I'm a graduate student in linguistics, and this semester I'm writing a paper on linguistic features (particularly silence) in Ender's Game.
I've been doing a lot of net research, and although this site (and several others) have a wonderful amount of information, I'm surprised that I haven't found any scholarly articles on Ender's Game. By this I mean journal articles or serious critical analysis. The closest I've come are the papers by high school students on this site.
If anyone knows of any papers that are out there (surely there must be at least one!) I'd be grateful for the reference. Today I am giving my professor one of my extra Ender's Game copies to read - hopefully he will be convinced that it is indeed a "real" book.
If this is the wrong place for this inquiry, I apologise.
posted
Heya, I would suggest the MLA database--your library probably subscribes to it. Ender's Game is the most written about book of Card's, I think.
Welcome, by the way. I'm presently engaged in writing a paper on Enchantment. (Also in Graduate school.)
Anyway, I found a lot of Ender's Game stuff in the MLA--it was kind of disappointing, since there was nothing for Enchantment.
Here are all 22 results I got from searching for: Orson Scott Card. Not all of them will be applicable, of course, but I don't have time to weed them out for ya. As you can see, it's a straight cut and paste... which means it's messy...
-Katarain
1. Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality By: Kessel, John; Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, 2004 Spring; 33 (90): 81-97. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 2. An Interview with Orson Scott Card By: Sanders, Justin Wescoat; New York Review of Science Fiction, 2004 Jan; 16 (5 (185)): 15-18. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 3. Orson Scott Card: Casting Shadows Locus: The Newspaper of the Science Fiction Field, 2002 Dec; 49 (6 (503)): 7-8, 71-72. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 4. Gay Sex and Death in the Science Fiction of Orson Scott Card By: Bonin, Kate; New York Review of Science Fiction, 2002 Dec; 15 (4 (172)): 17-21. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 5. Making and Unmaking in Middle-Earth and Elsewhere By: Crowe, Edith L.; Mythlore: A Journal of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature, 2001 Summer; 23 (3 (89)): 56-69. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 6. Orson Scott Card: A Study in Contrasts By: Senior, W. A.; North Carolina Literary Review, 2001; 10: 21-30. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 7. The Female State: Science Fiction Alternatives to the Patriarchy-Sheri Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country and Orson Scott Card's Homecoming Series By: Jowett, Lorna; pp. 169-92 IN: Sayer, Karen (ed. and introd.); Moore, John (ed. and introd.); Science Fiction, Critical Frontiers. Basingstoke, England; New York, NY: Macmillan; St. Martin's; 2000. xiii, 219 pp. (book article) Add to folder 8. Reading Tourist Sites, Citing Touristic Readings: Anglo Constructions of Native American Identity and the Case of Tecumseh By: Hathaway, Rosemary Virginia; Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 1998 Nov; 59 (5): 1708. Ohio State U, 1998. (dissertation abstract) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 9. Surgical Strikes and Prosthetic Warriors: The Soldier's Body in Contemporary Science Fiction By: Hantke, Steffen; Science Fiction Studies, 1998 Nov; 25 (3 (76)): 495-509. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 10. Popular and Literary Mormon Novels: Can Weyland and Whipple Dance Together in the House of Fiction? By: Bennion, John; Brigham Young University Studies, 1997-1998; 37 (1): 158-82. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 11. From the Screen to the Printed Page: Orson Scott Card's Novelization of James Cameron's The Abyss By: Martín Alegre, Sara; pp. 509-13 IN: Guardia, P. (ed. and introd.); Stone, J. (ed. and introd.); Proceedings of the 20th International AEDEAN Conference. Barcelona, Spain: Universitat de Barcelona; 1997. x, 658 pp. (book article) Add to folder 12. Responses to the Alien Mother in Post-Maternal Cultures: C. J. Cherryh and Orson Scott Card By: Heidkamp, Bernie; Science-Fiction Studies, 1996 Nov; 23 (3 (70)): 339-54. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 13. Orson Scott Card: An Approach to Mythopoeic Literature By: Collings, Michael; Mythlore: A Journal of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and the Genres of Myth and Fantasy Stu, 1996 Summer; 21 (3 (81)): 36-50. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 14. Passion vs. Will: Homosexuality in Orson Scott Card's Wyrms By: Townsend, Johnny; Riverside Quarterly, 1992 Aug; 9 (1): 48-55. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 15. The Rule of the Game By: Wells, Earl; The New York Review of Science Fiction, 1992 July; 47: 6-7. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 16. Godmaking in the Heartland: The Backgrounds of Orson Scott Card's American Fantasy By: Attebery, Brian; pp. 61-69 IN: Morse, Donald E. (ed.); Tymn, Marshall B. (ed.); Bertha, Csilla (ed.); The Celebration of the Fantastic: Selected Papers from the Tenth Anniversary International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 1992. xv, 309 pp. (book article) Add to folder 17. Ender's Beginning: Battling the Military in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game By: Blackmore, Tim; Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy, 1991 Summer; 32 (2): 124-42. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 18. Interview with Orson Scott Card 10/19/88 By: Mittelmark, Howard; New York Review of Science Fiction, 1990 July; 23: 12-16. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 19. Amblick and After: Aspects of Orson Scott Card By: Beswick, Norman; Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction, 1989 Spring; 45: 49-62. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 20. The Profession of Science Fiction, 39: Mountains out of Molehills By: Card, Orson Scott; Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction, 1989 Spring; 45: 63-72. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. 21. Time and Vast Eternities: Landscapes of Immortality in Orson Scott Card's Fiction By: Collings, Michael R.; pp. 164-173 IN: Slusser, George Edgar (ed.); Rabkin, Eric S. (ed.); Mindscapes: The Geographies of Imagined Worlds. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP; 1989. xiii, 302 pp. (book article) Add to folder 22. 'The space between' in Space: Some Versions of the Bildungsroman in Science Fiction By: Hall, Peter C.; Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy, 1988 Summer; 29 (2): 153-159. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
And here are some results from looking for: Science Fiction AND linguistics.
1. Narrative Prose Generation By: Callaway, Charles Brendan; Dissertation Abstracts International, Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 2000 Sept; 61 (3): 1484-85. North Carolina State U, 2000. (dissertation abstract) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 2. From 'Ulla, Ulla' to 'Cosmic Linguistics': Alien Languages and Cultures in Western and Russian Science Fiction By: Smyrniw, Walter; Germano-Slavica: A Canadian Journal of Germanic and Slavic Comparative Studies, 2000-2001; 12: 29-49. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 3. Linguistics and Science Fiction: A Language and Gender Short Bibliography By: Hardman, M. J.; Women and Language, 1999 Spring; 22 (1): 47-48. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 4. How the Anti-Mentalistic Skeletons in Chomsky's Closet Make Psychological Fictions of His Grammars By: Steinberg, Danny D.; pp. I: 267-82 IN: Embleton, Sheila (ed.); Joseph, John E. (ed.); Niederehe, Hans-Josef (ed.); The Emergence of the Modern Language Sciences: Studies on the Transition from Historical-Comparative to Structural Linguistics in Honour of E. F. K. Koerner, I: Historiographical Perspectives; II: Methodological Perspectives and Applications. Philadelphia, PA: Benjamins; 1999. lv, 311 + 335 pp. (book article) Add to folder 5. Psychoanalysis, Science Fiction and Cyborgianism By: Sey, James; Literator: Tydskrif vir Besondere en Vergelykende Taal- en Literatuurstudie/Journal of Literary Criticism, Comparative Linguistics and Literary Studies, 1996 Aug; 17 (2): 105-16. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 6. Cyber against Punk: Greg Bear's Queen of Angels as Metamorphosed Cyberpunk By: Blatchford, M. F.; Literator: Tydskrif vir Besondere en Vergelykende Taal- en Literatuurstudie/Journal of Literary Criticism, Comparative Linguistics and Literary Studies, 1994 Nov; 15 (3): 55-70. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 7. The Terminator Syndrome: Science Fiction, Cinema and Contemporary Culture By: Sey, James; Literator: Tydskrif vir Besondere en Vergelykende Taal- en Literatuurstudie/Journal of Literary Criticism, Comparative Linguistics and Literary Studies, 1992 Nov; 13 (3): 13-19. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 8. 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?': Isomorphic Relations in Reading Science Fiction By: Stockwell, Peter; Language and Literature: Journal of the Poetics and Linguistics Association, 1992; 1 (2): 79-99. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 9. Devotional Reading and Science Fiction: The Medieval Saint's Life as a Form of Discourse By: Ferguson, Charles A.; pp. 113-122 IN: Elson, Benjamin F. (ed.); Language in Global Perspective: Papers in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1935-1985. Dallas: Summer Inst. of Ling.; 1986. xiii, 626 pp. (book article) Add to folder 10. Glottotronics: An Inevitable Phase of Linguistics: Linguistic Science Fiction? By: Banczerowski, Jerzy; pp. 11-25 IN: Kastovsky, Dieter (ed.); Szwedek, Aleksander (ed.); Linguistics across Historical and Geographical Boundaries: In Honour of Jacek Fisiak on the Occasion of His Fiftieth Birthday, I: Linguistic Theory and Historical Linguistics; II: Descriptive, Contrastive and Applied Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter; 1986. xxiv, 1543 pp. (book article) Add to folder 11. Cross-Cultural Texts and Interpretation By: Kachru, Yamuna; Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, 1983 Fall; 13 (2): 57-72. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 12. Thoiron, Philippe. Dynamisme du texte stylostatistique: Elaboration des index et de la concordance pour Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Problèmes, mèthodes, analyse statistique de quelques données. By: Raphael, André; Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences, 1982; 20 (7-8 (257-258)): 571-572. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 13. Linguistics and Science Fiction By: Barnouw, Dagmar; Science-Fiction Studies, 1981 Nov.; 8 (3 (25)): 331-334. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 14. The Absent Paradigm: An Introduction to the Semiotics of Science Fiction By: Angenot, Marc; Science-Fiction Studies, 1979; 6: 9-19. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 15. Linguistic Terminology as a Source of Verbal Fictions By: Pap, Leo; Language Sciences, 1976; 39: 1-5. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 16. The Fourth Person Fiction in Algonkian. By: Delisle, Gilles L.; Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences, 1974; 132: 18-32. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 17. Strange Bedfellows: Science Fiction, Linguistics, & Education. By: Friend, Beverly; English Journal, 1973; 62: 998-1003. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 18. Linguistics and Languages in Science Fiction-Fantasy. By: Barnes, Myra Jean E.; Dissertation Abstracts International, 1972; 32: 5210A-11A(East Texas State). (dissertation abstract) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 19. Are Novelists Free to Choose Their Own Style? By: Mihailescu-Urechia, Venera; Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences, 1970; 59: 37-61. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 20. Language and Techniques of Communication as Theme or Tool in Science-Fiction By: Krueger, John R.; Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences, 1968; 39: 68-86. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. 21. Nabokov's Zemblan: A Constructed Language of Fiction By: Kreuger, John R.; Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences, 1967; 31: 44-49. (journal article)
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
1. Aphasia and Mother Tongue: Themes of Language Creation and Silence in Women's Science Fiction By: Moody, Nickianne; pp. 179-87 IN: Sawyer, Andy (ed.); Seed, David (ed.); Speaking Science Fiction: Dialogues and Interpretations. Liverpool, England: Liverpool UP; 2000. 248 pp. (book article) Add to folder 2. Dialogue sur l'utopie, le féminisme et autres sujets connexes By: Bérard, Sylvie; Tessera, 1999 Summer; 26: 95-103. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 3. Silence and Disaster in the Novels of Michael Bishop By: Senior, W. A.; New York Review of Science Fiction, 1996 Aug; 8 (12 (96)): 12-15. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 4. The Semiology of Silence: The Science Fiction Studies Interview By: Gregory, Sinda; pp. 21-58 IN: Delany, Samuel R.; Silent Interviews on Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan UP; UP of New England; 1994. 322 pp. (book article) Add to folder 5. At the Frontiers of the Fantastic: Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs By: Sanders, Joe; New York Review of Science Fiction, 1991 Nov; 39: 1, 3-6. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 6. Samuel R. Delany: The Semiology of Silence By: Gregory, Sinda; Science-Fiction Studies, 1987 July; 14 (2) (42): 134-164. (journal article)
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Searching for Ender's Game (Might be some duplicates.)
1. Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality By: Kessel, John; Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, 2004 Spring; 33 (90): 81-97. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 2. Surgical Strikes and Prosthetic Warriors: The Soldier's Body in Contemporary Science Fiction By: Hantke, Steffen; Science Fiction Studies, 1998 Nov; 25 (3 (76)): 495-509. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 3. Godmaking in the Heartland: The Backgrounds of Orson Scott Card's American Fantasy By: Attebery, Brian; pp. 61-69 IN: Morse, Donald E. (ed.); Tymn, Marshall B. (ed.); Bertha, Csilla (ed.); The Celebration of the Fantastic: Selected Papers from the Tenth Anniversary International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 1992. xv, 309 pp. (book article) Add to folder 4. Ender's Beginning: Battling the Military in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game By: Blackmore, Tim; Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy, 1991 Summer; 32 (2): 124-42. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open. Add to folder 5. 'The space between' in Space: Some Versions of the Bildungsroman in Science Fiction By: Hall, Peter C.; Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy, 1988 Summer; 29 (2): 153-159. (journal article) Check SFX for a menu of link options for this item. A new window will open.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
By the way, the "MLA International Bibliography" is THE scholarly source for those of us studying in the field of literature, linguistics, English, etc.
Your school MUST have access to it. If it does not, then they are sorely lacking. (I only just discovered how respected it was this year.)
You won't find much doing just "net" research. You have to at least go to your library's website. But now that you have a lot of possible sources (don't stop looking), you can get them from your library or order them through ILL.
posted
I really hope you copied and pasted all that, though I'm sure it was all from memory. wink wink.
Posts: 142 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I probably did see it the first time, but I think my mind melted a little looking at all of them.
Posts: 142 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
See, this proves that while Google Scholar is nice, it is by no means exhaustive. I have no idea if Fiona used Google Scholar or not--if she hasn't, she SHOULD. Just because it's not exhaustive, doesn't mean she shouldn't use it in addition to other areas.
We have about a dozen databases here dedicated to literature. I gave results from ONE of them. Then there's the general academic databases. You can find things there, too.
Ender's Game is very much considered a "real book." It's been taught in many classrooms, high school and above, and you hardly should have to defend it to your teacher. It depends on the teacher, of course, but if you present him with the scholarly papers already done on it and have a good theoretical approach, you shouldn't have a problem. You might do well to do some reading on the position of Science Fiction in "the academy." There is a definite movement for it to be respected, along with Fantasy, as honest-to-goodness "real" literature. (I was doing reading on this very topic re: fantasy last night.) There are smart people writing in the accepted language (you know how "scholarly" people write, with appropriate "vogue" theory--especially postmodernism.) and doing great things for the field. Go to your library and check out some books about Science Fiction and theory.
posted
Are you referring to me? Because if so, I am so glad I didn't succeed! Grad. School is TOUGH!! I am under so much stress right now...and I have a large rough draft due at 5:30, and only an hour and 45 minutes to finish it. If you wonder why I didnt' get it done earlier, see above re: stress. Much. Bad. Crying. Too much. Don't do it! Grad. School AAAH!!
Lost. All. Ability. to. Communicate. Have. Turned. Into. Captain. Kirk.
Have you checked out Starshine and Shadows? That's a site that contains work by Prof. Michael Collings -- the leading scholar on OSC's work. A link to it can be found on Hatrack's home page.
Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Heh. That's a great observation. You're right -- he's pretty much the only scholar who focuses on OSC.
However, there have been a variety of scholars -- grad students, professors and amateurs -- who have written on OSC's works from the fields of Mormon studies and speculative fiction [and sometimes those two fields overlap].
BYU's annual speculative fiction academic symposium Life, the Universe and Everything is where probably the majority of such scholarship has been presented/published.
Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
Thanks for the huge amount of info, Katarain, although I'm amazed that you got all of that from the MLA. It's the first place I looked, and I came up with exactly zilch (apart from a few technical essays regarding sentence "enders"). But then I realise that I may not have searched for Orson Scott Card, and rather for just "ender's game" or "ender". Unfortunately I can't check, because it's the weekend and I don't have access to the MLA from home. But I will set to it come Sunday (yes, Sunday - I'm at graduate school in Israel).
Re: "Ender's Game" as a "real" book. Obviously I don't mean to disparage it myself - it's my favourite novel, and I recommend it to everyone I come across. However, in a class where we are studying Austen, Hardy, and Shakespeare, Card seems a little out of place. Maybe he won't seem out of place in the future! My professor is actually a fan of science-fiction, and used a number of excerpts from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in the last class I took with him. However, he was a little concerned that no one seemed to have written about "Ender's Game" in a scholarly capacity. Obviously I was wrong to tell him this!
I have used Google Scholar - the other day I found an interesting article about using Ender's Game as a tool for studying child development. It's (unfortunately) a rather short and non-specific article, but it does tie in with some of what I'm hoping to explore in my paper: the effective silencing of Ender by adults, and the ways in which he (and Peter and Valentine) find their own voices.
I have of course found many general articles on silence (this is one of my major research interests, and my professor is an expert in the field - his name is Dennis Kurzon). One particularly interested me: a psychology study of how a small child (a girl) was able to use her own silence in a classroom setting to wield power over her fellow students, and the teacher. It's pretty interesting to see that small children (and I'm not talking about the exceptionally intelligent and gifted children of "Ender's Game") can behave in similar ways to the ways in which I think Ender behaves in the book.
Actually, it probably isn't so surprising. After all, one of the reasons the book succeeds with its readers is that the children *are* believable. I don't think anyone believes that they were stupid as children, but somehow acquired intelligence later in life. We all know how remarkable children can be.
One of the problems I encountered in my more general searches was that the studies of children out there seem to be concentrated on children with specific mental disabilities. I've been looking for psychological studies on how "normal" children relate to adults in conversation, but I haven't come up with anything. I will keep trying, but I do get the impression that your regular, common-or-garden kids aren't that interesting to many researchers ;-)
Thanks again to all of you who responded. I will be following up the links and suggestions, and I'll report back.
Posts: 66 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Another thought: Katarain suggested looking up books on science fiction theory. And it led me to realise that I never think of Ender's Game in terms of science fiction (except when other people ask, usually in derogatory tones, "It's science fiction, is it?"
I think of it (and its sequels) in terms of psychology, politics, morals, military leadership, relationships between children and adults, and accordingly this is what I've found myself searching for in terms of articles to consult for my paper. I re-read "Speaker For The Dead" recently, and it speaks to me (a linguist) as an ethnography more than anything else. Xenocide, which I'm re-reading now, for its wonderful treatment of OCD and morality.
So I will seek out the science fiction theory books as you suggest, and I'm rather intrigued to see whether I'll find ideas within them that *do* resonate with Ender's Game, because I haven't really thought about it in the past.
posted
Those people, namely professors, who don't respect Science Fiction as literature are simply... well, mistaken, ignorant, stubborn, or stupid. Maybe all of those. Certainly unenlightened. They don't have to like it, but they should be informed.
I've had exactly that attitude when approaching my teachers to do untraditinal topics--on the defensive, like I need to prove all by myself that scifi and fantasy are worthy. I've found my teachers to be more enlightened than I thought they would be. It's hard to ignore it anymore with so much scholarly chatter (papers and books) on the topic.
Anyway, I suggest you read "How to write Science Fiction and Fantasy" by Orson Scott Card. It is a how to book, I know, but he does a really good job of summing up the potential of the genre and how much room there is within the genre. I've also been reading Strategies of Fantasy by Brian Attebery. It's not about Sci-Fi, but a lot of his comments about Fantasy apply to Sci-Fi as well.
So yeah, Ender's Game is Sci-Fi and it does address all those other things you mentioned. All good sci-fi does--all good literature does. Being Sci-Fi doesn't limit the psychology, etc. of the book--it, in fact, expands it. It broadens the horizons of what's possible to explore in a book. (That's actually my basis (not thesis) for my paper: that fantasy's dealings with the impossible make it possible to understand what's real. As in, you understood the real world better after reading this book about magic.)
So don't be ashamed to say you're a science fiction reader. And if anyone scoffs or simply doesn't understand, be ready with hard facts to defend sci-fi as being as rich as any other literature--if not more so. (Sure, there's horrible sci-fi out there, but there's horrible literature out there, too.)
You sound very intelligent, so we, as sci-fi fans in the academic world, need YOUR voice to rise with ours in defense of science fiction!!
Well, I will report back on what my professor says about the book once he's read it. My boyfriend is totally anti-sci-fi, but I have been trying to get him to read "Ender's Game" for years, as he was also a precocious young kid in a military academy. A couple of days ago I happened to mention that the book is used in US military academies as a text on leadership, and suddenly he wants to read it!
I will try and find the books you suggest, although I am pretty much limited to what I find either online or in my university library Still, I found the entire Harry Potter series in my university library, so stranger things have been found there...
I am encountering great problems with my paper as I re-read all my Enderverse books - there's so much stuff that I could write about! Even if I only stick to silence, there's a huge amount on this in the sequels. There's a particularly wonderful passage in Xenocide I was reading last night about Wang-mu's use of silence to get Qing-Ji to do what she wants!
-sigh- The life of a grad student is such a hard one, having to read all this great literature! Posts: 66 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
It's a possibility, but it costs money. Inside Israel it isn't too much, but if the book(s) have to be shipped from overseas, as I expect many / most specialist English-language books would have to be, it would rack up the shekels.
However, I will investigate at university tomorrow. Perhaps there will be more in the library than I anticipate.
Posts: 66 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
lonelywalker, may I ask which university you are at? HU, Weitzman, probably not the Technion if you're a linguistics major . . . ?
Just curious -- my dad is just wrapping up a visit to HU (with a shorter visit to the Technion), and has visited other Israeli universities (as a lecturer and/or to do research with colleagues) in the past.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
First, I'm impressed (nay, stunned) at what you found in the MLA list.
Second, I loved my MA and PhD work in literature. (Didn't finish the doctorate, but I AM a "master.")
Third, I think it's perfectly understandable when professors have a low or hostile or at least doubtul attitude toward science fiction.
The teaching of contemporary or near-contemporary literature is a fairly new phenomenon. It began in the universities precisely when Modernism was all the rage, and therefore the canon of "serious" contemporary literature was established when writers who were part of that rebellion against Victorian literature were the only ones being taken seriously.
The literary "standards" used to DEFEND the Modernists and justify their primacy over the Victorians thus became enthroned, not as the polemic that they were (just like every other brand-new literary revolution), but as Eternal Verities or at least Received Truth. And even as we've had several generations of revolutions in critical theory, the fact is they have largely left the canon alone. Even the feminist and multi-cultural revolutions, which were designed to overturn the canon, essentially added writers whose work could be talked about using precisely the same standards of judgement - in other words, the writers who most resembled the modernist canon.
AFTER the modernist canon and critical theory were enthroned in the university, THEN we had the next revolution in publishing: The "genres" were devised, some growing out of penny dreadfuls and time novels, some growing down out of "literature" and becoming commercial categories (like mystery and historical fiction).
Sci-fi definitely is in the "grown up out of the penny-dreadfuls and adventure novels" category, at least in the U.S. H.G. Wells was taken seriously, but not the imitators with their lurid magazine covers and often clumsy and empty writing. So science fiction was despised in academia from the moment of its birth.
The trouble is that science fiction spawned a lively dialogue between writers and "fans" (readers who took sci-fi seriously enough to devote hours and hours to developing critical standards and exploring issues from the fiction). A couple of influential editors also had a profound effect on the field. As a result, science fiction went through several "generations" in an amazingly short time, becoming a fully mature genre by the 1970s, with a rich history behind it.
Academia didn't notice, except for a few voices crying in the wilderness. Like most of the other ideas that came along with Modernism, the idea of dismissing the commercial genres as being incapable of true literary merit has lingered long after it ceased to bear any relation to truth. It is enthroned in the chain bookstores, where they have a category ludicrously called "fiction and literature" AS DISTINCT FROM "mystery" and "science fiction/fantasy," etc.
Mystery and science fiction/fantasy have, however, both grown up into valid literary communities, with avid readers and professional writers interacting and creating a vibrant literature. There is actually far more variety and creativity in BOTH these fields, fulfilling more of the legitimate purposes of fiction, than in the now-very-hidebound "literary" genre.
Someone who loved studying literature enough to major in the field in college and then go on to graduate school is highly likely to be a "true believer" in the principles taught in university English departments - and that includes the bias aginst the "genres" and the rigid definition of what constitutes "literary merit." It is telling that you can still be considered "experimental" in academia by writing works that merely repeat the experimental techniques of the early modernists.
While if you REALLY do something new and unfamiliar, it genuinely terrifies some academics, because they have nothing intelligent to say about it.
Current English departments simply don't have the tools to study science fiction; and because sci-fi and fantasy are perfectly capable of being received by their audiences without the mediation of professors to explain why they are worth reading, the professors rightly feel superfluous and somewhat excluded from the conversation.
The result is that when science fiction IS included in the "serious" curriculum in graduate school, it is usually the sci-fi that is MOST like the canon or that lends itself to interpretation according to the literary theory then in vogue that is taken seriously; and often this is some of the least typical and least-loved of contemporary sci-fi. In other words, there seems to be a subgenre of sci-fi called "literary science fiction" which exists solely to bend sci-fi to fit within the boundaries of "serious literature"; and such writing is almost completely ignored by the actual science fiction audience.
Gradually, though, this is changing - and is certain to change further. When the history of English-language literature in the twentieth century is written fifty years from now, science fiction and fantasy will be the most important developments in the second half of the twentieth century. Whether my work is studied is not terribly important - the works eventually determined to be the most enduring and interesting and valuable of the genres of sf and fantasy will be esteemed and studied then, while many writers who were lionized by the hidebound, fossilized literary establishment of the past fifty years will be forgotten or regarded as footnotes.
That's what happens after a literary revolution.
In fact, with this paper (and those listed in answer to the original question), we can see science fiction rising in academic esteem, first entering into discussions of "popular culture" and eventually becoming a subject for serious discussion without apology. Your own paper will be part of that.
And remember: I have a standing invitation for anyone who has written a paper on my work, directly or tangientially: We would love to post your papers on Hatrack to be available for others to study and cite. We aren't a refereed journal, of course, so for heaven's sake offer your academic papers first to journals that can advance your career! But we'd love to reprint anything published in a refereed journal, and we'd love to post here examples of student papers that were not designed for publication, but nevertheless consider interesting aspects of my work, or of science fiction or fantasy using my work as part of the discussion.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Katarain - I am at the university library now, and duly wasting my time surfing around on Hatrack. Hee hee. But, you're right, I find a lot of things electronically. I will have to get looking.
Rivka: I'm at Haifa University, in the Department of English Language and Literature (that's a mouthful). What does your father lecture in? (I'm originally from Scotland, but I've been here a year... no doubt the authorities are about to throw me out of the country at any moment ).
Posts: 66 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
OSC said: "While if you REALLY do something new and unfamiliar, it genuinely terrifies some academics, because they have nothing intelligent to say about it."
In high school, I wrote a lengthy paper on Dan Simmons' novel "The Fall of Hyperion". My teacher had no idea what it was about, having tried to wave copies of "Catcher In The Rye" at me. However, I convinced her that it was essentially all about Keats, and I was allowed to do it.
That, of course, was high school. I'm not really sure whether universities are generally more or less accepting of science fiction. Apart from some poetry by (Scottish poet) Edwin Morgan, there was no science fiction studied during my first degree. However, in terms of the final dissertation, anything could be written on. I remember the "advice" lecture on "how to choose a subject for your dissertation", in which all of the lecturers got up on stage and chanted "DO NOT PICK HARRY POTTER, DO NOT PICK HARRY POTTER" at us.
My experience at university has been that if the student can convince the lecturer that the work has some kind of literary value, then it is acceptable, but perhaps I have been lucky with my lecturers.
"because sci-fi and fantasy are perfectly capable of being received by their audiences without the mediation of professors to explain why they are worth reading, the professors rightly feel superfluous and somewhat excluded from the conversation."
That's a very astute point. Although I'm sure there is some sort of new sci-fi theory being developed by such professors as we speak, so we all feel we have to attend hours of classes in order to 'properly' understand "Ender's Game".
"The result is that when science fiction IS included in the "serious" curriculum in graduate school, it is usually the sci-fi that is MOST like the canon"
If you mean included in a specific "science fiction" unit or class, then I agree. But otherwise, it's probably the texts which can more easily be shoehorned into other genres which I would expect to be examined - I'm thinking of something like Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War", for example.
"many writers who were lionized by the hidebound, fossilized literary establishment of the past fifty years will be forgotten or regarded as footnotes."
I wonder whether the "classic" works we study today: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, etc, etc, will come to be regarded as a kind of fantasy literature. As I've mentioned, the class I'm writing the paper for is also studying the works of Hardy, and the actions of his characters, while comprehensible, are more alien than the actions of Ender and co.
>>We would love to post your papers on Hatrack to be available for others to study and cite.<<
Once it's finished and graded, assuming that no journals want it, I'll certainly put it up here. I wish there were more! And thank you very much for the offer.
Posts: 66 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
lw (may I call you lw?), my dad is a mathematical physicist. Which is why I know the names of the Israeli universities that have large math/physics departments, but don't think I even knew there was such a place as Haifa University. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wow, there's a journal Science Fiction Studies? I have to publish in it! I know just the thing... I have a paper I wrote as an undergrad about Dan Simmons's solution to the Abraham dilemma. With a little overhaul-scale rewriting...
posted
Rivka, I read a lot of math. physics for my work as a philosopher of physics. Any chance I might know some of your dad's stuff?
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
Well, since we have the Technion just down the road, there isn't a huge department at Haifa U. But since I am an Arts person, I rarely venture into such strange and foreign places as the maths department...
Posts: 66 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
*grin* Understood. I was a chemistry major, but almost minored (and would have, except for some of the annoying prerequisites) in English.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I lived in Princeton until I was a few months old, then Edison until I was 7. Then we moved out to L.A. (my dad's been at Caltech since 1980)
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Still, I found the entire Harry Potter series in my university library, so stranger things have been found there...![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
That's a very astute point. Although I'm sure there is some sort of new sci-fi theory being developed by such professors as we speak, so we all feel we have to attend hours of classes in order to 'properly' understand "Ender's Game".![[Cool]](cool.gif)
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
Guess I did OK on the midterm.
