From: vagans@inanna.eanna.net
In article <4qR7a5jBUc0$Ewhr@cableinet.co.uk>,
Kevin Calder wrote:
>
>
>In message <3f551982_3@mk-nntp-1.news.uk.worldonline.com>, fish
> writes
>
>>Has anyone else ever used Neuromancer as a book to study, and been
>>discredited for choosing the diamond in the rough, instead of something like
>>Brave New World?
>
>I wrote on BNW as part of my degree syllabus and on Neuromancer in high
>school. I don't think it would have worked so well the other way
>around.
>
>BNW simply *suits* uni-type-academic type study better than N.
>
>It fits more comfortably into the canon, and the canon of literary
>theory.
(in another article to this thread, you quote:
"example, when I taught Utopian/Dystopian Fiction"...)
Back in the late 60s when sf made it into US English lit
courses, the Utopian/Dystopian framework was adopted mainly
because the only "scifi" the profs recognized were BNW and
1984 (plus Verne and Wells, both of whom slotted easily
into the framework). None of these books or authors are sf
as genre. One reason for the academic success of Stranger In
A Strange Land at the time was its juxtapositioning of utopian
and dystopian themes.
Besides a totally pomoized paper, your only choice is to
discuss N in a dystopian framework. Actually, pomoization
is pretty dystopic.
My opinion (discussed on altcp seemingly endlessly and forever)
is that N is not dystopic.
Trashing the utopian/dystopian framework of the course, I think
would be gratifying, but maybe not the best strategy as to the
grade it receives.
--
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O When you're looking for something that doesn't exist,
\../ |OO|||O|||O|O it makes you crazier the closer you get to it.
|| OO|||OO||O||O -- R. Ebert
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
|
