Femspec is an interdisciplinary critical and creative journal having a focus
on imaginations of gender in speculative works. We are entering our 7th year
and here are the critical works that will be in that issue. The issue is being
mailed out in June so you just have time to go on line and subscribe at
femspec.org. We also have a session at NWSA this year and invite you all to come
hear why we do what we do, and to hear about our Best of the First Five Years
contest. We will also be auctioning off art at the Red Serpent booth in the
exhibit hall. Proceeds go towards helping production of the journal. Information on
the conference is available at nwsa.org
CRITICISM
ERIC M. DROWN Business Girls and Beset Men in Pulp Science Fiction and
Science Fiction Fandom With the tools and methodology of American Studies, this
cultural studies article brings evidence from the readers' columns in the early
sf magazines as they respond to early sf writers exploring gender in
relationship to the influx of women into the workforce in sf's early years.
JANET HARRISON The Muse Unmasked: Eileen Agar's Objectives Correlatives. This
article explores a surrealist woman painter not often included in the cannon
of surrealist artists, in particular for her use of female imagery, some of
which is reproduced in black and white here.
R.C. DOROZARIO The Consequences of Disney Anthropomorphism This article
probingly examines how Disney produces a hyperrealism in which the landscape
moves, and how this interrelates with the discourse on ecopsychology, ecofeminism,
women and nature. In particular stereotypes of gender are explored with
creations such as Bambi, showing how Bambi in the original cartoon was male but was
later passed on as a female in subsequent movie productions in which the name
was removed from the original referrent.
DEBRA BONITA SHAW Sex and the Single Starship Captain: Compulsory
Heterosexuality and Star Trek: Voyager. Here the author insightfully examines why and how
it is in the Star Trek television series that the male Starship captains,
when single, are allowed to pursue sexial relations, whereas a single female
captain is not, not without negative repercussions.
Here also is our 6.2 table of contents, for an issue also being mailed out
this June. Please see femspec.org/ for ordering information.
CRITICISM:
J.ANDREW DEMAN Taking Out the Trash: Octavia E. Butler's Wild Seed and the
Feminist Voice in American SF
SCOTT A. DIMOVITZ Cartesian Nuts: Rewriting the Platonic Androgyne in
Angela Carter's Japanese Surrealism
LINDA HOLLAND TOLL Bluestockings Beware: Cultural Backlash and the
Re/configuration of the Witch in Popular Nineteenth-Century Literature
CARLEN LAVIGNE Space Opera: Melodrama, Feminism and the Women of Farscape
MEGAN MUSGRAVE Phenomenal Women: The Shape-shifter Archetype in Postcolonial
Magical Realist Fiction
GERARDO RODRIGUEZ SALAS E.G.E. Bulwer Lytton's Covert Antifeminism in The
Coming Race
FICTION:
KATHIE AUSTIN Orion
SHARON KING Quiescent
CAROLE SPEARIN McCAULEY Crone's Revenge
.
ART:
MARION EPSTEIN Feminist Speculative Art.
.
REVIEWS:
BEVERLY BOW Cambridge Anthology of SF
TANYA COCHRAN The On-line International Community of Buffy Studies
ERIN SMITH Having a Good Cry: Effeminate Feelings and Pop-Culture Forms
LYNEE REED The Song of the Goddess
Batya S. Weinbaum, ed. batyawein at aol.com