* Cosmos Latinos edited by Sandra L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilán
* Moses Isegawa (Abyssinian Chronicles / Uganda )
* Véronique Tadjo (uncollected short stories / Ivory Coast)
* Alejo Carpentier (Kingdom of This World / Cuban/Swiss), coined the term 'the marvelous real' that appears to have been mistranslated to 'magical realism'
* Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, The Moor's Last Sigh / Indian/UK)
* Iwan Jooste (Isobel Stellar & the Ubuntu Song / South Africa)
* Zakes Mda (The Heart of Redness / South African playwright now living in Ohio)
* SABLE magazine edited by Kadija George (Kadija Sesay / UK publication)
* Nega Mezlekia (The God Who Begat a Jackal, Ethiopia)

==Transcript Notes==

{{FillerNeeded - panelists introduced themselves, discussed some writers, discussed Alejo Carpentier's 'the marvelous real', Walter Mosley's recent comments at the National Black Writers Conference @ Medgar Evers College on conservative readers, 'literature' vs. 'genre' snobbery, etc...}}

... (FIRST 3O MINUTES OF THIS PANEL MISSING!!!) ...

SRT:
* not enough translation in the US
* editing 3rd volume of dark matter on Africa
* let's put in this in perspective. places like Africa and India - HUGE. It's not like what it appears on the map. You spend two months in India and you've only seen three cities! Massive cultures and languages
* have to find work. some of it is not in native languages but written in other languages; e.g., malagasy in madagascar, some written in german, french. story about james bond kind of saviour set in a pan-african future where economy is very different; some of this sf/f is not in english; in french. challenge of finding these works, getting them translated, and then seeing what they have to say about the world. 2 things going on - finding works in english, finding works in other languages. communications with other authors in other languages. conversations with contemporary writers and scholars who, once you explain what you mean by 'science fiction and fantasy,' may introduce you to their contemporaries and colleagues

NH: translation is not word for word. look at me i'm a big black man; in french that translates to 'fat black man' which he was but the meaning is quite different.

audience: problem in india, people don't want to write in english the language of colonizers, but they have 11 languages of their own. views?

NNOM: complex thing. would it be better for them to write in english as opposed to their native tongue. it's a complex thing. i wish there was a language other than the language of their colonizer.

AH: if that's a problem you can find a language - or again i think we need to become multilingual. not so readership can be all in one language - but we need to have more translators so that this problem is not so great. there are 11 languages, 11 different ways of seeing the world, that's bountiful, not a problem. wow we need to have communities without us all speaking the same language

NNOM: but if they had all these 11 different people - if they had to do an anthology in one year what would they do.

SRT: that's the thing, you don't do it in a year. if you really care, you give it the time it deserves, you honor it. that's the process.

AH: find another language, the one you want, it doesn't have to be the language of the colonizer, it's what you pick and what you learn. in europe everybody speaks english.

audience: india has a language -- sanskrit

audience - it's labeled as fantasy if it's not judeo-christian belief system
why is da vinci code not marketed as fantasy - it's fantasy. why not marketed that way

nalo: some would disagree with you

audience: late mack reynolds did a series of novels in which members of african diaspora doing development work for english/french excolonials told all their respective lords & masters, drop dead; everybody use esperanto as the pan-african language; and developed a pan-african revolution. did five or six or eight - ? based on these premises. esperanto with its flaws is not the language of any of the former colonizers. didn't have political burdens that swahili had and so on.
audience: fascinated with alejo carpentier's original meaning of 'the marvelous real' later mistranslated to 'magical realism.' as a non-academic my understanding of the term as used in western literature is i'm going to write a piece of fiction, stick a non-scientific miraculous event in it, explain it, and if it's explained it's fantasy or sf and if it's not explained it's magic realism, a miracle.
*SRT: why do i have to explain it if it's part of the original culture, why should i have to turn around and have an 'as you know bob' when it's part of the culture?
*aud: but to me that's fantasy
*SRT: to me that's real

audience: speaking of translation / africa. angelica gorodischer also on a panel and listed many writers. cosmos latinos - a lot of those writers she mentions are translated in that volume.

SRT: translators are very organized - free-lancers waiting for work. i know one in san francisco alone who works w/ random house & other places but he's looking for work. he's fluent in spanish, translates well-known writers. i had one international residency experience, only american there, what is the south african book that won the nobel prize a couple of years ago - john coetzee - i met his translator; he was excited because he got the news that his translation from dutch to english won; and the whole conversation was that there was so many people who have great work and would love to have their work translated, but it's not a reciprocity; and that's a specific publishing issue in the market that affects how we as readers get access to these works.

AH- in the academy there are lots of people who love to do this but don't know of the work and then have to worry about whether it would look good on resume.

audience: i'm hearing question that science fiction is valued - term third world - i question it - when i look at india i look for reasons why i see eleemnts in language et cand i know in my heart that's not full reason why they are living ... language when it changes, when people migrated and how far they moved before language changed, and what i learned from is language changes when there's something in common b/w those people that is not there with others. 11 languages - i hear that there are riches and wealth that i don't have access to. so still the question of science fiction what is it what does it mean and does it have a meaning in those languages and communities that have their own languages and meanings. magic realism is just a marketing niche term. so what does science fiction mean across the 12 languages of india in the communities where they're writing it b/c that's where it will have a value to others. so where is the piece common to us all that i will be motivated to absorb.

jeanine - i came across magical realism before i knew the term - it didn't strike me as fantasatic - strikes me as a presumption for degree of rationalism - in all these stories of history, things that people don't offer explanation for like elves fairies etc b/c you're supposed to know what they are. readers are now expecting authors to write to their cultural lives instead of inviting readrs to step out of their experience into another. that's supposed to be at the heart of speculative fiction.

nalo: third one and then - yes

audience: try to keep it simple & not convoluted b/c a lot of things evolved that i want to ask about. mainly that we're talking about dominant culture and first world and a lot of these things are euphemisms for one another and -- the way the northern hemisphere is being developed right now. and the way it isn't in southern hemisphere - aforegone conclusion taht southern hemisphere is going to fall apart. i don't see enough hope / imagination to that other than screaming enclaves of progressive people trying to think about things differently but when there's no money difficult to see how that could be. so i worry that survival of people fm anywhere in southern hemiphsere or poor folks in northern hemisphere becomes dependent on idea that only thru diaspora can survival happen and only shooting an arrow thru culture can connection e made and we're talking about translation & what can be made available thru that or not. life or death ... existing diversity, b/c diversity keeps shifting and moving forward further. i want to know from all of you as you prepared for this panel & this give & take question of how can 3rd world writers impact sf and how can sf make a difference in 3rd world countries or members of people who consider themselves part of 3rd world cultures / countries / identities what do you guys think what is the role of sf in terms of social justice/action. is it that the literary community is for all its great things inherently, the deep stuff of racism is so thick that breaking past that - is it possible; if it were possible, how; what's the call to arms & is there one.

SRT: i'm going to be perfectly honest that i don't know what you just said but will try to answer two of the things I thought I heard from you. 1) what can sf or 'marvelous realism' do for the 3rd world. one it can contribute to our recordkeeping and help us understand the world better. not all 3rd world writers may be interested in that project. some don't want to educate you but some want to tell their own story. but it can enrich all of us, lift all our art & understanding & thinking about the world. 2) their work just contributes to the sense of wonder. i personally am bored w/ certain tropes. you can tell the same story 50 times and a new writer brings their essence to the story & makes you feel it all differently. but it will contribute to the whole sense of wonder. why we are here and love science fiction it's not all just about social justice. people i know who read it are looking for that hit. they are contributing just we're not necessarily plugged into that process. they don't need our permission to create it. i'm not saying that's what you're saying that's what i wanted to get out there.

AH: imagine agency. Silas Siakor. he's a liberian activist who works for rainforests helped to topple charles taylor - we can imagine agency from people we didn't imagine it from before. people having amazing experiences being full human beings.

nnedi: problem of label of magical realism - it's a load of [crowd laughter] it's got to go. i don't believe magical realism is any different from fantasy, i don't. i've read plenty and they're all fantasy to me and i don'tn see anything wrong with it and it doesn't take anything away from authors. in terms of sales and marketing categories - but the problem w/ label of magical realism for me as writer & my own experience is for epopele who aren't automatic readers of f/sf it turns us away from writing that. and when i started writing i was naturally inclined to writing things w/ weird things going on; it's just how iw as inclined. and my profs would veer me away from that; it's bad fiction to write things like fantasy & sf so i ended up turning to magical realism and they were fine with that.

AH: i'm sorry shoot those professors.

nnedi: category is a problem in that area. eventually i ended up just saying 'f it' and writing fantasy . i eventually found and started reading f/sf and this is waht i want to do. but that label of magical realism at least w/ the african writers i know it keeps them from even thinking of writing fantasy & science fiction b/c they know all the authors who write magical realism stuff and they're given lots of respect etc. and get residencies etc.

audience cynthia - writing about experience of being colonized from perspective of the colonized people

commentator - magical realism; it seems that what would make magical realism different from fantasy is that it's realism, pretty classic realism, but it employs elements that don't fit w/in ... a bunch of authors from czeck and former soviet union etc. who also have had similar elements - just bizarre w/ a bizarre sense of humor. one more thing, speaking of third world. i think it's a bit too simplistic to speak of it in terms of continents - b/c each state no matter where it ranges in economic scale of who's the most rich and most poor ... lots of pressure to produce social realism. the dullest possible literature.

cheryl - thing about labels is it's all about controlling languages. first world is europe, 2d world is america,

aud: taking romance, magical realism -

AH: pearl cleage, toni morrison ... in terms of cultural appropriation i think you just need to have more writers, writing these stories so their stories are known as well as the others. i hear the same tropes all the time ... suspicious and hostile rather than open. lots of wonderful playwrights. wonderful movie 'bedouin hacker'.

aud: i speak out of pure simple greed. i have seen really good fiction out of the third world written by american writers. some of it has problems especially old stuff. but lately i've seen american writers doing really good stuff. my thing is that there is a crapload of really good stuff out there and i want to see it. i attended a panel like this at worldcon in boston a couple of years ago and [[? she mentioned that #1 short fiction sf magazine int he world is in chinese. i want to read this. my comment is pure greed. somebody, somebody,

aud: we've been talking about reading & writing. i'm doing work now around a place in latin america. the literacy rate is only about 25%. this is of course very much class-based, if you're upper-class 95% of people read and middle class it goes down. and of course the country's changed. there's a rich 7 vibrant culture that comes mostly out of middle class. it's not a culture of - singers, improvisers on the street. it's a culture, music and of sculpture, and i'm wondering if multiculturalism of this sort is or ought to be multimediasm.

AH - that's a really good topic or issue. it may think about something that Ngugi wa Thiong'o is coming out a - book published in kenya in installments - 900 pages - each book eh sold, and it sold really well there in kenya; each book eh sold is performed to multiple people - so each book gets to at least 20 people. there's a whole performance tradition so his books - it's a storytelling tradition and he's from an oral culture - and it's translated - so i perform it in my language and you perform it in your language etc. - he was jailed for doing plays like that and was run out of the country for doing plays like that. ... strong set of people going off & doing that in nigeria, also in south africa. ... two actors, performed it all over, literally, came to amherst mass - they performed it, and then everyone knew about it. so it got beyond literacy, beyond the cultural barriers of language.

nnedi - one of his characters was so popular and well-known that government put out a warrant.

janice - really quick comments i hope. first as someone who wants to read chinese magazines, i'm also interested in this too. there' putting together a conference in chungdu just before worldcon 2007 b/c we could combine those 2 things so talk to me. 2d thing - i get disturbted when i hear people ask what do you want us to do b/c it's not their problem it's our problem. i like to remember bell hooks, we have our own brains, we should start figuring out what we want from these fascinating rich cultures and doing it in a way that accepts the beauty of it and enriches us. b/c i don't know about you but i'm tired of trying to make western culture work. thank you. hope that was short enough.

SRT: would you mind if i just bullet things that came up & give you a list?
# only about 5 or 6 years ago Haiti annnounced Kreyol as its national language; after 200 yrs...
# who knows name of william shatner movie w/ esperanto? / incubus
# recently saw film called code 46 w/ tim robbins also imagined future w/ polyglot int'l language so i don't know what it was; very interesting; very common; world was diverse but divided into areas based on genetics
# music is the intl language; i know how cheesy that sounds but really a lot of things, a lot of problems we have on the text, somehow they're not communciated thru the music - and - music i just wanted to say that; exmaple hiphop; you can introduce different ideas, science fictional ideas in music that don't get the same critique; i've seen diff artists intro very sf ideals into their music & its being listened to in 3rd world & who knows what effect is
# join carl brandon society & list, we share info on that on the regular
# i'm trying to connect w/ more academics & address issue that nnedi mentioned about labeling; if i say i'm looking for sf works by african writers, they look at you oddly, they don't know any; but then if you say, i'm looking for works that do this that and the other - and then they say ohhhh - you mean.....semantics
# finally, read a book, read a goddamn book

AH: read a book, read a book, read a motherfucking book

[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]] [[category:linguistics]]

Index to online research resources in SF studies

2006-06-13T15:30:09Z

68.175.110.44: /* SF & Fandom Resources */

==SF & Fandom Resources==
* [http://www.infoshop.org/sf/index.php/Main_Page InfoShop pages on SF/F]
* [http://www.sfbooklist.co.uk/ SFbooklist / SF & F Bibliography]
* [http://www.scifi.com/sfweekly/ Science Fiction Weekly]
* [http://www.sfsite.com/ SF Site]
* [http://www.sffworld.com/ SFFWorld.com]
* [http://www.locusmag.com/ Locus Magazine]
* [http://library.tamu.edu/cushing/sffrd/ SF & F Research Database] - An online index to over 60,000 historical and critical items about science fiction, fantasy and horror; Compiled by [[Hal W. Hall]]
* [http://www.hycyber.com/SF/author_pseudo.html Science Fiction Author Pseudonyms]
* [http://contento.best.vwh.net/ Index to SF Anthologies & Collections, Combined Edition] by William G. Contento
* [http://www.sff.net/people/diccon/CYINDEX.HTM Fancyclopedia II] (1959)
* [http://fanac.org/ The Fan History Project] (fanac.org)
* [http://www.fandata.com/ Fandata]
* [http://www.efanzines.com/ eFanZines]
* [http://www.sff.net/ SFF.net]

==Feminist & Women's Studies==
* [http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/womenprehist.html Women as Warriors in Prehistory, the Ancient World and up to the 7th Century outside Europe]

Women's Wiki Camp

2006-06-08T13:08:04Z

68.175.110.44:

Let's gather in person to learn about wiki, chat about participatory theory, share feminist SF, and wiki up a storm.

wanted: gatherings in SF Bay Area and (NYC or Boston)

questions:
* proposed dates? ''I'm thinking August or September ... is that enough time to plan?''
* should blogging also be included?
* women only or also boys?
* better name? WoolfCamp is already taken! LeGuinCamp has a lot of syllables. OTOH, ''Women's Wandering Wiki Workshop & Virtual BiCoastal WisCon'' has even more syllables but might be good.

references:
* [http://gracedavis.typepad.com/i_am_dr_lauras_worst_nigh/2006/01/announcing_wool.html WoolfCamp!]
* [http://www.socialtext.net/woolfcamp/index.cgi WoolfCamp wiki]
* [http://woolfcamp2006.blogspot.com/ WoolfCamp Blog]
* [http://barcamp.pbwiki.com/BarCamp barcamp] ("BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees. Rules: Attendees must give a demo, a session, or help with one. This is called sharing and we like it.")
* [http://www.brainjams.org/ brainjam, the unconference community] ... [http://www.brainjams.org/what-are-brainjams What are brainjams?] ("A BrianJams event is an unconference which combines knowledge networking and confersations in open spaces. We strive to bring people together from Non-profits, Technology, Business, the Arts and Government to share our insights and experiences to accelerate the pace of postive change and innovation in the world. The organizing principle of each event is separate from the format. While each BrainJams event can focus on different topics, the principal focus of our conversations at present is on how real people are using emerging social media tools (i.e. Web 2.0, citizen journalism, blogs, podcasts, social bookmarks, open collaboration, etc.). ... Some people have pointed us back to the idea of the Chautauqua from the beginning of the 20th century. We like that approach and hope to learn a lot from what they did back then, but if BrainJams is somewhat similar in any regards, it is also quite different as a result of the application of Open Web technologies. ") See also: http://www.brainjams.org/events

Women's Wiki Camp

2006-06-08T13:07:27Z

68.175.110.44: some explanations added

Let's gather in person to learn about wiki, chat about participatory theory, share feminist SF, and wiki up a storm.

wanted: gatherings in SF Bay Area and (NYC or Boston)

questions:
* proposed dates? ''I'm thinking August or September ... is that enough time to plan?''
* should blogging also be included?
* women only or also boys?
* better name? WoolfCamp is already taken! LeGuinCamp has a lot of syllables. OTOH, ''Women's Wandering Wiki Workshop & Virtual BiCoastal WisCon'' has even more syllables but might be good.

references:
* [http://gracedavis.typepad.com/i_am_dr_lauras_worst_nigh/2006/01/announcing_wool.html WoolfCamp!]
* [http://www.socialtext.net/woolfcamp/index.cgi WoolfCamp wiki]
* [http://barcamp.pbwiki.com/BarCamp barcamp] ("BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees. Rules: Attendees must give a demo, a session, or help with one. This is called sharing and we like it.")
* [http://www.brainjams.org/ brainjam, the unconference community] ... [http://www.brainjams.org/what-are-brainjams What are brainjams?] ("A BrianJams event is an unconference which combines knowledge networking and confersations in open spaces. We strive to bring people together from Non-profits, Technology, Business, the Arts and Government to share our insights and experiences to accelerate the pace of postive change and innovation in the world. The organizing principle of each event is separate from the format. While each BrainJams event can focus on different topics, the principal focus of our conversations at present is on how real people are using emerging social media tools (i.e. Web 2.0, citizen journalism, blogs, podcasts, social bookmarks, open collaboration, etc.). ... Some people have pointed us back to the idea of the Chautauqua from the beginning of the 20th century. We like that approach and hope to learn a lot from what they did back then, but if BrainJams is somewhat similar in any regards, it is also quite different as a result of the application of Open Web technologies. ") See also: http://www.brainjams.org/events

Women's Wiki Camp

2006-06-08T13:02:20Z

68.175.110.44:

Women's Wiki Camp

2006-06-08T13:00:27Z

68.175.110.44:

Main Page

2006-06-08T12:57:03Z

68.175.110.44:

<big>Welcome to the Feminist SF wiki</big>

... a collective knowledge base of all things feminist, fictional, and speculative (science fiction, fantastic, magically real, horror, and so forth) ... with [[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}]] pages

... we want your [[suggestions]] and ideas!

Current highlighted projects: Please add to the [[J.R.R. Tolkien]] pages, discussing representations of women and ethnicity in LOTR.

== The Heart of Feminist SF : the community ==

* [[:category:Events|Events]]
** [[WisCon]] -- [[WisCon 30]] just happened -- please [[WisCon 30|add your transcripts, bibliographies, notes & comments to individual sessions]]
** [[Women's Wiki Camp]] (to be renamed later)
* [[Feminist SF Organizations|feminist SF & related organizations and communities]]
** [[:category:Writers' Resources|Writers' Resources]]
** [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award]] -- The 2005 award was just given to [[Geoff Ryman]]'s [[Air]] at [[WisCon 30]] ... see http://tiptree.org/ for more info
** other awards: Carl Brandon Society [[Carl Brandon Parallax Award|Parallax Award]] and [[Carl Brandon Kindred Award|Kindred Award]] ... Gaylactic [[Spectrum Awards]] ... SFFFW [[Roots in Writing Award]] ... [[Sense of Gender Award]]
** [[Broad Universe]], the organization for women writing science fiction, fantasy and horror ... see http://broaduniverse.org/
** [[feministSF.org]], the host of this wiki, listserves, and various websites over the years ... see http://feministsf.org/
* [[Feminist SF fans, editors, and scholars]]
** [[Memorials & Remembrances]]
***[[Lisa Barnett]], ([[1958]]-[[2006]])
***[[Octavia Butler]], ([[1947]]-[[2006]])

== FSF Books, Authors, Etc. ==
* Creators, including [[Author List]] and [[Artists|Artists, Musicians, Etc.]]

* [[Publishers and Presses]]

* Bibliographies & Lists of Works
** [[Influential Feminist FSF Books]]
** [[Canons]]
** [[Reading Paths]]
** [[Reading Lists from Fans & Others]]
** [[:category:Films|Films]]

* Teaching feministSF & Critically Examining SF & feministSF
** [[Courses]]
** [[Syllabi]]
** [[Themes|Literary Devices, Tropes, Themes, Plot Points]] common to Feminist SF
*** [[Myths]] of particular interest to FSF
*** [[:category:Mythological Female Characters|Mythological Female Characters]]
** [[Women in SF]]
*** [[Archetypal Female Characters in SF|Archetypal]] female characters (needs filler)
**** the [[Black Warrior Woman]]
*** [[Women in SF Art]]
*** [[:category:Notable Female Characters|Notable Female Characters]]
** [[Women in Fandom]]
** [[FeministSF Critical Theory]]
** [[Timeline]] of Women in SF & Feminist SF

* [[Related]] related information on "SF" or "feminism" etc.
* [[:category:Media|Media]] for feminist SF works
* [[Quotes]]

== What is this? ==

* what's the [[mission|feministSF wiki]]?
** what's the FSFwiki [[mission]]?
** what's the [[FSFwiki process]] for negotiating disputes & the like?
** why aren't you just putting this stuff on [[wikipedia]]?
* what's [[feminist SF]]?
* what's [[feminism]]?
** what are some [[:category:feminist issues|feminist issues]] and [[:category:feminist processes|feminist processes]]?
* what's [[SF]]?

* "can I do it?" yes. Anybody can edit text -- go ahead, try it! Click "edit" at the top of the page ... (Except for this first page ... You have to log in & create a userID to edit the first page, a protection added because of linkspam.) See the [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide User's Guide] or the [[QuickCheatSheet|Quick Cheat Sheet]]
** want to do more?: If you want to be a super-editor and help do initial technical configurations of the wiki, write [[User:Lquilter|Laura Quilter]] or lquilter at lquilter.net with "fsfwiki" in the subject line.
** how do I make [[suggestions]]? (add them to the [[suggestions]] page)
** how can I help? contribute to our [[To Do List]]

== Navigation ==

* [[Special:Allpages|A-Z Index of All Pages]]

Journal of Mythic Arts

2006-06-08T03:46:39Z

68.175.110.44:

==External Links==

* http://www.endicott-studio.com/

Interstitial Arts Foundation

2006-06-08T03:45:29Z

68.175.110.44:

Artists Without Borders

* http://www.interstitialarts.org/

Nalo Hopkinson

2006-06-08T03:37:37Z

68.175.110.44: adding bibliography

==Bibliography==

* ''[[Brown Girl in the Ring]]''
* ''[[The Salt Roads]]'' (2003)
* ''[[Skin Folk]]'' (short story collection) (2001)
* ''[[Midnight Robber]]'' (2000)

===Edited Anthologies===

* ''[[So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy]]'' (2004) (edited by Nalo Hopkinson & [[Uppinder Mehan]])
* ''[[mojo: Conjure Stories]]'' (2003)
* ''[[Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction]]'' (2000)

== External Links==

* [http://www.caribbeantales.org/literature/video.asp Documentary on Nalo Hopkinson] (purchase info at http://www.caribbeantales.org/cgi-bin/e-store/itemview.asp?TitleID=2031&display=ct )

[[category: 1960 Births|Hopkinson, Nalo]] [[category:Female Writers|Hopkinson, Nalo]] [[category:Canadian Writers|Hopkinson, Nalo]]

Nalo Hopkinson

2006-06-08T03:31:05Z

68.175.110.44:

== External Links==

* [http://www.caribbeantales.org/literature/video.asp Documentary on Nalo Hopkinson] (purchase info at http://www.caribbeantales.org/cgi-bin/e-store/itemview.asp?TitleID=2031&display=ct )

[[category: 1960 Births|Hopkinson, Nalo]] [[category:Female Writers|Hopkinson, Nalo]] [[category:Canadian Writers|Hopkinson, Nalo]]

Nalo Hopkinson

2006-06-08T03:29:39Z

68.175.110.44: added documentary info

== External Links==

* [http://www.caribbeantales.org/literature/video.asp Documentary on Nalo Hopkinson]

[[category: 1960 Births|Hopkinson, Nalo]] [[category:Female Writers|Hopkinson, Nalo]] [[category:Canadian Writers|Hopkinson, Nalo]]

James Tiptree, Jr.

2006-06-08T02:27:15Z

68.175.110.44: /* Bibliography */

Pseudonym for Alice Sheldon.

Also used pseudonym Raccoona Sheldon.

For whom the [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award]] was named.

== Bibliography ==

=== Novels ===
*''[[Brightness Falls from the Air]]'' ([[1985]])
*''[[Up the Walls of the World]]'' ([[1978]])

=== Short Story Collections ===
*''[[Crown of Stars]]'' ([[1988]])
*''[[Her Smoke Rose Up Forever]]'' ([[1990]])
*''[[Out of the Everywhere, and Other Extraordinary Visions]]'' ([[1981]])
*''[[The Starry Rift]]'' ([[1986]])
*''[[Star Songs of an Old Primate]]'' ([[1978]])
*''[[Tales of the Quintana Roo]]'' ([[1986]])
*''[[Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home]]'' ([[1973]])
*''[[Warm Worlds and Otherwise]]'' ([[1975]])

=== Notable Short Stories ===
*[[Houston, Houston, Do You Read?]] ([[1976]])
*[[Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death]] ([[1973]])
*[[A Momentary Taste of Being]] ([[1975]])
*[[The Screwfly Solution]] ([[1977]], published under the name [[Raccoona Sheldon]])
*[[The Women Men Don't See]] ([[1973]])
*[[Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!]] ([[1976]], published under the name [[Raccoona Sheldon]])

==External Links==

* http://davidlavery.net/Tiptree/

[[category:Female Writers|Tiptree, James, Jr.]] [[category:1987 Deaths|Tiptree, James, Jr.]]

WisCon First-Timer Memories

2006-06-04T02:45:30Z

68.175.110.44:

What was your first WisCon? What do you remember most, best, happiest about it?

(hit "edit" above)

WisCon First-Timer Memories

2006-06-04T02:45:13Z

68.175.110.44:

What was your first WisCon? What do you remember most, best, happiest about it?

WisCon

2006-06-04T02:44:19Z

68.175.110.44:

'''WisCon''', the Wisconsin [[Science Fiction]] Convention, is generally acknowledged as the world's leading [[feminism|feminist]]-oriented [[science fiction convention]] and conference. It is held annually throughout the four day weekend of Memorial Day, in Madison, Wisconsin. Sponsored by the Society for the Furtherance and Study of Fantasy and Science Fiction or ''(SF)³'', WisCon gathers together women and men: [[science fiction fandom|fans]], writers, editors, publishers, scholars and artists from around the world to discuss science fiction and fantasy, with emphasis on issues of [[feminism]], [[gender identity|gender]], [[race]] and [[social class|class]].

Guests of Honor have included [[Ursula K. Le Guin]], [[Katherine MacLean]], [[Vonda N. McIntyre]], [[Susan Wood]], [[Suzy McKee Charnas]], [[John Varley (author)|John Varley]], [[Joan D. Vinge]], [[David Hartwell]], [[Beverly DeWeese]], [[Octavia E. Butler]], [[Chelsea Quinn Yarbro]], [[Donald A. Wollheim|Don]] & [[Elsie Wollheim]], [[Buck Coulson|Buck]] & [[Juanita Coulson]], [[Terry Carr]], [[Suzette Haden Elgin]], [[Elizabeth A. Lynn]], [[Jessica Amanda Salmonson]], [[Connie Willis]], [[Esther Friesner]], [[Samuel R. Delany]], [[Avedon Carol]], [[R. A. MacAvoy]], [[George R. R. Martin]], [[Howard Waldrop]], [[Stu Shiffman]], [[Iain M. Banks]], [[Emma Bull]], [[Pat Murphy]], [[Pamela Sargent]], [[Trina Robbins]], [[Eleanor Arnason]], [[Lois McMaster Bujold]], [[Maureen F. McHugh]], [[Karen Joy Fowler]], [[Barbara Hambly]], [[Nancy Kress]], [[Nicola Griffith]], [[Judith Merril]], [[Sheri S. Tepper]], [[Charles de Lint]], [[Jeanne Gomoll]], [[Élisabeth Vonarburg]], [[Nalo Hopkinson]], [[China Miéville]], [[Carol Emshwiller]], [[Patricia A. McKillip]], [[Mary Doria Russell]], [[Gardner Dozois]], [[Pat Cadigan]], [[Terri Windling]], and [[Melissa Scott]].

The [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award]], an annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender, originated in a discussion at a prior WisCon, and the Tiptree Ceremony is often held at WisCon. [[Broad Universe]], an organization with the primary goal of promoting science fiction, fantasy, and horror written by women, also originated in a discussion at a prior WisCon; as did the [[Carl Brandon Society]], which is dedicated to addressing the representation of people of color in science fiction, fantasy and horror.

== Individual WisCons ==

:[[WisCon 1]] (Feb. 11-13, [[1977]])
:[[WisCon 5]] (March 6-8, [[1981]])
:[[WisCon 10]] (Feb. 21-23, [[1986]])
:[[WisCon 15]] (March 1-3, [[1991]])
:[[WisCon 20]] (May 24-27, [[1996]])
:[[WisCon 25]] (May 25-28, [[2001]])
:[[WisCon 30]] (May 26-29, [[2006]])

== Other WisConia==

* [[WisCon First-Timer Memories]]

==External links==
* [http://www.sf3.org/wiscon WisCon website]
* [http://www.sf3.org (SF)³ website]
* [http://www.tiptree.org Tiptree Award website]
* [http://www.broaduniverse.org/ Broad Universe website]
* [http://www.carlbrandon.org/ Carl Brandon Society website]

[[category:WisCon]]

M. J. Hardman

2006-06-04T02:42:44Z

68.175.110.44:

Active [[WisCon|WisConner]] and [[Carl Brandon Society|Carl Brandon Society-er]].

Eowyn

2006-06-04T02:32:45Z

68.175.110.44: /* Sources */

'''Eowyn''' is a fictional character in [[J.R.R. Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Lord of the Rings (book)|The Lord of the Rings]]''.

=== Storyline ===

Niece of King Théoden of Rohan, she chafed at the restrictions placed on women in her society, striving to be a shieldmaiden of reknown, just as her brother Éomer was a doughty warrior.

Éowyn became the nursemaid of her uncle, Théoden, and while serving Théoden, she meets Aragorn, the future King, and falls in love with him, unaware that he is betrothed to Arwen.

During the flight to the refuge of Helm's Deep, she is relegated to caring for the women and children, despite her desire to guard the group against attack as do the men.

After Aragorn and his companions took The Way of the Dead at Dunharrow, she was told to go back to the women while the men rode off to the aid of Gondor. She rebelled against this stricture and disguised herself as a man, Dernhelm, riding off with the troops. In the movie, she isn't disguised but somehow escapes the notice of her Uncle and brother.

In battle with the forces of Sauron, she slays the Witch King (a Nazgûl), fulfilling Glorfindel's prophecy that the Witch King would never die by the hand of man. She is gravely wounded in the fight, and is at death's door when Aragorn heals her in both mind and spirit with an infusion of athelas, kingsfoil, although she is still too weak to travel when Aragorn rides off with the Host of Gondor to the final battle with the forces of Sauron.

She rests in the Houses of Healing with Faramir, Steward of Gondor, also recuperating from grievous wounds, and her eyes are opened. She realizes that she loves this gentle man and declares to him, ''"I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren. No longer do I desire to be a queen."''

Éowyn is an ambiguous figure, as are many of Tolkien's women, on the one hand courageous and noble, yet willing in the end to give up all her ambitions in order to become a wife and mother.

=== Eowyn in the movies ===

Éowyn is played by actress Miranda Otto in the recent [[The Lord of the Rings (movies)|movie adaptation]] of ''The Lord of the Rings''. This adaptation resulted in certain changes to her character.

Among the more amusing conclusions to be drawn by the ellipses forced by the movie's limits in transferring such a huge book to the screen, it can be inferred that Éowyn will become queen of Rohan at the end, because her brother's claims to the throne were omitted from the storyline, and her uncle, King Theoden, left the succession to her before departing for battle:

''"I have left instruction. The people are to follow your rule in my stead. Take up my seat in the Golden Hall. Long may you defend Edoras if the battle goes ill."''

== Sources ==
*[http://www.supershadow.com/archive/lordoftherings/return_of_the_king/script.html Transcript of ''Return of the King'']

[[category:Notable Female Characters]] [[category:Warrior Women]] [[category:Women Disguised as Men]]

Xena

2006-06-04T02:31:49Z

68.175.110.44: /* External Links */

Heroine of a New Zealand television series, ''Xena: Warrior Princess'', a spin-off of an earlier action/adventure series, ''Hercules: The Legendary Journeys''.

The series was notable in many ways, not least of which was that Xena started her series life as a villainess, a murderous conqueror intent on killing and destruction, exacting terrible revenge for the murder of her brother, Lyceus, by the army of another warlord, Cortese. In a series of interactions, including one in which she is severely beaten and cast out by the army she commanded for preventing a child from being murdered, Xena is convinced by the good Hercules to renounce her evil ways and fight the good fight for truth, justice, and the Ancient Greek way. Xena's ferocity was thus revealed as a tragic reaction to her own abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder, as evidenced by her instinctive protection of the child even though this act of mercy resulted in terrible consequences for herself.

But the spin-off quickly eclipsed its parent because it drew in a new audience, women.

The series became much more complex as it dealt with issues of warfare versus pacifism, whether fighting for "the good" can lead to evil results, the power of love, and a strong ''subtext'' of lesbian attraction between Xena and Gabrielle, her putative ''sidekick''.

In many ways, ''Xena: Warrior Princess'' was an action/adventure soap opera, with sudden betrayals and plot reversals a staple element of the storyline, and with a few parallel universes thrown in when even the loose conventions of soap opera proved too restrictive.

=== External Links ===

[[http://whoosh.org/ Whoosh! When Popular Culture is Not Enough...]] An online scholarly journal dedicated to all things Xena.

[[http://ausxip.com/ The Australian Xena Information Page]] A good source of information about Xena, Lucy Lawless, and Xena fandom.

[[category:Notable Female Characters]]
[[category:Warrior Women]] [[category: Television]] [[Category: Fantasy]]

Main Page

2006-06-03T17:59:37Z

68.175.110.44: /* The Heart of Feminist SF : the community */

<big>Welcome to the Feminist SF wiki</big>

... a collective knowledge base of all things feminist, fictional, and speculative (science fiction, fantastic, magically real, horror, and so forth) ... with [[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}]] pages

... we want your [[suggestions]] and ideas!

Current highlighted projects: Please add to the [[J.R.R. Tolkien]] pages, discussing representations of women and ethnicity in LOTR.

== The Heart of Feminist SF : the community ==

* [[Gatherings]]
** WisCon -- [[WisCon 30]] just happened -- please [[WisCon 30|add your transcripts, bibliographies, notes & comments to individual sessions]]
* [[Feminist SF Organizations|feminist SF & related organizations and communities]]
** [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award]] -- The 2005 award was just given to [[Geoff Ryman]]'s [[Air]] at [[WisCon 30]] ... see http://tiptree.org/ for more info
** other awards: Carl Brandon Society [[Carl Brandon Parallax Award|Parallax Award]] and [[Carl Brandon Kindred Award|Kindred Award]] ... Gaylactic [[Spectrum Awards]] ... SFFFW [[Roots in Writing Award]] ... [[Sense of Gender Award]]
** [[Broad Universe]], the organization for women writing science fiction, fantasy and horror ... see http://broaduniverse.org/
** [[feministSF.org]], the host of this wiki, listserves, and various websites over the years ... see http://feministsf.org/
* [[Feminist SF fans, editors, and scholars]]
** [[Memorials & Remembrances]]
***[[Lisa Barnett]], ([[1958]]-[[2006]])
***[[Octavia Butler]], ([[1947]]-[[2006]])

== FSF Books, Authors, Etc. ==
* Creators, including [[Author List]] and [[Artists|Artists, Musicians, Etc.]]

* [[Publishers and Presses]]

* Bibliographies & Lists of Works
** [[Influential Feminist FSF Books]]
** [[Canons]]
** [[Reading Paths]]
** [[Reading Lists from Fans & Others]]
** [[:category:Films|Films]]

* Teaching feministSF & Critically Examining SF & feministSF
** [[Courses]]
** [[Syllabi]]
** [[Themes|Literary Devices, Tropes, Themes, Plot Points]] common to Feminist SF
*** [[Myths]] of particular interest to FSF
** [[Women in SF]]
*** [[Archetypal]] female characters
**** the [[Black Warrior Woman]]
*** [[Women in SF Art]]
*** [[:category:Notable Female Characters|Notable Female Characters]]
** [[Women in Fandom]]
** [[FeministSF Critical Theory]]
** [[Timeline]] of Women in SF & Feminist SF

* [[Related]] related information on "SF" or "feminism" etc.
* [[:category:Media|Media]] for feminist SF works
* [[Quotes]]

== What is this? ==

* what's the [[mission|feministSF wiki]]?
** what's the FSFwiki [[mission]]?
** what's the [[FSFwiki process]] for negotiating disputes & the like?
** why aren't you just putting this stuff on [[wikipedia]]?
* what's [[feminist SF]]?
* what's [[feminism]]?
** what are some [[:category:feminist issues|feminist issues]] and [[:category:feminist processes|feminist processes]]?
* what's [[SF]]?

* "can I do it?" yes. Anybody can edit text -- go ahead, try it! Click "edit" at the top of the page ... (Except for this first page ... You have to log in & create a userID to edit the first page, a protection added because of linkspam.) See the [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide User's Guide] or the [[QuickCheatSheet|Quick Cheat Sheet]]
** want to do more?: If you want to be a super-editor and help do initial technical configurations of the wiki, write [[User:Lquilter|Laura Quilter]] or lquilter at lquilter.net with "fsfwiki" in the subject line.
** how do I make [[suggestions]]? (add them to the [[suggestions]] page)
** how can I help? contribute to our [[To Do List]]

== Navigation ==

* [[Special:Allpages|A-Z Index of All Pages]]

Marleen Barr

2006-06-03T17:52:23Z

68.175.110.44:

A scholar who essentially started the field of feminist sf criticism. Also a sf writer, of [[Oy! Pioneer]].

[[category:Scholars|Barr, Marleen]] [[category:Female Writers|Barr, Marleen]]

Feminist SF Wiki:Wikipedia

2006-06-03T14:14:13Z

68.175.110.44: /* So what's the relationship between Wikipedia and the feministSF wiki (fsfwiki)? */

The feministSF wiki is not [http://wikipedia.org wikipedia] and it's not an attempt to replace it or to ghettoize feminist SF. Instead, we are using the MediaWiki software tool to develop a new and detailed reference resource, and to experiment with the community and process-oriented approach of wikipedia. And we have a secret feminist conspiracy.

===So what's the relationship between Wikipedia and the feministSF wiki (fsfwiki)?===
# The feministSF wiki uses the mediawiki software which was developed by and for and in conjunction with Wikipedia, but we use it for our own ends.
# Wikipedia encourages spin-off projects, and has developed a [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Interwiki_linking standard for interwiki references]. So, when we feel it's appropriate and we're ready to do so, we can add the interwiki language protocols, and reference directly to Wikipedia. (In the meantime, it is perfectly appropriate to do so using URLs.) For more info, see [http://meta.wikimedia.org Meta-Wiki].
# FeministSF is one of many spin-off projects of Wikipedia. In SF/F, for example, there are wiki projects for [[http://www.infoshop.org/sf/index.php/Main_Page science fiction generally]], the [http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Harry Potter], "[[http://memory-alpha.org/ Star Trek]]", and at least one for [[http://www.thetolkienwiki.org/ Tolkien]].

===What are the differences between Wikipedia & the fsfwiki?===
# The feministSF is not written from a "neutral POV". At Wikipedia, and in a general reference encyclopedia, the assumption is that the articles should be written from a neutral point of view. At feministSF wiki, the assumption is that articles will be written from a feminist point of view. We want to understand and accurately describe other perspectives, but as feminists we also want to critique and deconstruct hierarchies of oppression, stereotyped thinking, problems that skew along axes of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, age, marital status or relational affiliation, language, and other forms of privilege or hierarchy.
# The feministSF wiki can get a lot deeper into feminist SF than a general encyclopedia like WikiPedia can. The feministSF wiki is a reference resource, like Wikipedia, but it can be much deeper and much broader than a general encyclopedia (even the world's best) encyclopedia is intended to be. For instance, while Wikipedia only wants to include entires on people or events of general significance, the feministSF wiki will include things of general significance to feminist SF — and that is already a good deal more specific than a general encyclopedia could be.
# The feministSF wiki can go beyond subject-specific encyclopedia and also be an archival resource and community document. But the feministSF wiki can also include things that would never be in any encyclopedia, because they are not of "general interest" in an encyclopedia sense--not even of "general interest" to the "feminist SF". For instance, while every single fan and writer might not be of interest or relevance in an encyclopedia, they ARE of interest and relevance to a project that strives to capture and document a feminist SF community in an archival sense as well. With [[tagging]] and [[categories]] and [[search]], we can still structure information in such a way to make it easy to find book authors, new authors, fans, wanna-be filmmakers, and so on, but we don't need to mandate and create a separation that is, in the feminist SF community, rather artificial. We all know that our writers are also fans and that fans are creators and that creators includes writing and jewelry-making and beading and software coding and graphic design and feminist processes and organizing perfectly organized pocket programs for conferences.
# The feministSF wiki is also an experiment in feminist process & community-building. Could it become a 24/7 feminist think tank? an online version of [[WisCon]], or a workshop, in which everyone works madly together -- but not just for 75 minutes, but at any moment ... coming together asynchronously through the [[discussion pages]] and other community aspects of the [[mediaWiki software]]? What kinds of connections can we document thru the wiki, which wouldn't be relevant or appropriate in a general encyclopedia? References, homages, influences, connections (family sexual affectional and otherwise)? How can we create that "web" of connections? Were particular stories inspired by experiences at WisCon or reactions to a fannish event of some sort? How can we connect the online community with real-world, offline, in-person, meat communities?

===Is there a feminist conspiracy behind the fsfwiki?===

Yes. We have three goals, and we will achieve them ''[[by any means necessary]]''.

# We will use the feministSF wiki to deconstruct our social programming in a "a wiki of our own". Wikis have the convention of creating [[sandbox]]es which are places for individuals to play with formatting to see if they can get it right. In a sense, they're safe places so people can learn to do things without fear of being castigated for screwing up, or fear of actually screwing things up for someone else or hurting the wiki. (You really couldn't anyway because someone else will catch it and fix it! That's the beauty of the wiki....) So in one sense the feministSF is a sandbox for social processes. It's a place for anyone to deconstruct their social programming -- particularly women who have been socialized NOT to correct others, to be polite, to not claim a lot of space in public places, to not argue or engage in flame wars, to not in some senses engage in robust public discussion. And people who have not had a lot of experience with technology, who may feel shy or inexperienced with wiki software, have another space place to learn it and to get comfortable with "geeking out". So the feministSF wiki is a place for all those folk to explore and experiment with the technology, get proficient with it, then take their skills out in the world to use with their own collaborative software, engaging in wikipedia editing & processes, and bringing more feminist presences and perspectives to wikis, and ultimately other tech-based communities, everywhere.
# We will explore & push the technology options offered by the mediawiki software as a collaborative medium in the way that only feminists dedicated to process can do.
# And of course we will take over [[WikiPedia]]. (See below.)

===Is this a critique of wikipedia?===
No, and yes.

The people who installed this wiki & made it available for you and thought about this FAQ LOVE wikipedia. We also love the kinds of open collaborations that the software makes possible, and the potential for doing things that wikipedia doesn't do.

BUT we've sometimes been frustrated with the wikipedia experience.
#For instance, a couple of years ago in 2004, there was a great article on feminist science fiction; and the beginnings of an article on women in science fiction. By 2006, the wiki contributors had merged them, and redirected searches for "feminist science fiction" to "women in science fiction". These are really distinct ideas and concepts. One person could get involved with the wiki community and make comments, or get rid of the redirect & explain formally what's going on. But if it became a "discussion" or a controversial page, then the lone feminist might be quite outnumbered.
#We see, ALL THE TIME, instances of sexist or biased language in wikipedia, which we dutifully correct and neutralize.
#Wiki process allows for great things like open public debate on the significance of, say, feminist online community theoriest danah boyd. And it allows simultaneously the possibility for really great geeking out obsessively on issues that are of interest to any of the participants. But in a culture which is fundamentally sexist, and dominated by boys who maybe haven't all had their consciousness raising moments, this can create things like a debate about the relevance of danah boyd, and NO DEBATE about the relevance of a detailed entry for each and every single Playmate of the Month or Playmate of the Year. One or two people could get involved in these issues, if they could figure out what they think about it, but it would be MUCH BETTER to have an entire flotilla of feminists infiltrating and subverting the dominant paradigms .... etc.

Any one of us as individuals could take on those issues in wikipedia. But it would be MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE if there were lots of women contributing their perspectives. So feministSF wiki is in part a recruiting tool to train and give feminists skills to go and contribute their perspectives to wiki, and ultimately to be louder & more active voices iin online communities.

Feminist SF Wiki:Wikipedia

2006-06-03T14:09:47Z

68.175.110.44: /* So what's the relationship between Wikipedia and the feministSF wiki (fsfwiki)? */

The feministSF wiki is not [http://wikipedia.org wikipedia] and it's not an attempt to replace it or to ghettoize feminist SF. Instead, we are using the MediaWiki software tool to develop a new and detailed reference resource, and to experiment with the community and process-oriented approach of wikipedia. And we have a secret feminist conspiracy.

===So what's the relationship between Wikipedia and the feministSF wiki (fsfwiki)?===
# The feministSF wiki uses the mediawiki software which was developed by and for and in conjunction with Wikipedia, but we use it for our own ends.
# Wikipedia encourages spin-off projects, and has developed a [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Interwiki_linking standard for interwiki references]. So, when we feel it's appropriate and we're ready to do so, we can add the interwiki language protocols, and reference directly to Wikipedia. (In the meantime, it is perfectly appropriate to do so using URLs.)
# FeministSF is one of many spin-off projects of Wikipedia. In SF/F, for example, there are wiki projects for [[http://www.infoshop.org/sf/index.php/Main_Page science fiction generally]], the [http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Harry Potter], "[[http://memory-alpha.org/ Star Trek]]", and at least one for [[http://www.thetolkienwiki.org/ Tolkien]].

===What are the differences between Wikipedia & the fsfwiki?===
# The feministSF is not written from a "neutral POV". At Wikipedia, and in a general reference encyclopedia, the assumption is that the articles should be written from a neutral point of view. At feministSF wiki, the assumption is that articles will be written from a feminist point of view. We want to understand and accurately describe other perspectives, but as feminists we also want to critique and deconstruct hierarchies of oppression, stereotyped thinking, problems that skew along axes of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, age, marital status or relational affiliation, language, and other forms of privilege or hierarchy.
# The feministSF wiki can get a lot deeper into feminist SF than a general encyclopedia like WikiPedia can. The feministSF wiki is a reference resource, like Wikipedia, but it can be much deeper and much broader than a general encyclopedia (even the world's best) encyclopedia is intended to be. For instance, while Wikipedia only wants to include entires on people or events of general significance, the feministSF wiki will include things of general significance to feminist SF — and that is already a good deal more specific than a general encyclopedia could be.
# The feministSF wiki can go beyond subject-specific encyclopedia and also be an archival resource and community document. But the feministSF wiki can also include things that would never be in any encyclopedia, because they are not of "general interest" in an encyclopedia sense--not even of "general interest" to the "feminist SF". For instance, while every single fan and writer might not be of interest or relevance in an encyclopedia, they ARE of interest and relevance to a project that strives to capture and document a feminist SF community in an archival sense as well. With [[tagging]] and [[categories]] and [[search]], we can still structure information in such a way to make it easy to find book authors, new authors, fans, wanna-be filmmakers, and so on, but we don't need to mandate and create a separation that is, in the feminist SF community, rather artificial. We all know that our writers are also fans and that fans are creators and that creators includes writing and jewelry-making and beading and software coding and graphic design and feminist processes and organizing perfectly organized pocket programs for conferences.
# The feministSF wiki is also an experiment in feminist process & community-building. Could it become a 24/7 feminist think tank? an online version of [[WisCon]], or a workshop, in which everyone works madly together -- but not just for 75 minutes, but at any moment ... coming together asynchronously through the [[discussion pages]] and other community aspects of the [[mediaWiki software]]? What kinds of connections can we document thru the wiki, which wouldn't be relevant or appropriate in a general encyclopedia? References, homages, influences, connections (family sexual affectional and otherwise)? How can we create that "web" of connections? Were particular stories inspired by experiences at WisCon or reactions to a fannish event of some sort? How can we connect the online community with real-world, offline, in-person, meat communities?

===Is there a feminist conspiracy behind the fsfwiki?===

Yes. We have three goals, and we will achieve them ''[[by any means necessary]]''.

# We will use the feministSF wiki to deconstruct our social programming in a "a wiki of our own". Wikis have the convention of creating [[sandbox]]es which are places for individuals to play with formatting to see if they can get it right. In a sense, they're safe places so people can learn to do things without fear of being castigated for screwing up, or fear of actually screwing things up for someone else or hurting the wiki. (You really couldn't anyway because someone else will catch it and fix it! That's the beauty of the wiki....) So in one sense the feministSF is a sandbox for social processes. It's a place for anyone to deconstruct their social programming -- particularly women who have been socialized NOT to correct others, to be polite, to not claim a lot of space in public places, to not argue or engage in flame wars, to not in some senses engage in robust public discussion. And people who have not had a lot of experience with technology, who may feel shy or inexperienced with wiki software, have another space place to learn it and to get comfortable with "geeking out". So the feministSF wiki is a place for all those folk to explore and experiment with the technology, get proficient with it, then take their skills out in the world to use with their own collaborative software, engaging in wikipedia editing & processes, and bringing more feminist presences and perspectives to wikis, and ultimately other tech-based communities, everywhere.
# We will explore & push the technology options offered by the mediawiki software as a collaborative medium in the way that only feminists dedicated to process can do.
# And of course we will take over [[WikiPedia]]. (See below.)

===Is this a critique of wikipedia?===
No, and yes.

The people who installed this wiki & made it available for you and thought about this FAQ LOVE wikipedia. We also love the kinds of open collaborations that the software makes possible, and the potential for doing things that wikipedia doesn't do.

BUT we've sometimes been frustrated with the wikipedia experience.
#For instance, a couple of years ago in 2004, there was a great article on feminist science fiction; and the beginnings of an article on women in science fiction. By 2006, the wiki contributors had merged them, and redirected searches for "feminist science fiction" to "women in science fiction". These are really distinct ideas and concepts. One person could get involved with the wiki community and make comments, or get rid of the redirect & explain formally what's going on. But if it became a "discussion" or a controversial page, then the lone feminist might be quite outnumbered.
#We see, ALL THE TIME, instances of sexist or biased language in wikipedia, which we dutifully correct and neutralize.
#Wiki process allows for great things like open public debate on the significance of, say, feminist online community theoriest danah boyd. And it allows simultaneously the possibility for really great geeking out obsessively on issues that are of interest to any of the participants. But in a culture which is fundamentally sexist, and dominated by boys who maybe haven't all had their consciousness raising moments, this can create things like a debate about the relevance of danah boyd, and NO DEBATE about the relevance of a detailed entry for each and every single Playmate of the Month or Playmate of the Year. One or two people could get involved in these issues, if they could figure out what they think about it, but it would be MUCH BETTER to have an entire flotilla of feminists infiltrating and subverting the dominant paradigms .... etc.

Any one of us as individuals could take on those issues in wikipedia. But it would be MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE if there were lots of women contributing their perspectives. So feministSF wiki is in part a recruiting tool to train and give feminists skills to go and contribute their perspectives to wiki, and ultimately to be louder & more active voices iin online communities.

Feminist SF Wiki:Wikipedia

2006-06-03T13:58:08Z

68.175.110.44: /* So what's the relationship between Wikipedia and the feministSF wiki (fsfwiki)? */

The feministSF wiki is not [http://wikipedia.org wikipedia] and it's not an attempt to replace it or to ghettoize feminist SF. Instead, we are using the MediaWiki software tool to develop a new and detailed reference resource, and to experiment with the community and process-oriented approach of wikipedia. And we have a secret feminist conspiracy.

===So what's the relationship between Wikipedia and the feministSF wiki (fsfwiki)?===
# The feministSF wiki uses the mediawiki software which was developed by and for and in conjunction with Wikipedia, but we use it for our own ends.
# Wikipedia encourages spin-off projects, and has developed a [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Interwiki_linking standard for interwiki references]. So, when we feel it's appropriate and we're ready to do so, we can add the interwiki language protocols, and reference directly to Wikipedia. (In the meantime, it is perfectly appropriate to do so using URLs.)
# FeministSF is one of many spin-off projects of Wikipedia. In SF/F, for example, there are wiki projects for [[http://www.infoshop.org/sf/index.php/Main_Page science fiction generally]], [[http://www.thetolkienwiki.org/ Tolkien]], and "[[http://memory-alpha.org/ Star Trek]]".

===What are the differences between Wikipedia & the fsfwiki?===
# The feministSF is not written from a "neutral POV". At Wikipedia, and in a general reference encyclopedia, the assumption is that the articles should be written from a neutral point of view. At feministSF wiki, the assumption is that articles will be written from a feminist point of view. We want to understand and accurately describe other perspectives, but as feminists we also want to critique and deconstruct hierarchies of oppression, stereotyped thinking, problems that skew along axes of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, age, marital status or relational affiliation, language, and other forms of privilege or hierarchy.
# The feministSF wiki can get a lot deeper into feminist SF than a general encyclopedia like WikiPedia can. The feministSF wiki is a reference resource, like Wikipedia, but it can be much deeper and much broader than a general encyclopedia (even the world's best) encyclopedia is intended to be. For instance, while Wikipedia only wants to include entires on people or events of general significance, the feministSF wiki will include things of general significance to feminist SF — and that is already a good deal more specific than a general encyclopedia could be.
# The feministSF wiki can go beyond subject-specific encyclopedia and also be an archival resource and community document. But the feministSF wiki can also include things that would never be in any encyclopedia, because they are not of "general interest" in an encyclopedia sense--not even of "general interest" to the "feminist SF". For instance, while every single fan and writer might not be of interest or relevance in an encyclopedia, they ARE of interest and relevance to a project that strives to capture and document a feminist SF community in an archival sense as well. With [[tagging]] and [[categories]] and [[search]], we can still structure information in such a way to make it easy to find book authors, new authors, fans, wanna-be filmmakers, and so on, but we don't need to mandate and create a separation that is, in the feminist SF community, rather artificial. We all know that our writers are also fans and that fans are creators and that creators includes writing and jewelry-making and beading and software coding and graphic design and feminist processes and organizing perfectly organized pocket programs for conferences.
# The feministSF wiki is also an experiment in feminist process & community-building. Could it become a 24/7 feminist think tank? an online version of [[WisCon]], or a workshop, in which everyone works madly together -- but not just for 75 minutes, but at any moment ... coming together asynchronously through the [[discussion pages]] and other community aspects of the [[mediaWiki software]]? What kinds of connections can we document thru the wiki, which wouldn't be relevant or appropriate in a general encyclopedia? References, homages, influences, connections (family sexual affectional and otherwise)? How can we create that "web" of connections? Were particular stories inspired by experiences at WisCon or reactions to a fannish event of some sort? How can we connect the online community with real-world, offline, in-person, meat communities?

===Is there a feminist conspiracy behind the fsfwiki?===

Yes. We have three goals, and we will achieve them ''[[by any means necessary]]''.

# We will use the feministSF wiki to deconstruct our social programming in a "a wiki of our own". Wikis have the convention of creating [[sandbox]]es which are places for individuals to play with formatting to see if they can get it right. In a sense, they're safe places so people can learn to do things without fear of being castigated for screwing up, or fear of actually screwing things up for someone else or hurting the wiki. (You really couldn't anyway because someone else will catch it and fix it! That's the beauty of the wiki....) So in one sense the feministSF is a sandbox for social processes. It's a place for anyone to deconstruct their social programming -- particularly women who have been socialized NOT to correct others, to be polite, to not claim a lot of space in public places, to not argue or engage in flame wars, to not in some senses engage in robust public discussion. And people who have not had a lot of experience with technology, who may feel shy or inexperienced with wiki software, have another space place to learn it and to get comfortable with "geeking out". So the feministSF wiki is a place for all those folk to explore and experiment with the technology, get proficient with it, then take their skills out in the world to use with their own collaborative software, engaging in wikipedia editing & processes, and bringing more feminist presences and perspectives to wikis, and ultimately other tech-based communities, everywhere.
# We will explore & push the technology options offered by the mediawiki software as a collaborative medium in the way that only feminists dedicated to process can do.
# And of course we will take over [[WikiPedia]]. (See below.)

===Is this a critique of wikipedia?===
No, and yes.

The people who installed this wiki & made it available for you and thought about this FAQ LOVE wikipedia. We also love the kinds of open collaborations that the software makes possible, and the potential for doing things that wikipedia doesn't do.

BUT we've sometimes been frustrated with the wikipedia experience.
#For instance, a couple of years ago in 2004, there was a great article on feminist science fiction; and the beginnings of an article on women in science fiction. By 2006, the wiki contributors had merged them, and redirected searches for "feminist science fiction" to "women in science fiction". These are really distinct ideas and concepts. One person could get involved with the wiki community and make comments, or get rid of the redirect & explain formally what's going on. But if it became a "discussion" or a controversial page, then the lone feminist might be quite outnumbered.
#We see, ALL THE TIME, instances of sexist or biased language in wikipedia, which we dutifully correct and neutralize.
#Wiki process allows for great things like open public debate on the significance of, say, feminist online community theoriest danah boyd. And it allows simultaneously the possibility for really great geeking out obsessively on issues that are of interest to any of the participants. But in a culture which is fundamentally sexist, and dominated by boys who maybe haven't all had their consciousness raising moments, this can create things like a debate about the relevance of danah boyd, and NO DEBATE about the relevance of a detailed entry for each and every single Playmate of the Month or Playmate of the Year. One or two people could get involved in these issues, if they could figure out what they think about it, but it would be MUCH BETTER to have an entire flotilla of feminists infiltrating and subverting the dominant paradigms .... etc.

Any one of us as individuals could take on those issues in wikipedia. But it would be MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE if there were lots of women contributing their perspectives. So feministSF wiki is in part a recruiting tool to train and give feminists skills to go and contribute their perspectives to wiki, and ultimately to be louder & more active voices iin online communities.

Feminist SF Wiki:Wikipedia

2006-06-03T13:56:50Z

68.175.110.44: /* So what's the relationship between Wikipedia and the feministSF wiki (fsfwiki)? */

The feministSF wiki is not [http://wikipedia.org wikipedia] and it's not an attempt to replace it or to ghettoize feminist SF. Instead, we are using the MediaWiki software tool to develop a new and detailed reference resource, and to experiment with the community and process-oriented approach of wikipedia. And we have a secret feminist conspiracy.

===So what's the relationship between Wikipedia and the feministSF wiki (fsfwiki)?===
# The feministSF wiki uses the mediawiki software which was developed by and for and in conjunction with WikiPedia, but we use it for our own ends.
# Wikipedia encourages spin-off projects, and has developed a [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Interwiki_linking standard for interwiki references]. So, when we feel it's appropriate and we're ready to do so, we can add the interwiki language protocols, and reference directly to WikiPedia. (In the meantime, it is perfectly appropriate to do so using URLs.)
# FeministSF is one of many spin-off projects of WikiPedia. In SF/F, for example, there are wiki projects for [[http://www.infoshop.org/sf/index.php/Main_Page science fiction generally]], [[http://www.thetolkienwiki.org/ Tolkien]], and "[[http://memory-alpha.org/ Star Trek]]".

===What are the differences between Wikipedia & the fsfwiki?===
# The feministSF is not written from a "neutral POV". At Wikipedia, and in a general reference encyclopedia, the assumption is that the articles should be written from a neutral point of view. At feministSF wiki, the assumption is that articles will be written from a feminist point of view. We want to understand and accurately describe other perspectives, but as feminists we also want to critique and deconstruct hierarchies of oppression, stereotyped thinking, problems that skew along axes of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, age, marital status or relational affiliation, language, and other forms of privilege or hierarchy.
# The feministSF wiki can get a lot deeper into feminist SF than a general encyclopedia like WikiPedia can. The feministSF wiki is a reference resource, like Wikipedia, but it can be much deeper and much broader than a general encyclopedia (even the world's best) encyclopedia is intended to be. For instance, while Wikipedia only wants to include entires on people or events of general significance, the feministSF wiki will include things of general significance to feminist SF — and that is already a good deal more specific than a general encyclopedia could be.
# The feministSF wiki can go beyond subject-specific encyclopedia and also be an archival resource and community document. But the feministSF wiki can also include things that would never be in any encyclopedia, because they are not of "general interest" in an encyclopedia sense--not even of "general interest" to the "feminist SF". For instance, while every single fan and writer might not be of interest or relevance in an encyclopedia, they ARE of interest and relevance to a project that strives to capture and document a feminist SF community in an archival sense as well. With [[tagging]] and [[categories]] and [[search]], we can still structure information in such a way to make it easy to find book authors, new authors, fans, wanna-be filmmakers, and so on, but we don't need to mandate and create a separation that is, in the feminist SF community, rather artificial. We all know that our writers are also fans and that fans are creators and that creators includes writing and jewelry-making and beading and software coding and graphic design and feminist processes and organizing perfectly organized pocket programs for conferences.
# The feministSF wiki is also an experiment in feminist process & community-building. Could it become a 24/7 feminist think tank? an online version of [[WisCon]], or a workshop, in which everyone works madly together -- but not just for 75 minutes, but at any moment ... coming together asynchronously through the [[discussion pages]] and other community aspects of the [[mediaWiki software]]? What kinds of connections can we document thru the wiki, which wouldn't be relevant or appropriate in a general encyclopedia? References, homages, influences, connections (family sexual affectional and otherwise)? How can we create that "web" of connections? Were particular stories inspired by experiences at WisCon or reactions to a fannish event of some sort? How can we connect the online community with real-world, offline, in-person, meat communities?

===Is there a feminist conspiracy behind the fsfwiki?===

Yes. We have three goals, and we will achieve them ''[[by any means necessary]]''.

# We will use the feministSF wiki to deconstruct our social programming in a "a wiki of our own". Wikis have the convention of creating [[sandbox]]es which are places for individuals to play with formatting to see if they can get it right. In a sense, they're safe places so people can learn to do things without fear of being castigated for screwing up, or fear of actually screwing things up for someone else or hurting the wiki. (You really couldn't anyway because someone else will catch it and fix it! That's the beauty of the wiki....) So in one sense the feministSF is a sandbox for social processes. It's a place for anyone to deconstruct their social programming -- particularly women who have been socialized NOT to correct others, to be polite, to not claim a lot of space in public places, to not argue or engage in flame wars, to not in some senses engage in robust public discussion. And people who have not had a lot of experience with technology, who may feel shy or inexperienced with wiki software, have another space place to learn it and to get comfortable with "geeking out". So the feministSF wiki is a place for all those folk to explore and experiment with the technology, get proficient with it, then take their skills out in the world to use with their own collaborative software, engaging in wikipedia editing & processes, and bringing more feminist presences and perspectives to wikis, and ultimately other tech-based communities, everywhere.
# We will explore & push the technology options offered by the mediawiki software as a collaborative medium in the way that only feminists dedicated to process can do.
# And of course we will take over [[WikiPedia]]. (See below.)

===Is this a critique of wikipedia?===
No, and yes.

The people who installed this wiki & made it available for you and thought about this FAQ LOVE wikipedia. We also love the kinds of open collaborations that the software makes possible, and the potential for doing things that wikipedia doesn't do.

BUT we've sometimes been frustrated with the wikipedia experience.
#For instance, a couple of years ago in 2004, there was a great article on feminist science fiction; and the beginnings of an article on women in science fiction. By 2006, the wiki contributors had merged them, and redirected searches for "feminist science fiction" to "women in science fiction". These are really distinct ideas and concepts. One person could get involved with the wiki community and make comments, or get rid of the redirect & explain formally what's going on. But if it became a "discussion" or a controversial page, then the lone feminist might be quite outnumbered.
#We see, ALL THE TIME, instances of sexist or biased language in wikipedia, which we dutifully correct and neutralize.
#Wiki process allows for great things like open public debate on the significance of, say, feminist online community theoriest danah boyd. And it allows simultaneously the possibility for really great geeking out obsessively on issues that are of interest to any of the participants. But in a culture which is fundamentally sexist, and dominated by boys who maybe haven't all had their consciousness raising moments, this can create things like a debate about the relevance of danah boyd, and NO DEBATE about the relevance of a detailed entry for each and every single Playmate of the Month or Playmate of the Year. One or two people could get involved in these issues, if they could figure out what they think about it, but it would be MUCH BETTER to have an entire flotilla of feminists infiltrating and subverting the dominant paradigms .... etc.

Any one of us as individuals could take on those issues in wikipedia. But it would be MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE if there were lots of women contributing their perspectives. So feministSF wiki is in part a recruiting tool to train and give feminists skills to go and contribute their perspectives to wiki, and ultimately to be louder & more active voices iin online communities.

Main Page

2006-06-03T13:53:05Z

68.175.110.44: /* FSF Books, Authors, Etc. */

<big>Welcome to the Feminist SF wiki</big>

... a collective knowledge base of all things feminist, fictional, and speculative (science fiction, fantastic, magically real, horror, and so forth) ... with [[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}]] pages

... we want your [[suggestions]] and ideas!

Current highlighted projects: Please add to the [[J.R.R. Tolkien]] pages, discussing representations of women and ethnicity in LOTR.

== The Heart of Feminist SF : the community ==

* WisCon -- [[WisCon 30]] just happened -- please [[WisCon 30|add your transcripts, bibliographies, notes & comments to individual sessions]]
* [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award]] -- The 2005 award was just given to [[Geoff Ryman]]'s [[Air]] at [[WisCon 30]] ... see http://tiptree.org/ for more info
** other awards: Carl Brandon Society [[Carl Brandon Parallax Award|Parallax Award]] and [[Carl Brandon Kindred Award|Kindred Award]] ... Gaylactic [[Spectrum Awards]] ... SFFFW [[Roots in Writing Award]] ... [[Sense of Gender Award]]
* [[Broad Universe]], the organization for women writing science fiction, fantasy and horror ... see http://broaduniverse.org/
* [[feministSF.org]], the host of this wiki, listserves, and various websites over the years ... see http://feministsf.org/
* [[Feminist SF Organizations|feminist SF & related organizations and communities]]
* [[Feminist SF fans, editors, and scholars]]
** [[Memorials & Remembrances]]
***[[Lisa Barnett]], ([[1958]]-[[2006]])
***[[Octavia Butler]], ([[1947]]-[[2006]])

== FSF Books, Authors, Etc. ==
* Creators, including [[Author List]] and [[Artists|Artists, Musicians, Etc.]]

* [[Publishers and Presses]]

* Bibliographies & Lists of Works
** [[Influential Feminist FSF Books]]
** [[Canons]]
** [[Reading Paths]]
** [[Reading Lists from Fans & Others]]
** [[:category:Films|Films]]

* Teaching feministSF & Critically Examining SF & feministSF
** [[Courses]]
** [[Syllabi]]
** [[Themes|Literary Devices, Tropes, Themes, Plot Points]] common to Feminist SF
*** [[Myths]] of particular interest to FSF
** [[Women in SF]]
*** [[Archetypal]] female characters
*** [[Women in SF Art]]
*** [[:category:Notable Female Characters|Notable Female Characters]]
** [[Women in Fandom]]
** [[FeministSF Critical Theory]]
** [[Timeline]] of Women in SF & Feminist SF

* [[Related]] related information on "SF" or "feminism" etc.
* [[:category:Media|Media]] for feminist SF works
* [[Quotes]]

== What is this? ==

* what's the [[mission|feministSF wiki]]?
** what's the FSFwiki [[mission]]?
** what's the [[FSFwiki process]] for negotiating disputes & the like?
** why aren't you just putting this stuff on [[wikipedia]]?
* what's [[feminist SF]]?
* what's [[feminism]]?
** what are some [[:category:feminist issues|feminist issues]] and [[:category:feminist processes|feminist processes]]?
* what's [[SF]]?

* "can I do it?" yes. Anybody can edit text -- go ahead, try it! Click "edit" at the top of the page ... (Except for this first page ... You have to log in & create a userID to edit the first page, a protection added because of linkspam.) See the [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide User's Guide] or the [[QuickCheatSheet|Quick Cheat Sheet]]
** want to do more?: If you want to be a super-editor and help do initial technical configurations of the wiki, write [[User:Lquilter|Laura Quilter]] or lquilter at lquilter.net with "fsfwiki" in the subject line.
** how do I make [[suggestions]]? (add them to the [[suggestions]] page)
** how can I help? contribute to our [[To Do List]]

== Navigation ==

* [[Special:Allpages|A-Z Index of All Pages]]

Main Page

2006-06-03T13:50:39Z

68.175.110.44:

<big>Welcome to the Feminist SF wiki</big>

... a collective knowledge base of all things feminist, fictional, and speculative (science fiction, fantastic, magically real, horror, and so forth) ... with [[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}]] pages

... we want your [[suggestions]] and ideas!

Current highlighted projects: Please add to the [[J.R.R. Tolkien]] pages, discussing representations of women and ethnicity in LOTR.

== The Heart of Feminist SF : the community ==

* WisCon -- [[WisCon 30]] just happened -- please [[WisCon 30|add your transcripts, bibliographies, notes & comments to individual sessions]]
* [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award]] -- The 2005 award was just given to [[Geoff Ryman]]'s [[Air]] at [[WisCon 30]] ... see http://tiptree.org/ for more info
** other awards: Carl Brandon Society [[Carl Brandon Parallax Award|Parallax Award]] and [[Carl Brandon Kindred Award|Kindred Award]] ... Gaylactic [[Spectrum Awards]] ... SFFFW [[Roots in Writing Award]] ... [[Sense of Gender Award]]
* [[Broad Universe]], the organization for women writing science fiction, fantasy and horror ... see http://broaduniverse.org/
* [[feministSF.org]], the host of this wiki, listserves, and various websites over the years ... see http://feministsf.org/
* [[Feminist SF Organizations|feminist SF & related organizations and communities]]
* [[Feminist SF fans, editors, and scholars]]
** [[Memorials & Remembrances]]
***[[Lisa Barnett]], ([[1958]]-[[2006]])
***[[Octavia Butler]], ([[1947]]-[[2006]])

== FSF Books, Authors, Etc. ==
* Creators, including [[Author List]] and [[Artists|Artists, Musicians, Etc.]]

* [[Publishers and Presses]]

* Bibliographies & Lists of Works
** [[Influential Feminist FSF Books]]
** [[Canons]]
** [[Reading Paths]]
** [[Reading Lists from Fans & Others]]
** [[:category:Films|Films]]

* Teaching feministSF & Critically Examining SF & feministSF
** [[Courses]]
** [[Syllabi]]
** [[Themes|Literary Devices, Tropes, Themes, Plot Points]] common to Feminist SF
*** [[Myths]] of particular interest to FSF
** [[Women in SF]]
*** [[Archetypal]] female characters
*** [[Women in SF Art]]
*** [[:category:Notable Female Characters|Notable Female Characters]]
** [[Timeline]] of Women in SF & Feminist SF

* [[Related]] related information on "SF" or "feminism" etc.
* [[:category:Media|Media]] for feminist SF works
* [[Quotes]]

== What is this? ==

* what's the [[mission|feministSF wiki]]?
** what's the FSFwiki [[mission]]?
** what's the [[FSFwiki process]] for negotiating disputes & the like?
** why aren't you just putting this stuff on [[wikipedia]]?
* what's [[feminist SF]]?
* what's [[feminism]]?
** what are some [[:category:feminist issues|feminist issues]] and [[:category:feminist processes|feminist processes]]?
* what's [[SF]]?

* "can I do it?" yes. Anybody can edit text -- go ahead, try it! Click "edit" at the top of the page ... (Except for this first page ... You have to log in & create a userID to edit the first page, a protection added because of linkspam.) See the [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide User's Guide] or the [[QuickCheatSheet|Quick Cheat Sheet]]
** want to do more?: If you want to be a super-editor and help do initial technical configurations of the wiki, write [[User:Lquilter|Laura Quilter]] or lquilter at lquilter.net with "fsfwiki" in the subject line.
** how do I make [[suggestions]]? (add them to the [[suggestions]] page)
** how can I help? contribute to our [[To Do List]]

== Navigation ==

* [[Special:Allpages|A-Z Index of All Pages]]

Uhura

2006-06-03T13:49:12Z

68.175.110.44:

A character in the "[[Star Trek]]" series, played by actress [[Nichelle Nichols]].

Commander Uhura began her career as Lieutenant Uhura, Chief Communications Officer on the Starship ''Enterprise'', a job sometimes mocked as a telephone operator in space. She was later promoted to Commander.

==Significance==

Uhura was one of the first Black female characters on TV. She and Captain James T. Kirk gave the first interracial kiss on US TV.
Her African-style name (based on a Swahili word and intended to be a Swahili name from the United States of Africa), the kiss, and her integration into a crew of internationals, including a Russian, were Gene Roddenberry's hopeful view of an international, interracial future.

==External Links==

* [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Uhura Uhura entry at Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki]

Tenar

2006-06-03T13:38:27Z

68.175.110.44:

[[category:Notable Female Characters]]

Leia Organa

2006-06-03T13:37:13Z

68.175.110.44:

Well-known for her wise-cracking, gun-toting, torture-resisting, and "oh for pete's sake I'll do it" ways in "[[Star Wars]]", Princess Leia Organa was a popular vision of the feminine in science fiction for a generation. Her character devolved through romance protagonist in [[The Empire Strikes Back]] and into the metal-bikini-wearing of adolescent fantasy in [[Return of the Jedi]].

Played by [[Carrie Fisher|Carrie Fisher]] in the films.

[[category:Notable Female Characters|Leia, Princess]]

Podkayne

2006-06-03T13:36:44Z

68.175.110.44:

One of [[Robert A. Heinlein|Heinlein's]] spunky, feisty female characters who often make real women feel slightly insane: so much to admire, but ...

[[category:Notable Female Characters]]

Podkayne

2006-06-03T13:36:28Z

68.175.110.44:

One of [[Robert A. Heinlein|Heinlein's]] spunky, feisty female characters who often make real women feel slightly insane: so much to admire, but ...

[[Notable Female Characters]]

Leia Organa

2006-06-03T13:34:55Z

68.175.110.44: