After reading all of the books for this semester, I noticed that each book has mentioned warfare in some way or another. The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi, uses this theme as well, so it falls right into place with the other books we have read. Even though this is a common theme in these books, it […]
There are two major views what it comes to the human minds and body relationships and ideas similar. The first we discussed in class, Dualism. The idea is commonly expressed with Descartes. He held the belief that there were two parts to a person, the physical body and the immaterial mind. These connected through the […]
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to […]
Hello hello! Let me tell you a little more about Grahamites, and why Bacigalupi might have decided to include them as the instance of Christianity in his lovely book. According to Cindy Lobel, the Grahamites were those who followed Sylvester Graham and practiced “limiting their diets; avoiding meat, spices, condiments, and complex preparations of food; […]
We see a lot of perspectives in The Windup Girl; in Jaidee’s chapter, we learn more about the Environmental Ministry and how the Ministry was started. It’s pointed out that “All life produces waste. The act of living produces costs, hazards, and disposal questions, and the Ministry has found itself in the center of all […]
We have seen evidence in today’s society that rape culture is very prominent. People who have been raped don’t report it and if they do they often withdraw the accusation because we as women don’t feel that we have the right to say no. It’s easier and honestly safer to just let it happen […]
I’m not a very religious person, but I do believe that there is such a thing as a soul inhabiting the body. The Windup Girl deals with the issue of reincarnation and the continuation of the soul by being reborn until finding inner peace and the cycle stops. The mention this soul and how these genetic monstrosities […]
Emiko from The Windup Girl is an interesting character. I feel terrible for her. She is left behind by her first owner; but only because it would have been too expensive to take her back to Japan. Her character starts off the novel going through such harsh abuse, and it only seems to get worse as […]
I’ve had a thread running in my mind since the very first chapter about Emiko as I was already beginning to feel I could draw a connection between her and a character that I really love who also went through some pretty awful things- that character being Sansa Stark. Now, knowing more about Emiko and […]
In Paolo Bacigalupi’s novel The Windup Girl, I was thinking about how there are not many likable characters (at least I do not like many of them). Most of the characters are only looking out for themselves throughout the sections that we have read up to this point. For instance, Hock Seng is very determined […]
I love the idea of splicing and mixing animals together. There were a couple texts this semester where I have read about making different animals merge together to create something new. In The Windup Girl, right in the beginning, the megadont attacks the people and Anderson in particular. The animal is 15 plus feet tall […]
Okay, this is going to be a little far-fetched. What if the eshus of Midnight Robber are, in fact, the spirits of the Douen? Specifically, the spirits of the Douen somehow imbued into the technology? The idea of spirits possessing technology is not new. In fact, ghosts being forced, invited, or otherwise choosing to inhabit […]
The first thing I noticed when I picked up The Windup Girl is the different cultural setting this book has. Where the other books we have read this semester had a more western point of view, this book has a more eastern, Asian perspective. I find this change in perspective interesting because I am very interested […]
One of the things that I found fascinating was the author’s use of an anomalous source of stored energy that is considered somewhat archaic by contemporary consumers of electronic [Everything] – spring power! The “kink-springs,” a creation which Bacigalupi adds as a common source of stored energy in the world of The Windup Girl,[1] are […]
Emiko, a biologically-enginnered sex slave stuck in the endless cycle of abuse at an illegal sex club, is a symbol of the treatment and objectification of women. In objectification, people are viewed as objects or things that someone else can treat those people however they want. Women are sometimes seen as sex objects, something for men to […]
Chapter 3 of The Windup Girl was hard for me to read. I actually stopped reading for a while after the first half of this chapter, to let myself sit and think on what just happened and the role it was supposed to play in the narrative of the story. It was brutal, jarring, and it took […]
A capitalist market gives opportunity to small business, but it also lacks the leviathan to keep the market balanced. The companies on top are sure to take advantage at the cost of other’s loss (Morris 1984). This is why we experience mass production and are able to purchase goods for lesser amounts of currency. In […]
What disturbs me most about the text is the assault and degradation scene of Emiko. As a New Person of Japanese origin, Emiko is victim of Asian fetishization. Asian fetishization is the concept than Asian women are perceived as not only submissive, but hypersexual – and let’s not forget exotic. Exoticism + submission + hypersexuality […]
Instantly after reading the first couple of pages of The Wind Up Girl I was excited. I love the thought process behind genetic modifications and engineering even though it posses great controversy in today’s society. The truth is that with genetic modification and splicing we are able to increase the natural resistance of many plants […]
Our final novel of the semester is The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. I have been waiting to read this book since we first got our book list at the beginning of the year, mostly because I remember going with my brother to Barnes and Nobles to buy it a few years ago, and I […]
From what we’ve seen so far, the characters in Midnight Robber do not follow any specific religion. They instead look to Granny Nanny, pretty much the Internet system that gains access into people’s minds and thoughts through nanomites that are injected into people after birth. Nanny, for short, is an all-knowing entity that watches over and listens to […]
This is a notion that I have been thinking about. This seems to be a spectrum that all characters have to deal with. I call it a spectrum because those seem to be the extremes. This does seem to be a least one theme in the Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson. This is at least present […]
At the end of He, She and It I feel like Marge Piercy had to have the Maharal unmake Joseph. I also feel that she had to have Yod destroy himself and Avram. In both cases the parting of the characters seems the most humane in the long run. The ending to Malkah’s golem story is quite […]
In discussions of how to define humanity, one trait that often comes up is whether an individual possesses volition – they chose their thoughts and actions – or they are just doing what they were programmed to do (which often describes Yod). Yod is often delineated as less than human because he is just doing […]
I absolutely love the language in our newest novel, Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson. When I read the back cover, the first thing that stood out to me was the phrase “Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint.” Me, being the white Wisconsinite that I am, didn’t even think that that would effect anything whatsoever in the book. […]
With He, She, and It by Marge Piercy now finished, we are left with the thought that Yod is a sentient being, capable of all life functions. First, he is capable of higher thought, meaning that he is able to learn about different situations, and how to handle them, adapting to his surrounds one might […]
The life of Y-S categorizes all who inhabit inside the dome, deciding who will work where and what they are allowed to do (Piercy, 1). It reminds me of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World by the organization of people’s lives without the individual’s choice. Y-S is like a machine that is framing a forceful life upon everybody […]
I’m going to start this post off by admitting to having researched Carnival traditions with great fervor as a child… due to a Nancy Drew computer game. I was so intrigued by the very small glimpse of these festivities that were shown in the game that I, who wanted to be Nancy Drew back then, […]
During the reading of Marge Piercy’s book we have come across Yod who was an instance of Artificial Intelligence that have developed sentience. there has been previous instances of advanced AI in this world as many of the people are augmented with special connectors to access the net or to replace many damaged body parts. […]
We’ve only just started reading Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson, but the tone of the book is already very interesting. This book is supposed to be a science fiction book, which it is, but so far it doesn’t really feel like that when I’m reading it. However, there are definitely elements of science fiction in […]
When starting to read this book I think the most abnormal thing for me was the nanomites that are put into brains to connect each person with the nanomites Granny Nanny which is comparable to the internet which I feel would be super helpful but also super exhausting being able to access all that information […]
“You steal information.” “I liberate it. Information shouldn’t be a commodity. That’s obscene”[1] [2] In the age of information, “The ability to access information is power.”[3] I can really appreciate Piercy’s commentary on the ethical obligation to have access to information. Information is the great equalizer, and should not be a commodity of the […]
In my opinion, Yod is a very interesting character and is one of my favorite characters from He, She and It. When I read the back of the book and saw that there was going to be a cyborg in this book, my initial thought was that it was going to look like one of my […]
A notable word used throughout He, She, and It is “natural” and “unnatural”, especially talks with humans and cyborgs. On page 150, Yod and Shira argue if Shira is actually disgusted by Yod or not. She says “Yod, we are all unnatural now. I have retinal implants… a plug set into my skull to interface with […]
In my opinion Marge Piercy’s character Yod should be considered human. To be human I think that a being must be partly biological, capable of higher intelligence, and have a range of human emotions. Yod demonstrates on multiple occasions that he does react like a human to impulses from his brain, that could be considered […]
In Marge Piercy’s novel He, She and It, she has a character named Yod, who is a cyborg. He is an interesting character (characters are important to me). We know that Yod was created to protect, and that he kills several people in the book. When Yod kills to protect Shira from organ scavengers, Yod […]
The discussion between natural and unnatural, especially in relation to a woman’s purpose, frustrated me. On page 116, it was stated that a woman who conceives is essentially a goddess. Although this is a primitive way of thinking, it still holds true today. There’s an assumption that the only function of a woman is giving […]
The cyborg’s name is Yod. I want to speculate about the name; it may or may not reflect what the author Marge Piercy thought about when choosing that name for that particular character. Yod (rhymes with mode) is the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet (Piercy 69). It has a numeric value of 10. It […]
We spoke at length in class about violence. Yod, our cyborg character who is programmed to defend, kills four people. He is programmed to use violence in the protection of someone else – Shira. There is this fantastic story of Joseph who kills to protect, and he is told that killing is wrong by his […]
An idea that carries throughout He, She and It is the idea of the natural and unnatural. On Tuesday we talked about this idea in class, and the idea has been in my mind since. Yod thinks he is “something unnatural” (150) because he is a created being, and thus he feels he is monstrous even […]
Today (11/10/2016) in class, we brought up the definition of humanity. What is it? What does it encompass? Well, for starters, I shall define humanity as a virtue. Virtues are defined as traits that are deemed “morally good”. Morals are bound by the perspective of good and bad, so my definition will be a bit […]
In Marge Piercy’s Book He, She, and It the story starts off with the dramatic court battle over the custody of little Ari which inevitably leads to Shira only getting partial custody of her 2 year old son she so deeply loves. I find this very interesting because compared to our society where we put […]
In a discussion about Piercy’s He, She, and It, social constructs came to the surface of the conversation. The conversation had begun with Yod being unnatural, then argued that so much of what is considered natural in our lives today is actually, literally unnatural, or forced. We can refer to this as technology — from a […]
Today in class we were focusing a lot on Yod and how he wasn’t treated as if he had feelings or choices, but by what we have read it does seem that this cyborg makes his own choices. I wanted to address Yod and his “inability to understand the bonds of blood” because I feel […]
I almost had to laugh last class period because of the topic of what is human, or what is humanity. There are so many different ways to address this question. If anyone has read, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, this novel is a perfect example of how this questioned is asked. This novel is […]
In the latest section of Piercy’s novel discussed in class, themes of nature have sprung questions that weren’t quite answered. I’d like to contemplate this topic and by doing so, I invite criticism to challenge my understanding of the debatable topic. Nature is a confusing notion, especially in our time because the modern world seems to […]
So, I’m fairly certain now that Jim doesn’t die in the end. But Lillian dies. Lillian, a side character we don’t truly get to meet. She can be painted, I believe, as a symbol for another kind of death in the story. The death of innocence, experienced by each of the characters in some way. […]
The size of the cities in the book He, She and It, by Marge Piercy seem like what will happen to our country in the near future. The cities will just keep expanding and then cities borders will be almost nonexistent. A good example of this from the book is the description of a places they […]
The part of this book that has stood out the most for me so far was chapter 9, revising the family album. There’s a lot of information and theoretical thinking here I feel between changing your gender even if it’s for a night and talking about Malkah and her past relationships. How you can be […]
One speculation implicit in the reading of He She and It, is that one day we may all pledge our allegiance to a corporation instead of a state or government entity. This future phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the corporatocracy.[1] [2] In Piercy’s novel, the government has essentially collapsed into a powerless background noise. […]
One thing that really stood out to me while reading He, She and It by Marge Piercy was one of the uses of Yod was as a character without any knowledge or that was learning. This is an obvious recurring theme as to explain the world that is brought forth. It was used in almost every book […]
As mentioned in class there are some similarities between Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Marge Piercy’s He She and It. One of the things that stuck out to me though was the similarity of the worlds. Piercy shows in many places in the book that the outside world is dangerous due to climate […]
He, She and It, by Marge Piercy features a character, Yod, who is a cyborg that is purposed with defending Tikva’s inhabitants. Yod has simple programming for how to handle some social situations, such as when Shira mentioned selling him to Olivacon. “Yod responded to this by turning to stare at Avram, looking shocked,” Piercy […]
In Robinson’s novel, The Gold Coast, going back to nature seems to be a solution to a number of problems. As I discussed in a previous blog, the desire to escape is prevalent in the novel, by more characters than Jim. Exploring and going back to nature, in solitude, is a solution Tashi, Jim, and Tom […]
Let me premise this blog post by saying that I am legitimately terrified of artificial intelligence taking over the world and killing us all. Some people believe in the zombie apocalypse; I believe in the future destruction of the human race by the hands of vindictive robots. So, naturally, I like to watch shows about […]
When I first went to California I was expecting so much glamour and glitz and the idea of experiencing a totally new aspect of the world. Instead apart from the flashy car every so often and coastline that lined the state I was met with much of the same. I was Jim, looking for something […]
Marge Piercy’s He, She and It showcases an interesting cast of characters, including a cyborg named Yod. He is created to protect the people in his community, and by the request of his creator Avram, is placed under the watch of Shira so that she can teach him how to be more human and how to distinguish […]
In He, She and It by Marge Piercy one of the first things that I noticed when I started reading was how Shira sounds like a completely normal woman, someone that we might see today, even though this book is set in a completely strange and unusual world to us. One of the things I […]
From also being in Professor Lowery’s Sci-Fi and Future course, the connection this week really stuck with me through Blade Runner. We read Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and the story takes place in a desolate location on Earth after World War Terminus. It’s a dark dangerous place that has toxic […]
In the book, Jim and co. are looking for a past beyond their lifetime experience. They aren’t certain of it at first; Sandy summarizes the general feeling among them when he says “I want to see someplace different” (Robinson 225). They all go to Europe, hoping for something unfamiliar. In Ithanos, a place untapped by […]
One of the things I noticed when reading The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson is how big a role the setting being in California is. The Gold Coast idea in itself is saying that the people should head to California because it is filled with gold and that meant opportunity, California seems to be mystified in […]
I think we all have those immediate changes in personality that Jim displays in chapter 73, when we are accusing our parents of things when we are upset of don’t understand things. I don’t understand what my father does to support our family, or my mother for that matter. I know my dad is in […]
In the last section of The Gold Coast discussed, Jim is starting to actualize his potentials. A major theme of Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel is circularity. Not the perfections of a circle, but the looping of a circle. This loop is a representation of exteriority. The outside world of Orange County controls Jim by drawing […]
Reading The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson has me reflecting on a lot of the feelings I have toward myself. In so many ways, I identify with the main character, Jim McPherson. I am often stuck. Jim often finds himself going in circles – both symbolically and literally. His life is formulaic, the cars […]
In most recent section of “The Gold Coast” Jim is finally starting to hatch out of his figurative cocoon, where he was previously unable to identify his own purpose and talent in life. What was it that Jim could do, what contribution could he provide that was unique and important? He searched through several artistic […]
One scene in The Gold Coast that stuck with me personally was when Jim goes out by himself and realizes the state that actual people are living in. The scene which begins on page 230 and continues onto the next page shows him experiencing the idea of poverty, and then reflecting on it. His eyes are opened […]
In The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson we get to look at Jim Mcpherson as he tries to deal with what seems like the never ending cycle of getting spit out of the machine. It is because of this that he so reminds me of an angsty teen still in their high school career, […]
es·cap·ism /əˈskāpˌizəm/ the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy The desire to escape and find a new place seems to be an undercurrent theme in The Gold Coast, specifically for Jim. The crew goes to Europe to get away and find something different; however, […]
Jim and his friends travel to Europe in chapters 44 and 45. Authenticity is questioned here, because a lot of the elements they found in Europe were Americanized. Much of the trip reminisced of OC and that angered Jim. As a person who has traveled to Greece (but never to California) I can say definitively […]
Community is an interesting aspect in The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson. We talked about this in class for a little bit and it was something that interested me. Community is an aspect that has been in a few of the books we’ve read (like Island by Aldous Huxley), but the community in this […]
Several passages in The Gold Coast indicate a subtle theme of human detachment. The public in general, as well as several specific characters in the book, are detached from the reality of the world around them, from each other, and from a meaningful existence. As Jim and Arthur go around the mall posting anti-war posters, […]
The thing that struck me at first when I started reading The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson was how technology was being used in this world. The first thing I noticed was how different the cars were. From what I am getting from the book so far is that cars follow a magnetic path and […]
In The Gold Coast Jim and his more politically active friend Arthur talk about the history of Orange County, and Arthur dramatically says “Their efforts were wasted!” (42). This point has really stuck with me. It keeps nagging at me, because I do not think Arthur was right. He continues to go on and explain that their […]
In the Gold Coast, we see a lot of high government business interactions that seem very similar to today’s business settings, as well as general inter-human relationships. Dennis McPherson, a defense engineer for the Pentagon, has a meeting with and is given a new project by his superior, Stewart Lemon. However, Lemon has a certain […]
One of the things I want to think about for my final project is the connection between the time the author is writing and the work they produce. One of the best examples of that is our current work: The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson. Our author is writing at a time when the […]
An interesting topic that was touched on during the discussion of The Gold Coast was the idea of vanity. The theme is present in the sexual scene in which Jim and Virginia cannot even bring themselves to have sex without the presence of technology, they feel the need to record themselves. This can be viewed […]
Jim McPherson and other characters within the pages of Gold Coast are vain and narcissistic. When I read through the part where Jim was having sex with Virginia, I felt entirely uncomfortable. How he described her body and her beauty was disturbing. His snippets of poetry disconnected Virginia from her aesthetic and her as a […]
The idea of creativity as an outlet in Robinson’s The Gold Coast struck me. The poems that Jim writes to try and express himself intrigued me, and helped make him a bit more likable to me than Bron ever was, even though Jim shares many of the same personality traits with him right now. While he’s not exactly good […]
The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson focusing mostly on Jim McPherson and his story. His father, Dennis works a government contractor with Laguna Space Research. He works on programs such as “the Ball Lightning program” (Robinson 8). The program he works on are sometimes black ops and sometimes superblack programs. In this world, “Congress […]
Bron Helmstrom’s questioning of theatre has resonated with me to a point of questioning my experience of art. Creativity comes in all forms with multitudes of purpose, perhaps to have no purpose. What struck the chord is when the Spike answers Bron, “But all theatre is reality. And all reality is…theatre!”(Delaney 75). This thought has […]
The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson is a weird book (like many of these books we’ve been reading), but it’s still very interesting because it’s set not very far into our future and is only a possible way for how our future could have gone. One of the things that are standing out for […]
Why is there a war between the worlds and the outer satellites? There’s no concept of scarcity in the book. There’s no production of physical necessities mentioned. The war against Earth and Mars is made to look like aggressors, trying to keep their colonies for the sake of having colonies, where the outer satellites are […]
Delany loves to incorporate symbolism and metaphors in his works; Trouble on Triton is not excluded from this and the main character is a prime example. “Bron” sounds very close to the word “brawn”, which is often referred to when using the phrase “brains versus brawn”. Bron is a lot of things: self-absorbed, arrogant, ignorant. […]
Bron is an anti-hero. He’s doesn’t uphold the traditional values a hero usually has, like bravery and courage. To me, he doesn’t even have a redemption arc. Instead, Bron is whiny and entitled. Bron prospered when everyone didn’t have equal rights and opportunity. Equality felt like oppression to Bron. He’s straight, white, masculine, and homophobic. […]
The whole time I was reading Trouble on Triton, I thought that Bron’s character was going to learn and grow as a character. I thought that at some point he would figure out that the way he is acting is hurting other people and is also keeping himself from being happy, but he never fully gets […]
In the beginning of Trouble on Titan we are thrown into a very different world than what were are used to. The streets are filled with bizarre people from various religious groups as well with people in intriguing clothing if at all in clothing to begin with. We soon here about this distant war that […]
So I ended last week with stating that Bron is the heterotopian element in the novel. Part reason behind it was because of his chronic lying. Now, with the novel concluded, I will say that Bron is not only a chronic liar, but also ignorant to the reason(s) why (s)he is. Bron continues his insistent […]
In my opinion I do not think even after the end of the book that Bron’s character could be happy. Bron only changes to becoming a female to save the type of female he thinks is ideal, but in doing so he forgets that he cannot flip characteristics and personality traits as easily as he […]
It has been established that Bron is not a good person. Throughout reading the book I constantly felt the need to laugh uncomfortably, out loud, for how dense Bron’s responses were to different events. I think what made each of these instances so jarring was that they came right after opportunities of redemption. There seem […]
The novel Trouble on Triton by Samuel R. Delany has many interesting characters. However, the main character is Bron Helstrom. Most of us can agree that Bron is not our favorite person in this book. He is very self-absorbed and selfish, and yet he still has people that consider him a friend. These people are […]
The outlook Bron has is one that has been shaped and molded to label everything he/she encounters. The more labeling that happens in the exterior world brings more assumptions in and outside of Bron. The experiences under assumptions bring the same experiences over and over again. I believe it is this reason Bron cannot learn […]
Reading this section of Trouble on Triton I felt kind of bad for Bron when he did all of that work to take the Spike out and he told her that he loved her and she did not reciprocate those same feelings back. But further looking into it should I have felt bad for him? […]
satellite [sat-l-ahyt] a natural body that revolves around a planet; a moon The word satellite originated from the Latin word “satellit” — meaning an attendant, one who is constantly hovering around and attending to a “master” or big man. When I hear the word “satellite” I immediately think of a piece of technology put into space […]
In sharp contrast to Huxley and in minor contrast to Russ, Delany’s heterotopia seems to lack nature. Not only does the book not feature stuff we associate with nature, but the setting of the book is artificial. There’s artificial gravity and an artificial sky. Is the society of Triton only created in artifice? Even people’s […]
So far I have had a good time reading this book, Trouble on Triton by Samuel Delany. The thing that catches my attention is the differences in culture between the Inner Worlds and the Outer Satellites. The first difference I noticed was the government. In inner worlds have a more uptight and private government, more like […]
I was very intrigued by Delany’s use of language in this book and how he basically challenges the way our brain thinks through the language that he uses. An example of this is the name Brian Sanders in the book, which is the name of a female character. In our society, the name Brian has […]
We learn on page 126 that Sam used to be a white, blonde, blue-eyed woman, but now he is a black man. When he was the woman version of himself, he was attracted to people who looked a lot like his previous self, and the women he was attracted to were attracted to black men. […]
Bron’s character in Trouble on Triton in the beginning seems to be the kind of person who should be happy. He is well liked by others as Delany writes on page 40 in the book, “Yet he still considered Alfred his friend, because Alfred, like all his others had come to him.” Bron also is at a fairly […]
Samuel R. Delany’s Trouble on Triton creates a utopian society on the moon of Triton. For a really quick definition, heterotopia ” is where things are different — that is, a collection whose members have few or no intelligible connections with one another” (qtd. in Heterotopia(space)). Triton, for the most part, is a relatively utopian […]
Samuel Delaney’s writing has been quite challenging for me. I find it to be surprising that the majority of the class find “Trouble On Triton” an easier read when compared to “Island” by Aldous Huxley. I have a few new angles in my perspective from working on this particular blog that has me rereading to […]
Delany really stressed how Bron and The Spike are opposites. The passage where this is most stressed is probably 94-107. In chronological order, prior to this meeting them, Bron gets up that morning and dresses in all black to go to work. That is day that he gets Miriamne removed form his department for reference. When […]
While not appearing for a long amount of time in Trouble on Triton, Miriamne was a character I found interesting right away. Here you are presented with this woman who is struggling to find a job in her field and who is eager to work in the position she is given, and yet the first thought […]
On Neptune’s moon, Triton, citizens are able to choose their living arrangements, referred to as a co-op, based on a number of preferences. Some of these preferences include gender, sexual orientation, and religion. As Spike explained, “If you’re gay, you find a gay co-operative; if you’re straight, you go find yourself one of the male/female […]
In Samuel R. Delany’s book Trouble on Triton there doesn’t seem to be many similarities to our world. Things are still familiar to us as readers, but overall most things are practically alien to us. One of the things that I thought was different and interesting was the naming situation for the characters. We touched […]
A common theme in these books we have been reading has been free love or societies where sex isn’t a big deal. I think Sierra in class today talked about how when people aren’t worried about who other people are sleeping with there is a lot more time and space in brains for information that […]
An important feature of things like sexuality, race, and gender is that these are biological features, attributes, that are assigned genetically without consent or control of the individual. No one has the opportunity to choose a race, gender, or sexual orientation. Whichever combination of these features are assigned, are done so without purposeful intent, and […]
Jael has two introductions. Once in part 2, and again in part 8. It’s exactly the same in both places, with two major differences. The first one includes “You’ll meet me later” (19) and lets on she’s not any of the characters we’ve met so far. This serves primarily to foreshadow Jael, who we indeed […]
Throughout Russ’s “The Female Man,” four of the main characters of the novel are presented as somehow existing in separate but related universes. The means of navigating between worlds is equated to time travel. The worlds are also suggested to be causally connected and temporally structured as separate branching outcomes, which can be linked back […]
In class we were talking about the possibility of other universes and how each one would change based on each decision one makes. That being said, you and I are very different people and so each of my decisions create a new universe for each decision I make and each decision you make creates a […]
The 1970’s was a powerful time for oppressed groups. It is a time in which we really see a change in our nation, with a vibrant uprising of oppressed groups. Now, that’s not to say that things got “fixed,” but there was certainly a turn of the tide. In The Female Man, by Joanna Russ, we […]
At first glance, Jeannine doesn’t seem to be very bright. She’s simple. She spends her days tidying the apartment, caring for her cat (and Cal), and then goes to work at the library. The Depression leaves her with little money, but she dresses with as much style she can afford. Her head is full of […]
Alright, so The Female Man ended with the big reveal that Joanna, Janet, Jeannine, and Jael are are all technically the same person, but from different timelines or universes. Jael had brought them together in the hope of creating points in time to which she could expand her war on men to. “‘So?’ says Jael. […]
I personally had a difficult time finding a connection with Joanna Russ’s The Female Man — with the characters (even the multiple facets of Joanna) or the the story itself — although I admire Russ’s brave, ahead-of-her-time writing, given the context of when this novel was written. Anyway, I didn’t have a particularly deep connection with The Female Man, but […]
The Female Man is an important social commentary about women, women’s place in the world, and women’s agency during the Second Wave feminist movement. My favorite passage in the novel is on page 207, when I’m assuming Jeannine says, “Learning to / despise / one’s / self.” Women have been socialized to not only dislike […]
During the hard reading of “The Female Man” we come across the four main characters of the book, Joanna, Jeannine, Janet, and Jael. These women might be from different places in time and space but they all have struggles of their own, most especially have them against men. The thing that most of these women are […]
The Female Man opens the door to a few versions of feminism through the alternate J’s of Joanna. I’m using feminism in the sense of what our culture has created to be femininity, not the sole contemporary movement. Joanna Russ was able to portray hyper masculinity with ease. Patriarchy was evident by the priorities of […]
Even though I had a hard time following what was happening in the book, The Female Man, I thought Joanna Ross did a great job creating a world that tells a good message. At first, she made it look like there were three separate people and seeing the world from each perspective. That being so, […]
The Female Man by Joanna Russ was a difficult book to understand and to read. There’s a lot going on in the book, with several characters’ point of view throughout. That being said, there were interesting aspects that Russ was writing about. The biggest (for me) was the idea that there were several worlds, not […]
I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of parallel universes, and I was really impressed with the way Joanna Russ incorporated this into The Female Man. Once Jael said that Janet and the other women are not pieces of Joanna- though as the end is in some ways left to the interpretations of readers they still could […]
There are five J’s in the book. Four of them are characters. They all are Jeannine, Joanna (character), Janet, Jael, and Joanna (author). Joanna (author) lays down commentary and characters are seemingly symbols. The major comparisons of the characters comes from when Jael brings them all together. They are all the same person from different […]
The story Vittoria is telling ‘Joanna’ starting on page 95 ends with Joanna thinking it’s about her. Before we talked about it in class, I took the story as the little girl being strayed away from her true identity or the life she wanted to live. Perhaps the place where she has her own species […]
In Joanna Russ’s The Female Man, there’s a part that can be interpreted as Joanna, the author, trying and failing to control her character, Janet. It is an interesting phenomenon in a writer. I myself have had these moments when I put character to page, or even simply in my own head. A character will […]
Women are often expected not to be angry or violent when faced with less than polite behavior or action. In The Female Man, Janet flips the script on pages 46 and 47. Janet fights a man that belittles and says outright disgusting things about her. Joanna doesn’t understand why Janet would do that and she looks into her […]
Within the Utopias built by the work of Joanna Russ in “The Female Man,” and “When It Changed;” and Alice Sheldon’s “Huston Do You Read,” the authors are effective in their effort to overturn gender bias, gender stereotypes, and overcome several assumptions about the role and personalities that women can potentially fulfill within society. Their […]
For the novel, “The Female Man”, I was extremely confused when I started reading the book. I wasn’t sure what exactly was going on. I did not make the connection where Joanne was a figment of Janet. But now that I understand a couple different ways the novel could be looked at, it makes it […]
In the reading, “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” I was personally very attached to the presence of gender roles that emerged as a seemingly central theme to the story. In particular, I felt that the presence of excessive masculinity within the three male characters of the story was accurately representative of, not only some men […]
In The Female Man by Joanna Russ she describes four different main characters Janet, Jeannine, Joanna, and Jael. The four women are set in different times and with personalities that match the times. I think that these different personalities are different people. There are multiple instances where Janet, I feel, is a separate person. In the […]
Wonder [wuhn-der] to think or speculate curiously Wander [wän-der] to move around or go to different places usually without having a particular purpose or direction In class, Professor Ganyard brought up the concept of “Wonder vs. Wander” in the world of science fiction. This concept is a praxis upon which any science fiction work […]
Janet, the alien human from a distant all woman future, Jeannine, a woman from a reality where World War 2 never happened (year 1969), and Joanna, a woman from our reality’s 1969 are all separate from each others’ person. The reason behind this requires some background context. The Female Man was written during the height […]
Between Houston, Houston, Do You Read? and The Female Man there seemed to be a lot of correlation between the utopias. A disclaimer with a sample size of two it is wrong to say that all are like this though. Of course some of these qualities are common in many utopias. The first example that […]
The Female Man is remarkable in that it approaches what it means to be a woman from four distinct worlds – or personalities. Joanna Russ, author of The Female Man, sets up a confusing, hilarious, exhausting, and Utopian narrative centered around gender and feminism. The four personalities follow: Joanna, Janet, Jeannine, and Jael (whom, at this […]
In the Female Man, by Joanna Russ, a world called the Whileaway is introduced. Not only is it interesting, it takes place in the year 2869. This captivating world is told to us by a character named Janet Evason. She is married to a women named Vittoria, has two kids, and has worked in the […]
Joanna, Janet, Jael, and Jeannine are the same woman. While it seems like each woman could be a separate entity, the clues point to them all being one. We discussed in class how Janet is the idealism Joanna lacks, so Joanna “made her [Janet] up” to be the assertive version of herself (Russ, 30). I […]
Houston, Houston do you read? by James Tiptree Jr. was an interesting story to read. This short story starts with three men, who don’t really seem that bad at first. As the story progresses, we come to find out that these men are actually awful human beings. The story suggests that perhaps all men […]
Joanna Russ presents multiple main characters in her novel The Female Man, and no two characters are more interesting to see interact that the characters Janet and Joanna. Janet is very open and inquisitive. She is willing to talk about her society and its ideas and to ask about the ways of the society she finds […]
I thought it was interesting on page 53 how Janet was talking about taboos in her society, because it’s so different than here that I can’t see how anything can be taboo. I understand it is a thing but I think when I am trying to get the framework of a story or a new […]
In “Island” Aldous Huxley presents commentary on the nature of consciousness in relation to the physical body, and the potential for chemically induced manipulation of the increase and decrease of awareness of one’s true consciousness.1 The characters Dr. Robert, Will, and Murugan are discussing the effects of the moksha-medicine, and its potential to expand consciousness. […]
In Aldous Huxley’s Island he talks about family structure on the Utopian Island of Pala. On Pala children and parents are allowed greater freedom and greater responsibility through a Mutual Adoption Club (MAC). In the book Huxley uses Susila to show how the classic nuclear family does not fit into Pala. Susila describes how as a […]
Pala is a rather isolated community whose spirituality seems heavily influenced by Mahayana Buddhism. This makes sense due to the influence of the author, who as an Englishman probably had little exposure to the more traditional Theravada Buddhism. This is rather interesting considering the island’s name, Pala, seems rather reminiscent of Pali, the original language […]
The ideal utopian society doesn’t exist, and I will argue that it shouldn’t exist. While reading Huxley’s Island, the characters were distant, flat. I didn’t feel a connection to the islanders. And though I wanted Pala to be safe and avoid invasion, I had no emotional connection to the lives on Pala. It was much […]
Island, the novel that Huxley considers to be his crown jewel, brings up the idea of true identity. Will, the protagonist, shipwrecked on the island of Pala where he spends about a month there, learning their culture. During this time, Will will follow a path of self discovery and come to terms with his past. […]
The education system of Pala has me wishing I were developed with the same processes. The main distinction is the practice of mindfulness. When I was introduced to mindfulness, my perception of the world had completely changed. The children aren’t lied to about how the world works; they have a better grasp of themselves and […]
Having done some personal research on Buddhism, I picked up on Aldous Huxley’s references to the religion in Island right away. At first, the references were slightly subtle, and if you had no knowledge of Buddhism, you wouldn’t have known that’s what many of the Palanese beliefs were derived from. However, I’ve been intrigued by this […]
The imagery of light is a major component in Island. An example of Huxley’s use of light imagery is in Lakhmi’s death. Susilla, comforting her dying mother, reminds Lakshmi that the light she sees is, “‘[her] own consciousness shining, void, inseparable from the great Body of Radiance…’ (Huxley, Island 318)”. After Lakshmi’s death, Will and […]
During Wills unexpected crash on the forbidden island of Pala we soon discover that this seemingly taboo place was full of very intelligent individuals. As Will gets patched up by Dr. Robert McPhail and deals with the pain of his injuries he is paid a visit by Susila and Nurse Radha who starts to inform […]
In Aldous Huxley’s Island there is a lot of description of family and how these families are set up in the Pala society. This aspect of the novel is very interesting because when compared to the family system that we have now, Pala’s society concerning family is very different. We are told that the family […]
While reading Huxley’s Island, I caught a pattern in the narrative, in which we the reader are often given a glimpse of Faranby’s past actions before someone does something to help him out of the goodness of their heart, thus allowing Faranby to come to terms with those haunting memories. The difference was so stark at […]
In Huxley’s Island there are two major flaws in Palan society that lead to their downfall. Neither of these flaws are inherently within the people of the society, they are more to do with policies (or lack there of). One leads to the practical demise of Pala while the other is a major a factor or eventual […]
I am currently taking Professor Ganyard’s class and also a class taught by Professor Lowery this semester. For this blog post I have decided to connect the two classes. Listening to Professor Ganyard talk about Huxley, I drew the connection when Professor Lowery was lecturing us about H.G. Wells. (Professor Lowery’s class is the Sci-fi […]
Utopias can serve as this ultimate criticism for our world through proposing an alternate world in which things are totally different. Aldous Huxley does this for us through the use of a critical Utopian world, Pala. In his novel, Island, Huxley grapples with strong themes – some political, some philosophical, and some personal. One such theme is […]
I noticed that in “The Island,” Huxley does not seem to address Palanise policy on individuals with disabilities. However, it is possible to get a feel for what types of policies the Palanisian government has in place for the disabled, assuming it does indeed have them. For example, when discussing how Palanise education works, Mr. […]
We all know that family is important, but what if the traditional family as we know it is flawed? In the book, Island by Aldous Huxley, the people of Pala think so. In the book, Susila talks about how traditional families feel to the child, “In your predestined and exclusive families, children, as you say, serve a […]
Apologies this is late – I tried logging in with the wrong password one too many times, and the system automatically locked me out. Anyway, 1984 is believable in some ways and unbelievable in others. For one thing, I don’t think it’s possible for one party to gain so much power that it has the […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about the end of 1984 in regard to truth, human nature, and censorship. The mystery of whether or not O’Brien is right–that humans are malleable–is daunting because it doesn’t seem like he possibly could be right, at least through the perspective we as readers come into the world of the book which […]
In George Orwell’s 1984, Winston Smith works on rewriting documents to perceive to others that Big Brother is always correct. Some people in our world may see this as absurd, that we would not censor our history at all. However, I have heard a saying that history is already distorted, since it is usually written by […]
Maybe my mind is on censorship after our semester project, but while reading George Orwell’s 1984 it was definitely on my mind. A major point in the novel that stood out as censorship was the rewriting of history. The government was using the ‘facts’ of history as a type of control on their society. I also […]
Control. Control. Control. I feel like that’s all we’ve been reading about this semester. Again, in George Orwell’s 1984 we see control, control over the population to be exact. The control in this novel, however, has eery similarities to what we have going on in our society today. In the novel, the governmental group is […]
One of the things I really loved the most about the Wonder Women comics was that she was a women fighting in the war. Both she and her alter ego Diana Prince both play major roles in helping with the war effort. Women during the war like the WAACs for example were questioned when they […]
A classic theme in literature, film, art and video games is the damsel in distress, a beautiful young women who finds herself in peril needing the help of a dashing hero in order to be extricated from the situation. Lois Lane is a perfect example. She is a strong-willed, independent career women, expect for the fact […]
DC finally has a Wonder Woman movie in the works. Right now, its release date is set for the summer of 2017, but I’m not holding my breath. There seems to be some kind of “Wonder Woman Curse” on the loose that has prevented her from appearing in anything but comic books and fanfiction since […]
While reading the Wonder Woman comics I couldn’t help but compare them to the comics I am reading today and I realized that the discussions on serious topics were handled much better. Wonder Woman was designed by Marston to be able to take topics that were common and bring them to the public in a […]
Throughout the comics, Wonder Woman is often seen bound by ropes or chains. Some see this as a interest of the writer, suggesting maybe he liked bondage. Others see a strong symbol of feminism. Every time Wonder Woman is captured and tied up, she always breaks through her chains. This is a positive symbol and […]
In my last post, I talked about the difference between Wonder Woman’s adversaries and the supervillains faced by Batman, Superman, and the like. Our recent Wonder Woman readings have interestingly added more “super” villains. Instead of clobbering crooked milk tycoons and shady business owners, Wonder Woman now has to face Greco-Roman gods and psychotic ectoplasm […]
The world we live in is a world of constant comparisons: Will Smith is a better actor than his son is, Jessica Alba is prettier than Kristen Stewart, even Marvel is a better comic brand than DC. These statements breed a disunity between individuals: no matter how hard a person may try to do their […]
While I consider myself somewhat of a comic book aficionado, I was not very familiar with most of the Wonder Woman origin mythology. Reading about Paradise Island and Wonder Woman’s transition in to the guise of Diana Prince made me think of a scene in the film Kill Bill Vol. 2. In this scene, Bill […]
Wonder Woman comics gave girls and boys their first female super heroine and showed them that women could do more than just cook and clean and take care of children. While Wonder Woman still embodied the feminine stereotype of beauty and grace, participate in the war effort, nurse her man back to health, buy a […]
Wonder Woman, when she isn’t busy saving people from the tyranny that only evil mustachioed Italian men with purple suits can inflict, serves as a different champion of the people when compared to other superheroes. While Batman can often be seen facing archenemies like the Joker, Killer Moth, and Clayface, Wonder Woman’s villains tend to […]
The arrival of Wonder Woman brought about a new era in the comic book world. With her deflective bracelets and golden lasso, she was a woman who could take care of herself. She was definitely not the damsel in distress like Lois Lane or Robin. Neither was she a femme fatale like the over sensualized […]
At the time Wonder Woman was created there had never been a successful female superhero in comics. Marston sought to change that by creating a character that was just the fantasy of some man but a fully fleshed out character with different aspects to her life. This helps explain why Wonder Woman became popular for […]
I can honestly say that I had no frame of reference to Wonder Women prior to this past weeks asignment. Wonder Women seemed to be quite ahead of the times when it comes to Women’s empowerment and rights. Wonder Women is incredible. She is not the typical ‘weak girl,’ her emotions do not dictate her […]
Wonder Woman’s background is fascinating to learn more about, she was a progressive woman hero that started bringing to light feminism ideas. She is a very unique hero that puts aside the typical violent fighting that is done by her male super hero counter parts in order to fight crime and evil in a more […]
I’m just gonna lay this out here immediately: superheroes are awesome, and I have never met any person who does not like at least one famous superhero, whether that be Iron Man, Black Widow, Superman, or Batgirl, or any of the literally hundreds of other superheroes out there. You know what else is awesome? Representation. Being […]
Reading these first comics I learned much more about wonder woman than what I had previously known. I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me that she comes from a utopian Paradise Island run entirely by women, all of whom have super strength and speed. Her whole purpose on earth is to ‘save the world from […]
Throughout Katherine Burdekin’s novel, Swastika Night, violence is depicted as something as an everyday occurrence, such as kicking the women going into church or Hermann beating the young boy. This draw to punish people by using violence is not a new way of thinking, and if you had to put a date to where it […]
First written in the 1940’s by the inventor of the Polygraph test William Marston, Wonder Woman was meant to e a progressive view of women in an ultimately Paternal world. and it would certainly appear that way, from The land of the Amazons, Her physical prowess compared to other men, self-styled fashion sense and above […]
Before reading this book, I did sort of have an idea about how women were going to be treated. However, the level of brutality did take me by surprise. The idea of fewer and fewer females being born because they weren’t valued as much as males reminded me of other social cultures that have had […]
In Swastika Night, by Katharine Burdekin, Alfred and the Knight have a conversation on the origins of the German state and how that knowledge has been shared throughout the years. The Knight stated that, “This book of von Wied proved that Hitler was God, not born but exploded, that women were not part of the […]
I continuously come back to the idea that there are fewer and fewer girls being born in Katharine Burdekin’s Swastika Night, and I think there is a very logical, biological explanation: for humans in the society within the book, women are not desirable, and as a result, both men and women have evolved. I think the […]
One character I find fascinating in Katharine Burdekin’s Swastika Nights is Marta. She is does not have a major role in the story but I think that her interaction with the Knight in Chapter 1 shows that the women in Burdekin’s fictional world are not quite as beaten down as the men think they are. […]
So far in reading Katharine Burdekin’s Swastika Night, I am shocked by the brutality displayed in the novel. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised since the novel depicts the world if Hitler and the Nazis would have won. But it still makes you think about how terrible human beings can be to one another. The […]
I thought Burdekin’s idea of women and their role in society in this book was surprising. Although I knew before reading the book that women in this society were going to be belittled but I never expected that they would be treated like animals. Burdekin was very smart in the way she wrote this book […]
One of the things that really sucked me into the novel was the set up of the characters. In most books the reader expects to start out with a character and follow them through on their journey. This different because soon after meeting Hermann we meet Alfred who is clearly the more dominating personality and […]
Upon reading Katharine Burdekin’s novel Swastika Night, I felt a chill run down my spine while relaying the events that transpired during, and before the story’s setting. In it, it is the future of a Nazi world regime, where the Jews have been exterminated, Hitlerism (or Hitler-worship) has replaced all religions, especially Christianity, and there is a National hierarchy […]
Katherine Burdekin’s novel, “Swastika Night”, is the novel that I have enjoyed the least in this class so far. Burdekin’s depiction of the world after Nazi Germany won WWII is a detestable world for most of us, but especially for women. Still, I found the novel to be interesting and thought-provoking, and I found within […]
While reading George Schuyler’s novel, “Black No More”, I focused a lot on the discussion of race and its effects on the socioeconomic status of people. However, as I read more and more, I began to count the number of times that money was mentioned. Throughout the novel, money is an enormously motivating power. Money […]
George Schuyler’s “Black No More” made me think about the uncomfortable topic of racism by essentially slapping me in the face with racist content. However, it was artfully done, and I found it to be a wonderful critique of the socioeconomical use of racism. Often, we recognize racism for what it is: blind, senseless hate […]
In the clip I’ve provided (please view about 58 seconds in), it is a conversation between Chandler Bing, who is jealous because the girl he likes has agreed to go out with a male nurse to spite him, with the male nurse (aka, a “murse”). I found this part relatable to Katharine Burdekin’s Swastika Night […]
George Shuylers novel Black No More brings up a few topics that are still very prominent today. In the novel, Blacks want to be White. Fitting-in is the most prominent notion. Instead of striving to be unique, everyone wants to be the same. I feel that this is still a problem in society today. I remember how […]
For me, the dedication that George Schuylar makes at the beginning of his novel Black No More was one of the best parts of the book: This book is dedicated to all Caucasians in the great republic who can trace their ancestry back ten generations and confidently assert that there are no Black leaves, twigs, […]
During the class discussion I realized that part of the reason why the idea of turning everyone white made me so uncomfortable was because not just skin was being changed. People also had to learn to fit into white society and in order to do this they gave up many of their own practices. Max […]
Not being able to tell something apart from something else gets on my nerves. It’s called ambiguity, and I’m not the only one that gets irked at the sight of it. While I by no means condone any sort of racism, there is a certain comfort on can take in it – “this person is black […]
In George Schuyler’s novel, Black No More, the concept of people changing their skin color from white to black makes the concept of race completely arbitrary. Race, the idea the people can be categorized by their physiognomy, and its corollary, racism, are social constructs that are used in order to help reinforce an economic hierarchy. […]
The whole idea of erasing color and making everyone the same race is fascinating. We live in a period where people mainly want to accept and embrace our cultures. That was not the case in the time that Schuyler is writing that was not the case. Even with making everyone the same race in the […]
After finishing Black No More by George Schuyler, I found the ending to be very ironic as well as informative. In the beginning of the novel, the black population desperately wants to receive the “Black No More” treatment so that they can fit into society and make better lives for themselves. As time goes on, […]
Prior to the Black-No-More treatment in George Schuyler’s satirical novel, it was easy for people to tell who definitely had “colored blood” because they were not white. But when Dr. Crookman’s treatment came about, the only possible way to tell the difference between anyone was through his or her child/ren. Since everybody looked white, you either […]
After finishing Black No More, wow. What a twist. The story starts with whites being supreme and then those with black skin and African descent conforming to lightening their skin. The racial difference based on skin color is no longer distinguishable within society and the ‘true whites’ are outraged. Later it was announced that those who […]
As I was reading this novel, all I could think of was how much it related to Americas literal drug problem. Everyone in Brave New World seems to need soma to function properly in every day life. Really though, how many Americans are the same way, taking one or multiple pills per day in the […]
I found it interesting that so far in the novel there has not been a group of African Americans protesting the procedure it has only been whites and a few people in Harlem who do not want to lose power. I would have expected a racial pride group to show up by now and argue […]
First off, I’ll say that I find just the central idea of Black No More intriguing if a bit creepy. Without sounding rude, to think that someone could come up with such an idea (changing skin color using a scientific process) in an era where micro-technology was nonexistent boggles my mind a little. Considering the relative […]
“It’s as clear as Black and White”. A commonly quoted phrase used to demonstrate the absolute or truthful distinction of a point, concept, or fact of life. The unintentional irony of this quote is exemplified perfectly in the novel written by George Schuyler entitled Black No More, in which a miraculous operation allows for the […]