Moving Toward Marriage/Historical Revision (WisCon 31 papers)
Academic Papers•Conference Room 3• Saturday, 10:00-11:15 a.m.
1) It can be argued that science fiction, no matter how alien its cultures, more often than not describes the painful process by which people come to understand themselves and each other. In Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1978 introduction to Planet of Exile, she writes that the “central, constant theme” of her work is “marriage.” Geoff Ryman’s Lust (2001) is a more sexually explicit thought experiment regarding wish fulfillment fantasies and consent. In this paper, the work of Le Guin and Ryman will be discussed in light of Kate Millet’s groundbreaking Sexual Politics (1969) and more contemporary works such as psychotherapist Anne Wilson Schaef’s Escape From Intimacy (1989) and psychologist Brenda Schaeffer’s Loving Me, Loving You: Balancing Love and Power in a Codependent World (1991) and Is It Love Or Is It Addiction? (1997). — William Alexander
2) Ursula K. Le Guin's recent Earthsea fiction, Tales From Earthsea and The Other Wind, drastically revises the cosmological and historical narrative established in her original trilogy. The high fantasy genre takes much of its rhetorical authority from a sense of ancient tradition, and genre fans are legendary for their ability to nitpick flaws in continuity. I propose to examine Le Guin's narrative rhetoric as she negotiates this challenge and subjects her own world-building to critique. — Sandra Lindow
William Alexander, Sandra Lindow