Random Notes for Research Projects
Feb. 9th, 2017 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caitri1) I've been rereading Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books for comfort, and the last time I did that I was really frustrated with the unrelenting dubcon of the 1960s. Yes, I understand that sex scenes had to be done that way until, like, the 80s or whatever, but still. There's actually a couple of lines in "Dragonflight" where F'lar thinks with regret about Lessa being a virgin when their dragons mated and so what he had done wasn't much better than rape--which, yay, hero, glad you got that--but then this becomes a point of romantic obstruction. Also the whole thing with how the Blue and Green dragonriders "have to be" gay that's incredibly awkward subtext because of McCaffrey's incredibly problematic view of homosexuality.
2) I worked on and sent off edits for my fanfiction and book history essay that's coming out in September (!). The reviewer wanted me to remove the bit about fanzines-as-samizdats, which is simultaneously a common, unexamined, and problematic view, which is to say that people argue that fanzines aren't samizdats because they aren't political and there aren't ramifications about their publishing. Except this is contrary to a long-held view about maintaining fan anonymity even of historical work where people used their real names because they didn't ever think they would get "published" (even if a zine has 1000 copies) that 1) emphasizes that whole public/private divide in a gendered way, and 2) ignores anxiety about doxxing. So basically fandom isn't dangerous until it's dangerous.
I'm still mentally sorting that one out.
2a) All of the anxiety about fan anonymity, from print zines to kink memes.
2) I worked on and sent off edits for my fanfiction and book history essay that's coming out in September (!). The reviewer wanted me to remove the bit about fanzines-as-samizdats, which is simultaneously a common, unexamined, and problematic view, which is to say that people argue that fanzines aren't samizdats because they aren't political and there aren't ramifications about their publishing. Except this is contrary to a long-held view about maintaining fan anonymity even of historical work where people used their real names because they didn't ever think they would get "published" (even if a zine has 1000 copies) that 1) emphasizes that whole public/private divide in a gendered way, and 2) ignores anxiety about doxxing. So basically fandom isn't dangerous until it's dangerous.
I'm still mentally sorting that one out.
2a) All of the anxiety about fan anonymity, from print zines to kink memes.
