HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: RE: Cross-Writing (was: Books I Got For Xmas)
Organization: Clark University
Date: 5 JAN 93 17:04:31 GMT

I hope this will clarify the discussion a bit, or at least
explain my thoughts more precisely:

In the essay I quoted in my original posting, Joyce Carol
Oates discusses the situation faced by women who are writers.
To summarize what she says: while male writers are viewed
simply as "writers", women writers can never escape being
tagged with their gender.

Critics have, in the past, treated "femaleness" in writers
with condescension, as though one needed to be a man in order
to be capable of creating anything important.  (See Oates'
essay for relevant quotes, a few of which I included in my
post.)  The supposed compliment "You write like a man,"
mentioned by Oates, and by Anne Sexton as quoted by Mark
Taranto, is significant: not only does it imply that there
is a certain way that women write, but that it is *inferior*
to the way men write.

If people believe this is true, then do women writers have their
creative license limited to any extent because they are classified
as women?

The recent thread on Anne Rice reminded me of the point-of-view
question: are readers more sensitive to the accuracy of male
point-of-view in books that are written by women?  My suspicion
is that they are.  There's no way of proving that, of course,
short of cataloguing critical responses to specific books, so
it remains only a hunch.

For centuries it was accepted for writers to write from the
female perspective.  It was part of the job, after all, getting
inside the skin of imaginary characters.  Students of literature
have been brought up on the likes of Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, 
and Tess of the d'Urbervilles, all male creations.  In comparison, 
the literary canon includes few women authors writing from the 
perspectives of male protagonists.  All I can think of right
now are Willa Cather, Flannery O'Connor, and Iris Murdoch.
(More suggestions are eagerly awaited.)

I think this is due to the concept of "writing like a man", which
is to say, writing.  Male writers have always had the license to
take on a female point of view, in addition to being automatically
entitled to write about war, violence, and other "masculine"
subjects.  Female writers don't necessarily have this license.
For example, Stephen Crane never went to war; would _The Red Badge
of Courage_ have been accepted if it had been written by a
woman?

I find it interesting that in genre fiction, such as mystery,
suspense, and fantasy (and I assume science fiction, though
I don't read much in that genre), authors like Sayers, Christie,
P.D. James, Mary Stewart and Helen MacInnes (not to mention
Anne Rice) have taken the male point of view and profited hugely.
They have also been able to include a degree of violence that
they might not have been able to get away with in "serious"
fiction.  Now, is "writing like a man" only a concept that
comes into play when women writers bid to be taken seriously?

Now I'll stop with the questions, already.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields)
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Organization: UNC-CH School of Medicine
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 14:17:46 GMT

>Mark Taranto writes:

>	I didn't read one damn book on my 10 day honeymoon, and had 
>	no problems figuring out what to do with my free time.

Francis Muir writes:

>Perhaps if you and your bride had done more reading, your honeymoon might 
>have been more of an exemplar than previously posted lamentations from 
>yourself have indicated.


Francis, you're being a bore!   Don't tell me you're a closet prude?


Yours in wet fishes and things that go squishes,

Joan

Funny thing though, I'd feel pretty safe in a dark alley with Mark (being
the gentleman he is) but I'd be looking for a sharp stick if I were with
Francis in broad daylight....
From: Ray.Lego@f110.n363.z1.fidonet.org (Ray Lego)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Search for SF book
Date: Sun, 03 Jan 93 21:50:00 PDT
Organization: FidoNet node 1:363/110 - The Bear's Den BBS, Orlando FL

Am searching for a out-of-print SF book entitled "The Naked 
Singularity". I purchased the paperback sometime in the late 70's/
early 80's.  Don't remember the author (for the life of me!) and the 
book is out of print.  If anyone knows of this novel or even the author 
I would be eternally in your debt (in a manner of speaking).  Again, 
thanks for any help!

--  
        Ray Lego  -  via FidoNet Node: 1:363/42
             UUCP:  -  ...tarpit!tous!business!110!Ray.Lego
             ARPA:  -  Ray.Lego@f110.n363.z1.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: stefan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stefan Michalowski)
Subject: Re: Shouting at robots
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 19:47:29 GMT

John McCarthy writes:
>
>I hear my 7 year old son shouting "Stop! Stop!" at his robot.  You
>might consider shouting at a toy robot a singularly futile exercise.
>However, the robot, manufactured in China for a Japanese company and
>sold at Radio Shack, uses voice recognition technology licensed from an
>American company.
>
>It just isn't very obedient when shouted at.


It's not to early for a 7 year old to learn about the fact that
different languages may be spoken in different countries. Shouting
"Stop! Stop!" to a Japanese robot is (roughly translated) the same
as shouting "Water-slide!, Water-slide!" to an American one. Tell
him to try "O-shimokiki! O-shimokiki!". Should work much better.


Stefan

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: duve@ellis.uchicago.edu (michael andrew duvernois)
Subject: Re: Cross-Writing (was: Books I Got For Xmas)
Reply-To: duve@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 23:24:11 GMT

In article <6JAN93.01143238@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>The RABworm writes:
>
>
>Yes: maybe *you* can think of more female authors who have written from
>a male point of view.  I'm stuck at three right now, and there must
>be more.
>
>Heather
>HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu

One that came to my mind is Anna Kavan writing in her masterpiece _Ice_
where the central storyline features a male character searching the dying
Earth for a woman.  Kavan, in my opinion, is a badly neglected writer whose
best writings (_Ice_, _Asylum Pieces_, and _Julia and the Bazooka) should
be highly recommended.  Her deep pessimism, heroin addiction, and dislike
of people combine to create surreallistic nightmares and what I'd call
representative examples of magical realism.

Mike DuVernois
m-duvernois@uchicago.edu

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Paul Johnson (was Paglia)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 17:17:41 GMT

In article <JMC.93Jan8211102@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>In article <1993Jan9.031316.23253@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:

>   Does the fact that some priests have been charged with molesting children
>   prove that Christianity's prescriptions are worthless, since the priests
>   were unable to live according to the doctrines they preached?
>
>No, but it would say something if no priests at all lived in accordance
>with the doctrines they preach.

So, are you saying that since Rousseau and Russell did not live according
to their prescriptions, it follows that no one did, or that no one could?
What is the logic of this inference?



--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: academic settings
Date: 10 Jan 1993 16:13:52 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Distribution: rec
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Stephanie Moskal Fysh quotes Lawrence Lipking:

	"Today an eighteenth-century scholar may well
	be Jewish, female, or generally irreverent."

Well, a true 18th Century scholar, Isaac D'Israeli, was certainly Jewish,
although I cannot swear to his general irreverence, unless you count having
his little Benji baptised a Christian (if it really was so).

							RABworm
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Date: 7 Jan 93 05:06:58 GMT
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA

In article <C0Gt2G.CtK@panix.com> mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>> I think she's overstating in her typical Paglia furious-Italian manner.
>                                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>What do you mean by this?

Ask Paglia.  She's the one pushing this stereotype/archetype.
I gather you haven't seen her speak in public, either.
It's an experience.

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman)
Subject: Re: Private lives (was re: Paul Johnson (was Paglia))
Reply-To: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU
Organization: UMASS DARTMOUTH, NO. DARTMOUTH, MA.
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 17:52:06 GMT

In article <1993Jan10.153907.19166@husc3.harvard.edu>, 
zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1993Jan9.172310.20841@Princeton.EDU>
>roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:

>Indeed it is, insofar as the singular goal, and the unique litmus test
>of all philosophical reasoning is ethics, and insofar as the ethical
>reasoning of a philosopher is supported or vitiated by his personal
>conduct.  If you should find yourself at a loss for positive examples,
>I refer you to Socrates and Spinoza.

	Ethics is hierarchically abstracted from philosophical psychology.
	Phil. psy. is hierarchically abstracted from epistemology.
	Episte. is hierarchically abstracted from metaphysics.
	Metaphysics is the widest, most basic, most abstract, most general or 
inclusive of all conceptual knowledge.

	My comments are limited to reasoning and are not a judgement of a
symbolic-perceptual epistemology.  

	The ad hominem argument, regardless of its sophistication, is a logical 
fallacy (logic here limited to the method of non-contradictory identification).
	
	The technical apparatus involved in the above comments is too new to be 
widely discussed in universities but those interested may refer to Rand and 
Peikoff.
________________________________________________________________________________
	"In that world, you'll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit
you had known in your childhood: that spirit of eagerness, adventure and cer-
tainty which comes from dealing with a rational universe."
                                                              AYN RAND
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Grossman <PMSC13SG@UMASSD.EDU>
================================================================================
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Bookstore Anecdote
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 18:24:30 GMT

Andrew S Hall on the declining standards of bookstore knowledge:

>I think more bookstores should be like Borders and have employees
>pass tests before being hired.
>
>Andrew Hall

	Really? Is this true? And if it is, isn't it discriminatory?

	Keith

--

Keith Morgan kamorgan@athena.mit.edu
In the end nothing could be said of his work except that it was
preposterous and true and totally unacceptable. Edward Whittemore
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@panix.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Het Boys
Organization: The Inner Clique
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 00:57:04 GMT


patk@sr.hp.com (Patrick Kearney) writes:) writes:


> What's all this buffoonery got to do with books & literature, I am
> moved to enquire. All very interesting in its place I'm sure, but
> in rec.arts.books?

As near as I can tell, r.a.b works like this:


	 1.  Someone mentions a book.
	 2.  Others comment on the book.
	 3.  Someone talks about an idea related to the book.
	 4.  A lively discussion about ideas follows.
	 5.  Someone desides that someone is an asshole, and calls him a name.
	 6.  Heather tells that person off.
	 7.  That person tells Heather off.
	 8.  A new discussion starts about the name that was called.
	 9.  Godwin's Rule is invoked.
	10.  Someone says "what does this have to do with books?"
	11.  I explain the sequence of events.
	12.  Either someone calls me an asshole (where we either jump back
	     to step 6 or 7, depending on whether it is Heather or someone
	     else who calls me an asshole), or the thread dies.

Even r.a.b has its 12 step plan.

Mark
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Woosterspeak
Date: 8 Jan 93 18:53:59 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

oliver@madrone.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Oliver Sharp) wrote:
> For those who are interested, I'd recommend Orwell's essay on Wodehouse; 
> along with the WWII controversy, he discusses the unchanging sunlit world 
> that Wodehouse created from his memory and imagination.  Judging by what
> (little) I know about the great Plum, Bertie's summery universe was part
> of a general other-worldliness; the poor fellow just wasn't capable of
> comprehending the Nazi mindset (not the worst thing that can be said of
> someone, I must say).

A columnist in the New Statesman last year pointed to a passage in one of
Wodehouse's books ("The Code of the Woosters", I think) that was actually
anti-Nazi in the only way that fitted in their framework: Hitler is accused
of having absolutely terrible dress sense.

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 21:10:45 GMT

Oops,  there's a double post on this.  Sorry, the news sender told
me it didn't send the article when it did.

Maybe its important enough to say twice.  Now that's self indulgent!!




William Sburgfort Smith
Intel, SSD
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Paul & his Babe (was Re: Homeschooling
Date: 7 Jan 1993 12:01:14 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


I recall that the statue of Paul Bonjean and Babe is in Bemidji,
MN...not Hibbing, the home of Bobby Z.....
-- 
Ted....
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 03:41:53 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.024416.29407@cheshire.oxy.edu> rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney) writes:

>	I just don't understand your position.  How is placing the
>onus of responsibility on the woman as potential rape target (i.e., 
>as potential *victim*) in any way empowering?  Rather, it seems the
>very source of women's victimization.

Oh, it's far more empowering to characterize women as a child-like class
of individuals who have no responsibility for the situations in which they
find themselves? Shall we rank them under the law with children and
the insane?

Paglia's point is about *date rape* (go back and look at the quote,
please). She's saying that when women go out on dates, they're at some
risk, and they should recognize that this risk is there. 


--Mike





-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmiller@mica.webo.dg.com (Janice Miller)
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:41:53
Organization: NSDD, Data General Corp., Westboro, MA

Francis Muir (RABWorm) writes:

   A problem with some journals is that they believe Olympian heights are
   reached only by matching literacy levels. The reverse is true. Some
   software style checkers quantize literacy by grade. I have found it useful
   in checking out my technical writing to aim at an 8-th grade marking
   from my style checker.

Q. E. D.


--
--
Janice Miller                           janice_miller@dg.com
Network Systems Development Division
Data General Corporation
Westboro MA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: steyn@cs.rochester.edu (Gavin Steyn)
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Organization: University of Rochester
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 21:41:16 GMT

In article <1icqfqINN8jg@agate.berkeley.edu> oliver@madrone.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Oliver Sharp) writes:
>I'm curious.  So far, nobody I've seen has spoken up in favor of guided 
>reading.  Am I the only one who has *liked* my literature classes?  I'm
>a voracious reader and am quite capable of drowning myself in piles of
>books all on my own, so it isn't a desire to be spoon-fed.  Nevertheless,
>I've discovered many splendid and gloriously written books in the reading
>lists for courses.  I was lucky enough to have several inspiring and
>insightful professors who opened up new worlds for me.  

I'll speak up in favor of them, too.  There are a number of authors whose
works I don't think I'd have tried if I hadn't been introduced to them
in lit. courses.  (Jane Austen is the main example that comes to mind;
Dostoevsky is another).

There were a lot of duds, too, of course, but so it goes...  (Still don't like
Hardy or Woolf, for example)

Gavin Steyn
steyn@cs.rochester.edu
"So he's had the lifelong ambition of reversing the polarity of the earth?"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: cei308@cck.coventry.ac.uk (Jet Girl)
Subject: Whatever happened to the LOORSWALOB???
Organization: Coventry University
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 20:27:39 GMT


Hey folks...

I've been on my Christmas vacation over the past three weeks and I get
back and find that the LOORSWALOB seem to have disappeared!!!!

What has happened????  Did they all get married to IBM salesmen after all???

Oh well...back to reading some of the books I got for Christmas - Radclyffe
Hall's "The Well Of Loneliness" is particually good...

love and vibes
Joolz
-- 
 **************************************************************************
 *** "Don't just stand there, lets get to it... *  JOOLZ THE JET GIRL   ***
 ***  Strike a pose, there's nothing to it..."  * cei308@uk.ac.cov.cck  ***
 **************************************************************************
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Subject: Re: Homophobia
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 19:33:49 GMT

In article <1993Jan09.162007.28214@lunatix.uucp> lmollett@lunatix.uucp (Laura Mollett) writes:
> I can actually cite two cases where the majority sued the minority for
> discrimination, but I can't (at the moment) give the appropriate case numbers
> etc.

Of course the majority can sue the minority for discrimination:
women sue men for discrimination quite regularly.

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908 957 2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
--
"To make the point [that homosexuals hamper military effectiveness] I'd
say that you would have to sift through your military history till you
find an instance in which failure has been attributed to the presence
of homosexuals on the losing side.  I'm not aware of any such case in
the past 2500 years, but I'd be interested to hear what you find."
-Nathan Engle
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homeschooling
Date: 5 Jan 1993 12:05:25 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


You say:
Unfortunately, what is taught in schools seems closer to
environmentalism than ecology.  One is a science, with the
requirements of a science for proof and experiment.  The
other is a political movement closely akin to the mystical
movements that set the stage for National Socialist Germany.

Hear, hear..... I've been dealing with this for over 20
years....
(and they call me stodgy... (;-)
-- 
Ted....
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Keywords: Paglia (again!), rape
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 04:16:21 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.000454.1129@cheshire.oxy.edu> rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney) writes:

>>Well, she's not justifying rape, which she explicitly says is a deplorable
>>crime that should be punished. Is she therefore making banal comments?
>>That's for you to judge, I suppose, but it would help if you quit
>>approaching her writing by deciding in advance what she "must be" saying.
>
>	Alas, I don't have your convenient ability to short-circuit
>interpretation and discussion by dodging the issue.

Back when I was in graduate school, we were taught to base our
interpretations and discussions on the actual text. There is no actual
text in which Paglia justifies rape.

> It would help if you
>quit casting straw men and address the points I made.

Ah, you have an ironic sense of humor.


--Mike





-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 21:04:04 GMT

John Ewing writes:
	
	I correct this misunderstanding every time I see it.

	The intent of these measures was not to take away "equal
	protection" from some "minority" groups.
	
	The intent is to prevent certain people, that exhibit
	"certain behaviors" (read: "any unique behavior at all that
	one choses to engage in -- e.g.  reading mystery novels"), from
	gaining an unfair advantage under the law that the rest of the
	population does not enjoy (the behavior being focused
	on here is sexual activity with another of the same sex)...



The Oregon measure was quite a bit stronger than this.

It would have declered "reading mystery novels" deviant behavior and
not allowed anyone in public school to teach otherwise.

A similar law passed in Springfield, Oregon, resulted in the city
library being required to submit its list of books for purchase to
be approved as not containing any material that would advocate
the "reading of mystery novels".

Not the same thing at all.


William Sburgfort Smith			| Straight, But Not Narrow
					| Vote NO on 9
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books