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Feb. 13th, 2009 01:31 pmToday I am besotted with recognition.
I watch writers around me jostling for people to notice their names, read their works and I wonder if I look like that, too, trying to be noticed in a crowd. But that's not the recognition that fascinates me.
When we read something by 'Anonymous,' most people will automatically assume 'Dead White Male from Prestige Culture/Religion/Class' as the default author. Years ago I decided that my default author was female, religion unknown, class unimportant, race a mystery, sexuality anything they wanted. I wanted to assume that all anonymous works were by someone Jewish, but I lacked the chutzpah for that.
But why should it take chutzpah to place one of my own attributes onto anonymous works? Majority people do that all the time. Not intentionally, but they do it. Non-majority people usually depend on majority attributes, too. It's an odd form of cultural self-denial. The default is pretty standard. Cultural expectations and norms and the ordinariness of life.
And doesn't it make things boring? How can we dream about the interesting private life of 'Anon.' if we assume all those self-same attributes, each and every time we read the author's name?
So. Where is this leading me? Well, it's still a bit cheeky for me to appropriate all the works written by Anonymous. Or even all the good ones. Instead, I am hereby registering a claim for a particular subset, to be reattributed starting from now.
My claim is that the default author for good anonymous speculative fiction writing from here on in be assumed to be Australian, Jewish and female unless you can clearly demonstrate otherwise. Proof that a poem was first published in English in 1683 is clear evidence that it wasn't written by an Australian, for instance. This means that the 1683 anonymous poem was probably written by a Jewish woman. It's amazing how much more interesting interpretations of anonymous works are, now that I have changed the default. Read an anomymous fairy tale. See for yourself.
This is just for science fiction, fantasy, horror and fairy tales. I lack the chutzpah to assume universal change. And remember, if you think that an anonymous writer really is a dead white male, all you have to do is prove it.
I watch writers around me jostling for people to notice their names, read their works and I wonder if I look like that, too, trying to be noticed in a crowd. But that's not the recognition that fascinates me.
When we read something by 'Anonymous,' most people will automatically assume 'Dead White Male from Prestige Culture/Religion/Class' as the default author. Years ago I decided that my default author was female, religion unknown, class unimportant, race a mystery, sexuality anything they wanted. I wanted to assume that all anonymous works were by someone Jewish, but I lacked the chutzpah for that.
But why should it take chutzpah to place one of my own attributes onto anonymous works? Majority people do that all the time. Not intentionally, but they do it. Non-majority people usually depend on majority attributes, too. It's an odd form of cultural self-denial. The default is pretty standard. Cultural expectations and norms and the ordinariness of life.
And doesn't it make things boring? How can we dream about the interesting private life of 'Anon.' if we assume all those self-same attributes, each and every time we read the author's name?
So. Where is this leading me? Well, it's still a bit cheeky for me to appropriate all the works written by Anonymous. Or even all the good ones. Instead, I am hereby registering a claim for a particular subset, to be reattributed starting from now.
My claim is that the default author for good anonymous speculative fiction writing from here on in be assumed to be Australian, Jewish and female unless you can clearly demonstrate otherwise. Proof that a poem was first published in English in 1683 is clear evidence that it wasn't written by an Australian, for instance. This means that the 1683 anonymous poem was probably written by a Jewish woman. It's amazing how much more interesting interpretations of anonymous works are, now that I have changed the default. Read an anomymous fairy tale. See for yourself.
This is just for science fiction, fantasy, horror and fairy tales. I lack the chutzpah to assume universal change. And remember, if you think that an anonymous writer really is a dead white male, all you have to do is prove it.