(no subject)

Is it possible to be both Schroedinger's Gillian and beset by Weather? My body thinks so. Mind you, my body has many thoughts that are not worth a sous. Also, my neighbours keep leaving the door open, which on days like this mean I get a rush of hot air straight into my working area. This turns out to be the reason why my poor computer kept having meltdowns when I returned from Melbourne. I want to leave a note saying "Anyone who leaves this door open has to do all my missing work for me." Except I won't. I did collar one neighbour as I saw him (door left open for only a few minutes, but when it was 34.5 degrees) and tried to explain. I sounded like a total grouch. This may be because I was, because the weather was about to change and my flat was overheated and I couldn't get online due to the heat. I've switched modems and the stairwell is no longer pretending it's a sauna and so far today am OK.


I ought to stop whingeing and do some more work. I'd do even more work if only I was not Shroedinger's Gillian: not knowing what's happening on so very many fronts palled ages ago.

At any rate, the teaching year is nearly done. Soon I shall be able to start thinking about my longterm research. I want to work on worldbuilding. I want to see how worldbuilding and poiesis and story space and related issues meet at the theoretical level, and then trace the theory down to what happens in novels and find out just how wide the gap is between theory and the decisions writers make. I also want to look at the role of received cultural interpretations (mainly historical, for obvious reasons) in this, and sort out how my research into the relationship of writers with the Middle Ages adds to or destroys it. Whether I get to do this depends on everything else ie it depends on what happens to Schroedinger's Gillian when that box is opened. If it takes longer to get an academic job, I'll have to write for income and will have to delay my research.

(no subject)

I'm finding my current reading a bit frustrating. What I need is to understand where European criticism of SFF* is in European countries and what it's doing. Everything I lay my hands on here focusses on the US with occasional forays into Britain. This isn't something I can spend much time on - it's more for my general education and to give me contexts and round out my understanding.

It has to exist. I must be looking in the wrong places. I've found articles taht take me to the seventies, but that's about it. When I have more time I'll explore some more, but in the interim I'll finish reading what I have here and sorting out what it says and what it doesn't say and then maybe just file that I need to do some serious reading and thinking about French-language SF criticism down the track. In my dreams, I'd add German to that, but my German isn't as good as it ought to be (I'm 1/16 German - why doesn't my ancestry gift me with this language? it should also give me Polish and Russian and it totally stubbornly refuses to oblige). I could add Spanish and Italian and make it Romance language spec fic criticism (stick to languages I both read and know something of the literature in, despite having the wrong ancestry)? That's going to be a task of years, but it would be a fascinating journey.

What I shall do is (after I've finished my current small task) keep it in mind and when I come across things make sure I read them. I meant to stick to Australia and NZ, but I'm really curious about these other countries. I know enough about their literary histories to be curious, basically. The country that produced Orlando Furioso and The Name of the Rose should have entirely different spec fic criticism to the one that produced Yvain and Candide and Captain Nemo. And both of them should give me insights into our own literatures.

I need more hours in my day. Also, I need German and Polish.

Or I could watch Merlin. I have Season 4 out from the library. This kind of defeatist attitude is precisely why we focus on the US and Britain for such things - the DVD of Merlin is available from my local library - decent French SF criticism is not.




*I can't decide which set of terminology works for me today, so I'll use several, randomly. This should annoy everyone equally, which is a very fair and just thing to do.