on the road again
May. 17th, 2007 06:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eldritchhobbitWe're off to North Carolina today to close on the house. We officially move next week. But before we take off today, a few quick notes:
Personal news:
* I've officially been named a member of the Advisory Board of the Mythopoeic Press. (My edited volume from the Past Watchful Dragons conference will be published by the press later this summer.) This is the publishing wing of The Mythopoeic Society, which is a non-profit international literary and educational organization for the study, discussion, and enjoyment of fantastic and mythic literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams.
Links to share:
*Romantic Circles Electronic Editions is a searchable archive of texts of the Romantic era. This archive includes great hypertext versions of a number of important books, including one of my favorite novels, Mary Shelley's The Last Man.
* In 2005, the Science Fiction Foundation co-ordinated an academic track on "The Matter of Britain" for Interaction, the 63rd WorldCon. Several of the papers presented on this topic of Arthuriana and science fiction are now available online here and are well worth reading.
* Valancourt Books has several intriguing new titles out this month.
* Neil Walsh has a new "Overlooked or Over-Hyped?" column up at SFSite.
And last but not least, news of the weird:
"China's capital is seizing ghost and horror books from shops to protect the 'physical and mental health' of its youngsters, local media said on Tuesday." Read the article "Beijing bans scary stories to protect young."
Clearly the authorities missed the insight of C.S. Lewis in "On Three Ways of Writing for Children": "A far more serious attack on... children’s literature comes from those who do not wish children to be frightened... that we must try to keep out of his mind the knowledge that he is born into a world of death, violence, wounds, adventure, heroism and cowardice, good and evil... [This] would indeed be to give children a false impression and feed them on escapism in the bad sense. There is something ludicrous in the idea of so educating a generation which is born to the Ogpu and the atomic bomb."
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Personal news:
* I've officially been named a member of the Advisory Board of the Mythopoeic Press. (My edited volume from the Past Watchful Dragons conference will be published by the press later this summer.) This is the publishing wing of The Mythopoeic Society, which is a non-profit international literary and educational organization for the study, discussion, and enjoyment of fantastic and mythic literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams.
Links to share:
*Romantic Circles Electronic Editions is a searchable archive of texts of the Romantic era. This archive includes great hypertext versions of a number of important books, including one of my favorite novels, Mary Shelley's The Last Man.
* In 2005, the Science Fiction Foundation co-ordinated an academic track on "The Matter of Britain" for Interaction, the 63rd WorldCon. Several of the papers presented on this topic of Arthuriana and science fiction are now available online here and are well worth reading.
* Valancourt Books has several intriguing new titles out this month.
* Neil Walsh has a new "Overlooked or Over-Hyped?" column up at SFSite.
And last but not least, news of the weird:
"China's capital is seizing ghost and horror books from shops to protect the 'physical and mental health' of its youngsters, local media said on Tuesday." Read the article "Beijing bans scary stories to protect young."
Clearly the authorities missed the insight of C.S. Lewis in "On Three Ways of Writing for Children": "A far more serious attack on... children’s literature comes from those who do not wish children to be frightened... that we must try to keep out of his mind the knowledge that he is born into a world of death, violence, wounds, adventure, heroism and cowardice, good and evil... [This] would indeed be to give children a false impression and feed them on escapism in the bad sense. There is something ludicrous in the idea of so educating a generation which is born to the Ogpu and the atomic bomb."
Have a great weekend, everyone!
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-17 01:36 pm (UTC)Huzzah! Congratulations!
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Date: 2007-05-20 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-17 07:05 pm (UTC)Good song, too :-)
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Date: 2007-05-20 10:16 pm (UTC)I <3 Queen. Though ever since I saw Shaun of the Dead, this song has been doubly meaningful!
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Date: 2007-05-21 06:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-17 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-17 09:45 pm (UTC)As for China...I find it terribly ironic that government authorities ban scary stories to prevent psychological trauma and yet has some of the worst child labor violations in the world. Protect their minds and not their overall well-being? There are so many freaky ghost stories in Chinese oral culture already; they might as well ask parents to stop talking to their children.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 10:20 pm (UTC)Excellent points about China. I don't know what's worse, the hypocrisy of the authorities (as you said so well, concern over the impact of fiction but not of gross human rights violations) or the lack of knowledge and cultural context that this reflects. I suppose in the end, it's all just about power and force.
Thanks for the links........
Date: 2007-05-18 12:41 am (UTC)Good luck with the move. I only moved once in 40 years. In Dec., my mother and I moved to a small condo.
*hugs*
Chris
Re: Thanks for the links........
Date: 2007-05-20 10:22 pm (UTC)Wow, 40 years is an amazing track record! It's been almost 8 for us, and that's been daunting enough. But we're packed now, we're closed on the new house, and the move proper begins tomorrow. I think all the hardest work is behind us. Woohoo!
Moving is always tough........
Date: 2007-05-20 10:54 pm (UTC)Hope it goes smoothly!
no subject
Date: 2007-05-18 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-19 10:53 am (UTC)It is of course purely media control. A few months back, a ban on foreign animation was put in place over there, allegedly to protect their own animation industry (which by all accounts produces some rather prosaic material). Seems the populace was taking a preference for American and Japanese cartoons.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 10:24 pm (UTC)