Interests Meme
This is a meme where you ask about people's Interests (from their el jay profile). Comment on this post, and I'll pick six of yours, and you explain them on a post you make. Then you post this on your journal and it becomes a never ending spiral... and good fun.
tree_and_leaf asked me about these:
battlestar galactica, bitching about harold bloom, chickadees, fantasy of manners, narrative theory, tintin.
Battlestar Galactica: I am probably not the only person around to have been a fan of the original series, but one of the few who will admit to it. I used to watch it faithfully, and have a copy of the "movie" on VHS. However, I also adore the new series, which really only shares the name. I admire the production values - everything from set design to music - and the terrific writing.
Bitching about Harold Bloom: I nicked this one from majrgenrl8, and I think we're still the only two users on LJ to have it. We should start a trend. Bloom's own theory, in Anxiety of Influence - that young authors have a kind of Oedipal relationship with their predecessors and have to "kill" them before they can do anything good themselves - comes into play with all present day English scholars, too, I should think. We all want to kill Harold Bloom :) He's one of those old school scholars who knows EVERYTHING and will talk at length about it. I run up against him because he's written some good stuff about Romanticism, which is one of my areas, and narrative theory (another). I also think he's a boring old fart about Harry Potter. Get a life, Harold.
Chickadees:
We don't go in much for really "cute" birds here in Canada, not having many like blue-tits or your British robin, but we do have chickadees. My favourite bird. They are cheeky and friendly, and I have a gang of them in my garden, and I love them.
Fantasy of Manners: Fantasy that may rely more on interaction between characters in society rather than grand quests to save the world and may have little or no magic. A subgroup of the new vogue for fantasy set in vaguely Napoleonic worlds. Typified by Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint and its sequels, and I think sartorias's Crown Duel duology fits the criteria as well.
Narrative Theory: underpins a lot of my own scholarly "work" - not that I do much these days beyond teaching, let's say what I would do if I had to to earn a living. I'm particularly interested in intertextuality (what a surprise!) - the use of previous texts in an existing text - and am drawn to writers, like Jeanette Winterson, Michael Ondaatje, Timothy Findley, et al, who use it in interesting ways. This has lately made me interested in fan fiction from a theoretical point of view... I also tend to respond well to non-linear narratives, and like to think about why and how they work.
Tintin: I read my first - The Crab With the Golden Claws - while staying with my boy cousins when I was nine. I think they were considered "boys" things, and nobody had thought to give them to me. I've been a fan ever since. I love the detailed drawing and the amusing social satire interwoven with "ripping yarns."
tree_and_leaf asked me about these:
battlestar galactica, bitching about harold bloom, chickadees, fantasy of manners, narrative theory, tintin.
Battlestar Galactica: I am probably not the only person around to have been a fan of the original series, but one of the few who will admit to it. I used to watch it faithfully, and have a copy of the "movie" on VHS. However, I also adore the new series, which really only shares the name. I admire the production values - everything from set design to music - and the terrific writing.
Bitching about Harold Bloom: I nicked this one from majrgenrl8, and I think we're still the only two users on LJ to have it. We should start a trend. Bloom's own theory, in Anxiety of Influence - that young authors have a kind of Oedipal relationship with their predecessors and have to "kill" them before they can do anything good themselves - comes into play with all present day English scholars, too, I should think. We all want to kill Harold Bloom :) He's one of those old school scholars who knows EVERYTHING and will talk at length about it. I run up against him because he's written some good stuff about Romanticism, which is one of my areas, and narrative theory (another). I also think he's a boring old fart about Harry Potter. Get a life, Harold.
Chickadees:
We don't go in much for really "cute" birds here in Canada, not having many like blue-tits or your British robin, but we do have chickadees. My favourite bird. They are cheeky and friendly, and I have a gang of them in my garden, and I love them.
Fantasy of Manners: Fantasy that may rely more on interaction between characters in society rather than grand quests to save the world and may have little or no magic. A subgroup of the new vogue for fantasy set in vaguely Napoleonic worlds. Typified by Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint and its sequels, and I think sartorias's Crown Duel duology fits the criteria as well.
Narrative Theory: underpins a lot of my own scholarly "work" - not that I do much these days beyond teaching, let's say what I would do if I had to to earn a living. I'm particularly interested in intertextuality (what a surprise!) - the use of previous texts in an existing text - and am drawn to writers, like Jeanette Winterson, Michael Ondaatje, Timothy Findley, et al, who use it in interesting ways. This has lately made me interested in fan fiction from a theoretical point of view... I also tend to respond well to non-linear narratives, and like to think about why and how they work.
Tintin: I read my first - The Crab With the Golden Claws - while staying with my boy cousins when I was nine. I think they were considered "boys" things, and nobody had thought to give them to me. I've been a fan ever since. I love the detailed drawing and the amusing social satire interwoven with "ripping yarns."