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POPSEast African Views on Sci Fi, 9/07 I'm intrigued with the developing world's view of western sci fi. Our technology-centric culture, and our western mythologies, must sound foreign in more ways than one. (Note that this article is actually from Kenya, one of the more developed African nations, with strong universities and reasonable internet access.)
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POPSHigh school reading lists updating rapidly--8/07 Christian Science Monitor One quote in the article disturbed me. A college student said "Summer reading is a good thing if and only if there's a context for it. I don't like the idea of just handing us a list. If you say, 'Read these books,' tell us why." Context is a great thing. But there's a lot of value in simply reading for pleasure, reading for its own sake, reading for exposure to different ideas and styles.
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POPSWhat Book Are You? OK, so it may not be totally accurate. You get what you pay for. And it's fun reading the interpretations of the books' "personalities". Found by the Classical Bookworm: http://arb0rv1tae.typepad.com/bookworm/
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POPSAuthors Behaving Badly: Chick lit vs Lit fic Now I've read all 3 books, I agree with Sittenfeld's review of Bank's book (The Wonder Spot). Sittenfeld's and Weiner's books are much, much better. So I don't get why Weiner attacked Sittenfeld that way. I first assumed it was because Sittenfeld criticized chick lit. But a lot of Weiner's attack was about Sittenfeld herself. In the end, I guess I have to chalk it up to personalities.
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POPSKids Shouldn't Read Fiction -NYTimes Jul 2007 Bull! (a) Reading fiction has benefits other than information. (b) Kids get plenty of practice reading for information on the internet. (c) Studies show that if kids don't do enjoyable reading in school, they stop reading as soon as they're out of school.
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POPSPissing on Litblogs, NY Sun, Jun 2007 Adam Kirsch is an awfully bright guy, but sadly appears to know nothing about blogs. There are plenty of literary blogs (litblogs, Adam, it's an established term) on which lengthy, rigorous arguments are routinely carried out between scholars, readers, authors, and reviewers. In fact many litblogs are published and cited in print. Perhaps not in the NY Sun, but in other large, reputable papers.
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POPSJennifer Weiner vs Curtis Sittenfeld, 7 June 2005 To summarize: Melissa Bank wrote a chick lit novel. Curtis Sittenfeld wrote a negative review in the NY Times. Curtis Sittenfeld wrote a novel she says is literary fiction. Jennifer Weiner didn't review it per se, but says it's chick lit. She describes it in the same derogatory terms Sittenfeld used about Bank's book. Implications: (1) Sittenfeld is a hypocrite (2) Sittenfeld's book is empty trash Jennifer Weiner writes chick lit herself. Weiner's line-by-line commentary on Sittenfeld's review is startlingly mean, putting words in Sittenfeld's mouth and portraying her as an insufferable, conceited ass. Finally, Weiner concludes by saying meanness is not helping women get published or taken seriously as authors. Cook utensil, meet cooking utensil. What a sad and ridiculous display of bitchery from all sides.
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POPSRoze Hentschell on Literature Course Syllabi There's a lot more good text in the article. Hentschell continues: "When thinking about the early modern canon and who gets included, the class and gender of the author can be only part of the story. As John Guillory has rightly pointed out, ‘the historical process of canon formation, even or especially at the moment of institutional judgement, is too complex to be reduced to determination by the single factor of the social identity of the author’ (1993:17). To be sure, many socially privileged male authors (Fulke Greville, Thomas Nashe), are regularly excluded from the curriculum, just as ‘commoners’ (Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare) are ever present. The ‘social identity of an author’ cannot fully explain why texts are not taught to undergraduates. It can never explain why one text by Spenser will always be privileged over another. Why The Shepheard’s Calendar, for example, but not A View of the Present State of Ireland?"
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