On the road again...

[eldritchhobbit]

I have two out-of-state scholarly colloquia scheduled in the next two weeks, so I'll be away a good deal of the time. I'm getting ready to head off to participate in the first, an interdisciplinary roundtable discussion of David Hackett Fischer's landmark study Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America; next week's event focuses on a draft of Lawrence H. White's forthcoming book The Clash of Economic Ideas.

Just in case I'm unable to keep up online, I want to send early happy birthday wishes to pewterwolf, lexie_marie, and jalara. May all three of you enjoy many happy returns of the day!


A few links of interest:

*** Zittaw Press has launched a new journal, Studies in Gothic Fiction. The first issue is already available, and it includes articles as diverse as "'Did I Scare You?' The Curious Case of Michael Jackson as Gothic Narrative" and "The Nightmare of the Unknowable, or, Poe's Inscrutability."


*** As many of you already know, a new round of debate about fan fiction recently ignited after author Diana Gabaldon made posts in opposition to fan fiction in her blog. (She has since deleted these posts.) Another author who jumped on the bandwagon was George R.R. Martin. Of all of the exchanges that followed, I simply wanted to point out author Nick Mamatas's excellent and important rebuttal to Martin, specifically Martin's use of H.P. Lovecraft as an example of the perils of fan fiction: "George R.R. Martin Is Wrong about Lovecraft." (I won't climb onto a soapbox here. My support, both as a scholar and a writer, of fan fiction and other transformative works is a matter of public record.)

For those who are interested in learning specific author's attitudes about fan fiction, there is a well documented entry in the Fanlore wiki on "Professional Author Fanfic Policies."


*** The Hog's Head has featured some terrific posts recently on everything from Lost to wizard rock, and I recommend checking out the site. Recently Travis Prinzi noted the rekindling of public venom against Sir Michael Gambon's portrayal of Albus Dumbledore in the latest Harry Potter films. In the past, Gambon's admitted that he has not read J.K. Rowling's books and does not plan to do so.

Of his performance as Dumbledore, Gambon said last month in The Irish Times, “There’s no character really, it’s just me! Me dressed up in a costume! I’m essentially playing myself, that’s all I’m doing.”

As Travis suggests, Sir Michael may need Sir Ian McKellen's masterful help with his method. Enjoy:

"How do I act so well? What I do is I pretend to be the person I'm portraying in the film or play."
- Sir Ian McKellen, "On Acting"

Comments

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you like them, too! I was really pleased that Travis invited me to contribute an essay to his book The Hog's Head Conversations, and I hope to work with him again in the future.

I've been meaning to make time to post/read on their forums. I need to do that!

[gods-lil-rocker.livejournal.com]

Yes, ironically, I found The Hog's Head maybe a month or two after I finished my HP/Narnia thesis in college. I was way excited to discover it, but a little bummed that I didn't find it sooner! Travis' insight would've been very useful to me in my research.

By the way, I really enjoyed the Halloween podcast you were featured in. :) Do you podcast regularly? I'm a podcast addict.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Augh, isn't that always the way it goes? I'm glad you found it, though. And I think it's terrific that you did your thesis on Rowling/Lewis.

Thanks so much for your kind words about my appearances on the Potter Pundits! :) I do podcast regularly; I have a monthly segment about science fiction and fantasy called "Looking Back on Genre History" on StarShipSofa (which just became the first podcast to be nominated for a Hugo Award - we're very excited!), and I also do dramatic readings of contemporary short stories and novellas for that podcast. A full list of my segments and narrations, as well as interviews by other podcasts, is here on my website. Thanks so much for being interested!

I'm a podcast addict, too; I listen to several each week. Do you listen to the Tolkien Professor, by any chance? What did we do before podcasts? And iPods? And LiveJournal? And the Internet? :-D

[gods-lil-rocker.livejournal.com]

Yes, I had my thesis posted on my entertainment blog, but my hosting site went under, so it's gone now. Next week I plan on starting my entertainment blog back up on a different site, probably wordpress, and keep this blog up as a personal blog. I'll put my thesis back up, if you'd ever like to take a look at it. I'm a ham and like to show it off, hee hee. :)

StarShipSofa sounds really interesting and the subject matter is right up my alley. I'll be sure to subscribe. I do listen to Tolkien Professor, actually! Now that my summer will be starting soon, I plan to read along with the class he taught this semester. I don't listen to all my podcasts regularly; I tend to save them up when I go to visit my fiancé in NC. It's about a 6-hour drive from where I live, so I enjoy having something good to listen to while on the road.

I am not sure what we did before podcasts, iPods,LiveJournal, or the Internet. I would probably have been in my room to be geeky all on my own! :) It's so nice to hear from you!