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January 03, 2005
SF Theory Roundtable Reading
Science Fiction Theory Roundtable March 2005
The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction
Justine Larbalestier
Wesleyan University Press
2002
ISBN: 0-8195-6527-x paper
Chapter 1: "Faithful to Thee, Terra, in Our Fashion: Stories about Science Fiction, Fandom, and Community" page 15-38, Notes p. 242-245
Larbalestier argues in her introduction that the "period from 1926-1973 is absolutely crucial to the formation of contemporary feminist science fiction, and yet very little critical work has been undertaken on that period" (2). Most scholarship on feminist sf begins with stories and novels from the seventies. As important as the period of the 1970s is to feminist sf, the claim that the author goes on to make about the extent to which science fiction "has always contained some kind of engagement with the terrain of sex and sexual difference" (2) is an important one. Larbalestier's argument and the early chapters of her monograph serve to counter the common-sense notion that many have that "women" or questions of gender did not exist in science fiction until the 1970s, or that the only sf that deals with questions of gender is a narrowly defined canon of feminist sf. Larbalestier does not deal only with feminist science fiction but with women's engagement with science fiction from the origin of the contemporary genre in the U.S. during the 1920s despite the on-going critical and cultural myth that "women" did not exist in sf until the 1960s-70s. This monograph is based on an empirical and archival approach combined with ethnographic and linguistic methodology and draws upon the theories of the Annales school of history. Larbalestier uses major sf magazines, including letter columns and articles, fanzines, prozines, and interviews with fans to support her claims as well as analyzing sf stories.
The first chapter examines Gernsback's Amazing Stories, focusing on the response of readers, especially women readers, and the development of fan communities during the 1920s. This chapter is important as an example of an historical methodology that does not evaluate texts by aesthetic or other "literary" criteria. By analyzing how letter columns worked to construct a sf discourse relating to "gender" and "fans" from the start and provided the groundwork for the fan communities which later led to fanzines, conventions, and the growth of the fan culture(s), Chapter 1 provides an intriguing look at fans (of both genders) engaging in debate over gender in science fiction from a key period in North American sf.
This chapter and Larbalestier's work as a whole, raise interesting questions that we might discuss in March.
Possible issues include (but are not limited to) questions about methodology of sf scholarship. How predominant have "English departments" been in the past and to what extent could scholars of other disciplines bring new methods and tools to bear? Another question would be how "science fiction" is taught: Are courses that simply assign published works that meet a genre or literary criteria ignoring an important aspect of science fiction community and culture? While that approach may be appropriate for "literature classes," does this book open up the possibility (if it does not already exist) that other departments might have a stake in "teaching" science fiction from a very different perspective? What are the implications for future scholarship involving the very active and, according to many, the much larger female presence in today's internet fandom?
Posted by ChrissieMains at January 3, 2005 06:37 PM