tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post116389549872491368..comments2023-10-26T22:06:11.166+11:00Comments on Metamagician3000: SFS roundtable on science fiction criticismRussell Blackfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-1164009426558291182006-11-20T18:57:00.000+11:002006-11-20T18:57:00.000+11:00LOL. That said, Marx and Freud did get some things...LOL. That said, Marx and Freud did get some things right in my humble opinion. Still, I agree that Darwin has a much better track record overall.<BR/><BR/>I read the article by Boyd. Part of the trouble is that such debates are held at a level of abstraction so high that it can be difficult to know what is really at stake for critical practice. Still, I do agree that a thorough grounding in Darwinian theory is likely to be more useful to almost anyone than a grounding in Marx or Freud or someone like Derrida.<BR/><BR/>When it comes to criticism of science fiction, I think the important thing is to be well grounded in the ideas that have actually influenced science fiction writers and people who have been influenced by science fiction.<BR/><BR/>Just before the sentence I quoted, Brooks Landon says: "We're much more likely to encounter interrogation of issues identified in postcolonial studies, queer studies, or cultural studies rather than issues associated with the concept of the novum, much less the 'sense of wonder' - no matter how fraught we know those chestnut concepts to be."<BR/><BR/>I think this exactly right, though I don't think the concepts are chestnuts. They are important to how science fiction is organised structured and read. What Landon is describing is a bad thing, in my view, because it obscures an investigation of sf as sf. <BR/><BR/>Landon adds, "Of course, in most respects that's a very good thing" - well, I disagree - but then he concludes with the words I quoted in the blog: "but it does to some extent divert our critical attention from the possibility, if not the fact, that science fiction may be a truly different way of constructing and interrogating our lives." This bit seems to me to be exactly right, and well said indeed.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-1163944529397774072006-11-20T00:55:00.000+11:002006-11-20T00:55:00.000+11:00I'll read it when I get a chance.I'll read it when I get a chance.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.com