revdorothyl: missmurchsion made this (Moving Nausicaa)
Part 1 (covering the journey to and the first two days of WriterCon) can be found here

And the saga continues . . .

Day, the Third )

'Evil in Our Midst' )

Remains of the Day )

So, to anyone I might have spoken with on Sunday night, if I returned an inappropriate or nonsensical reply to you please believe that it was not through inattention or inebriation. I was simply unable to correctly fill in the 70% of your words that were lost in the background clutter of other conversations all around us. (That's probably another reason why parties, and especially parties with music, tend to put me on edge, since focusing on one voice among all the other voices and sounds becomes so much more difficult, and I hate appearing foolish.)

Goin' South )

not so outrageous fortune at Chez Murchison )

For instance (and I hope I'm safe in assuming that nobody needs mild spoiler warnings for the movie at this point?), I hadn't previously noted how much the character of the new James T. Kirk resembles Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan, at times. I got a very Illyan-Miles kind of vibe from that final look between Pike and Kirk near the end, making me think, "Be careful what you dare this young man to do, for he may exceed your expectations to a terrifying degree." Plus, there's that whole bluffing (mostly) your way from academy misfit to commander of a starship in a few short days -- using gall, startling competence, and sheer force of personality -- that Miles and New-Jim both seem to share.

Or maybe that's just me?

Wednesday was spent driving ten and a half hours straight (with two brief stops for gas, one of which included a side-trip to pick up fast food for the road), in order to get back to TN while there was still a bit of daylight left -- just long enough for me to nip around back and pick all those ripe and over-ripe tomatoes (cherry, yellow pear, and my first ripe Mr. Stripey) and raspberries (red, and a few gold) which had accumulated in my absence. I have my priorities, after all, and during August fresh raspberries and home-grown tomatoes seem to rank pretty high, for some reason.

[Okay, that's MOST of the post I wrote this afternoon and which LJ promptly ate. I think the original version was more eloquent, or maybe even more coherent, but this is what I could piece together tonight.]
revdorothyl: RevDorothyL (Spuffy icon)
I made it to WriterCon more or less in one piece last week, after trying to drive through torrential rains in TN, KY, and IL with (as it turned out) four very bald tires -- one of which developed quite a large hole very suddenly while I was cruising up Interstate 57 (fortunately, the rains had been left behind by that time). more on RevD's longer-than-expected road trip for the curious )

'Mama Stole My Regency' -- a new Country & Western song )

At Chez Murchison )

On the Road Again )

do I HAVE to go to a party? Can't I just crawl back into my shell? )

Day, the First )

Day, the Second )

Tired now, and I forgot to eat lunch or supper today (I just realized), so more will have to follow tomorrow.
revdorothyl: missmurchsion made this (Forward Momentum)
Since visiting with [livejournal.com profile] missmurchison while attending a local Science Fiction convention with Tanya Huff as the guest of honor will be much more fun (as well as a great deal more affordable) than going to Chicago for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion on November 1-4, I'm happily making my arrangements for a trip to Iowa, instead (to return home in plenty of time to vote for Obama, of course, on Nov. 4th).

However, for anyone else who might be planning to attend the AAR meeting in Chicago -- or who simply might be curious about some of the more fhan-relevant papers being presented this year -- here are some of the highlights I noted in the online program book:

Some AAR papers and panels related to comics, movies, anime, HP, and MMORPG's )



Not as riveting as some of the topics I've seen other years (and unfortunately, I forgot to make note of the panel which included a paper titled, The Next Generation of Intimate Ministries: The Online Business of Evangelical Sex Toys, on the theological and sociological significance of the growing online market for Evangelical Christian 'marital aids' -- which has no fannish relevance, per se, but just struck me as slightly freaky in an intriguing way), and certainly not enough to make me regret for one minute that I won't be able to attend, but still . . . . It's vaguely comforting (to me, at least) to know that these topics ARE being discussed in Academia!
revdorothyl: keswindhover made this (Belief)
posted by [personal profile] revdorothyl at 01:32pm on 26/09/2006 under
I caught a bit of "Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee" on the Food Network while I was getting ready to leave for work this morning (right now, I'm sitting in my empty classroom, in case anybody forgot they're supposed to use this time to work on their take-home test, if they haven't already finished it), and it reminded me of a conversation in the hospitality suite at WriterCon this past July.

I forget just who was in the group at the moment, and I'm pretty sure I had a plate of [livejournal.com profile] shaddyr's wonderful food on my lap while talking (just because I almost always seemed to have a plate of unusually nourishing consuite food when I was in the suite at WriterCon), but we were talking about fandom and fanfic (naturally!), and it occurred to me that what many of us do with our pre-packaged, commercially produced, favored media texts is somewhat analogous to what Sandra Lee does with the packaged foods in her pantry:

We use them as a starting point, as a springboard, to "get to the good stuff", as it were, to the point where our creativity and search for meaning can be most fully explored.

I have to leave now, to get to my second job at the publishing house, but I wanted to jot this down, so I can continue to develop this line of thought later this week, rather than simply forget about it for another few months.
revdorothyl: missmurchsion made this (HellBound)
[Late night update: 9 more responses came in while I was posting this, so those 9 have been printed out for me to incorporate into the results report tomorrow, but they're not yet represented in the figures listed here.]

Thanks to some friends posting links to my questionnaire on their websites and LJ's, I'm continuing to get responses to the survey. But now that I am (for the moment!) caught up on collating and recording the responses received so far, I thought I'd better post some preliminary data for those who've inquired. some rough survey results so far )

I'm running out of steam tonight, so I'll have to try to post more of the results -- perhaps going right for the 'good stuff' (such as question #7, asking which one attribute/benefit of participating in fandom is most important to the individual), rather than working through some of the more mundane questions first.
revdorothyl: missmurchison made this (Cole Porter)
posted by [personal profile] revdorothyl at 03:21pm on 03/08/2005 under
Before I forget, I just got a message that the first issue of Watcher Junior (the undergrad research off-shoot of Slayage) is now online at http://www.watcherjunior.tv

In other news, I got to Omaha safely and in good time (in spite of road destruction and getting caught in rush-hour around Kansas City) last Thursday night, and then my Omaha friend and I were able to enjoy a leisurely drive to Des Moines on Friday afternoon, for DemiCon 16. My friend said she didn't remember ever getting to the Con on Friday afternoon before, and she greatly enjoyed the chance to cruise through the Hucksters' Room (okay, "Dealers' Room") for a few hours before it got crowded and the merchandise had been picked over. I had fun just watching how delighted she was with something I've taken for granted over the years (the ability to arrive at the Con early on Friday and get first shot at the Dealers' tables and the Art Show).

Attendance was way down from other years, largely due to competition from World Con this year (normally, World Con is around Labor Day weekend, so competition won't be an issue next year), we suspected. But I had no difficulty getting permission from the Con-Com to set out my surveys next tto the registration desk (they even made an announcement during Opening Ceremonies, asking people to please help out a scholar-fan, which was very nice of them), and by Sunday morning all 50 copies of the survey that I'd made and brought with me had been filled out and turned in. I haven't gone through all the responses yet, but I hope to be able to post a summary of the results this weekend.

For me, it wasn't the greatest con ever, by any means, but I got to chat with a few friends, drink way too much in the Con-Suite, and move one step closer to the completion of my degree, so . . . Yay!
revdorothyl: missmurchsion made this (Totoro)
posted by [personal profile] revdorothyl at 05:54pm on 25/07/2005 under
(Your Assistance is greatly appreciated! Please write your answers in Comments, since I haven't been able to put this in actual "Poll" form.) Fandom Participation Survey )
revdorothyl: missmurchsion made this (Aslan)
This is a rough draft of the survey I hope to persuade some people to fill out at a SciFi convention this weekend, as a step toward getting more direct data for my dissertation, as my Anthropology professor suggested.

If you have a chance to look this over and offer [constructive] criticism, I'd be very grateful. I MAY have a chance to revise it before I run off copies, or to revise it for later distribution on the internet.

In any case, I've discovered that writing a survey that will secure pertinent data for my dissertation, without inadvertently offending or violating the privacy of the people being interviewed, is a whole lot harder than I'd expected. I should have KNOWN that just because I AM a fan doesn't mean that I know the right way to talk to all other fans. Oh, well.here it is: Fandom Participation Survey )

----------------------------------------

Alright, many of you know my dissertation proposal, at least slightly, so tell me, how useless and/or sucky is this survey?
revdorothyl: missmurchsion made this (Moving Nausicaa)
Though I was in such a hurry with the previous posting that I ended up basically copying a bunch of the key quotes from my notes -- without much commentary from me -- into the LJ entry, here's the point that I was trying to make and didn't get around to:

What all those quotes were supposed to demonstrate is that yes, the authors' argument does seem to make a lot of sense in the way that they apply it to the original "Star Trek" series and portions of ST:TNG and "Voyager" (for instance, I never did see any "earthly" reason, apart from the obligatory marital/sexual renunciation pattern, or "Bonanza Syndrome," why Janeway couldn't formalize and consummate her relationship with Chakotay, instead of turning to Holodeck lovers or passing aliens for a bit of romantic intrigue). . . BUT they fail to convince me, ultimately. And even they acknowledged that there's something far more democratic and interesting going on in the fannish creative efforts that "poach" on the texts of the corporately owned T.V. series and movies:


p. 264 [authors' reflections on “textual poaching” as developed by Michel DeCerteau and applied by Henry Jenkins]: “There is a democratic potential in this process [of fanzine/fan-fic writing and other examples of fannish "participatory culture"] that seems much more promising than corporate control of mythic imagination. What remains unrecognized, however, is that the content of both the Star Trek series and its fan religion remain significantly indebted to the American monomyth—-with all of its narcissistic, violent, and undemocratic tendencies. This particular religion poaches from an already polluted stream that participatory activities have thus far done little to dispel. As in the case of all other religions, whether pop or traditional, there is an urgent need for critical examinations of Star Trek’s implications and its long-term effects on believers and their societies. But this can hardly occur when so many people continue to view fandom as nothing but an experience of consumption.”


I applaud their insistence that fandom needs to be taken seriously as a creative endeavor AND as a form of folk religion, as well as their insistence that ANY religion should be subject to critical examinations of its implications and long-term effects on believers and their societies.

But I think there's a good reason why, though their photo illustrations include a picture of the Deep Space Nine Companion (which I only recently took off my own shelf and read through), they really make no attempt to apply their theory to DS9 Read more... )

In other words, they drew positive attention to stories in which people don't have all the answers or the super power to restore us to some mythical never-was Eden, but are honestly trying to make things better, anyhow.

Under that rubric, I would argue that BtVS and AtS and DS9, at the very least, qualify as 'The Good Stuff' -- no big win, and at the last it's not about 'saving the world' but rather changing the world, even if only by fighting a hopeless battle to show the Powers and Principalities of this age that human beings (super-powered and undead, or not) will not go gently into that good-night. Stories in which killing the person you love most in order to serve the greater good (as Kirk did with Edith Keeler, or Buffy had to do with Angel, and as Buffy refused to do with Dawn, Odo refused to do with Kira in "Children of Time," and Worf refused to do with Jadzia when she was dying in the jungle and duty demanded that he leave her) isn't as simple an ethical choice as some might think, and either way you choose you have to live longterm with the negative consequences. Stories in which sometimes a little divine intervention is needed and even deserved, when the heroes have done all they can and are at the end of their strength and endurance (Sisko convincing the Prophets to stop the Dominion fleet in the Wormhole, or the snowfall in "Amends", or Angel being able to enter Kate's apartment without an invitation in "Epiphany", etc.).

Anyway, you all get the idea, I hope.
revdorothyl: missmurchsion made this (HellBound)
posted by [personal profile] revdorothyl at 06:37pm on 17/02/2005 under ,
I've just made the requisite number of copies of the test I'll be giving my students in less than two hours, and there's no urgent correspondence awaiting me, so I can either stare out my office window for the next 90 minutes (the view just now is spectacular, with the skyscrapers of downtown glowing sort of pink in the light of the setting sun), or I can catch up on some of the OTHER stuff I've been meaning to post about lately. No contest, really, since I can look at the pink buildings all I want while I'm typing.

First, I'm sure everybody else is already aware of this, but I've just recently stumbled onto the blog of Ronald D. Moore (formerly of DS9 and now the guiding light of BSG for the Sci-Fi channel), whose most recent entry, posted on Feb. 4, is devoted entirely to reflecting as a Star Trek fan on the "bright side" of no new professional Trek productions for the first time since the late 1970's. I never realized how similar his experience was to my own, with both of us able to remember with some fondness the days when the fans alone were responsible for expanding and perpetuating the Trek universe. For the one or two other people (besides myself) who hadn't yet read it, Ron's blog is at http://blog.scifi.com/battlestar/

On a related note, I finished taking notes (well over 20 pages worth, typed up) on The Myth of the American Superhero, by John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI: 2002) on Tuesday the 8th (yet another project that was keeping me up late at night). The authors devote several chapters to the problems (as they see it) of the Star Trek mythological franchise. Many of their arguments in earlier chapters were quite convincing and alarming, but I did have to question the applicability of their criticisms in the case of my favorite of the later Treks, Deep Space Nine. It seemed to me that DS9, as well as BtVS and AtS (and yes, even X:WP!), provide notable exceptions to the monomythic pattern identified by Lawrence and Jewett.

To begin with, the authors won my full attention by linking their analysis of the American monomyth to our nation’s response to Sept. 11, 2001:

pp. 15-16 [writing in late 2001] -- “Some of our mythic certainties about the special and favored place of America in the world came to expression with the surprise attacks of September 11 . . . . The official interpretation of these tragic losses has carried an American mythic stamp from the very first moments. Divorcing the events from any connection with U.S. policies, President George W. Bush stated that ‘America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.’ . . . While the simplicity of myth and the prospect of vengeance offer special comforts in a time of mass murder, the notion of destroying evil on a worldwide basis may draw us toward spiraling conflicts that we can never hope to control.”

pp. 16-17 -- “In our current situation, we believe that examining the American monomyth -- the endlessly repeated story of innocent communities besieged by evil outsiders -- can help us gain a better perspective on the dangers we face. We invite readers to join in our venture of studying the national mythos. It was never more timely to project our fantasies onto a mirror that renders them with less distortion.” Read more... )

I'm out of time and must run to class, but I'll have more to say about the authors and about the exceptions to this pattern offered by the above-mentioned shows later tonight.

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