Evil Twin/Singing Like a Bird (WisCon 31 papers)
Academic Papers•Conference Room 3• Friday, 8:45-10:00 p.m.
1) Using works by Ursula K. Le Guin, Arthur C. Clark, Monique Wittig, and Orson Scott Card, as well as Walter Benjamin, Gayatri Spivak, and Carl Jung, this paper will explore the way fantastic literature expresses the struggle between individuals and collectives. Characters in science fiction and fantasy that are twins, clones, or share a collective consciousness typically follow certain patterns within this general preference for individualism. This essay will discuss particular twins and collectives within works of the fantastic in order to show the more general biases of our society, but will also discuss works that subvert these stereotypes, such as Monique Wittig’s feminine collective in Les Guérillères. 2) In Karen Joy Fowler's Sarah Canary the eponymous character cannot speak a language recognizable to those who encounter her, and seems to have sprung out of nowhere. The absence of history and her inability to articulate her own story prompts those who meet her to invest her with their own hopes, fears and need for an answer. This paper will look at Sarah Canary and Sister Noon, also by Karen Joy Fowler, as well as other selected stories, to consider the feral and that which cannot explain itself, and their effect on those who come in contact with them.
Nicolle Minnerly, Maureen Kincaid Speller