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  • Notes on Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “The Necessity of Atheism”

    This is part one of a three part post series that explores some issues and ideas proposed to me by Mack Hassler as part of the independent study that he’s conducting for me on the works of Philip K. Dick.  He asked me to consider the ways in which the thinking of Shelley and Dick are interrelated on the level of metaphysics and belief.  Also, he suggested that I bring those things around to the way their ideas were disseminated as well as the way I communicate online through this blog.  This and the following three posts represent my findings.

    Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “The Necessity of Atheism.” Romantic Period Writings 1798-1832: An Anthology. Eds. Zachary Leader and Ian Haywood. New York: Routledge, 1998. 77-79.

    You may find “The Necessity of Atheism” online here.

    NB: Shelley and his friend, T.J. Hogg, were kicked out of Oxford for publishing this (69).

    Shelley begins his proof by examining belief. Mind/active and perception/passive. The mind is active in investigating that which is perceived in order to clarify, but the mind cannot disbelief that which it perceives to be true. What Shelley calls, “the strength of belief,” is determined by, in order of highest to lowest importance, our senses, our experience (reason), and the experience of others. And it from these things that belief in a Deity derives.

    Working through these three strengths, he admits that if the Deity appears to someone via the senses, then that person must belief the Deity exists. However, he employs what is best described as Occam’s Razor to seek the simpler explanation for the cause and effect of the creation of the universe or one’s own birth rather than the more complicated idea of a Deity. Finally, he establishes that we cannot trust other’s belief in a Deity that, “commanded that he should be believed, he proposed the highest rewards for faith, eternal punishments for disbelief” (79). Belief for Shelley must be voluntary and established by the perception of an individual’s senses.

    He closes the essay by reprimanding those who would punish disbelievers, because one must and should only belief what they experience via the senses. Furthermore, one has no choice but to believe this way without the influence of external pressure. And, any person with a reflective mind will admit that there has been no proof for the existence of a Deity.

  • ONTAP 5 Minute Teaching Session – Sci-Fi or SF?

    Today, I had to give a five minute lesson to my ONTAP group at Kent State University as part of graduate teaching assistant training.  We were asked to teach the class something that we were familiar with, it could be on any subject, and we could teach it anyway we wished.  I chose to teach everyone the distinction between sci-fi and SF.  I got some good comments from everyone in class, which ranged from “I watch a lot of Science Fiction movies, and now I have the language to talk to my friends about it more effectively,” to, “I didn’t really follow what you were saying.”  I tried to construct it to connect with everyone, but I guess Michael Berube was right and we’re “teaching to the six.”  Anyways, I’ve included my notes below (I would have included the video that they made, but it’s on VHS tape and I don’t have an easy way to convert it for posting on YouTube).  Enjoy!

    ONTAP 5 Minute Teaching Session

    Today let’s talk about Science Fiction, sci-fi, and SF.  Science Fiction, as the scholar Darko Suvin puts it, is the literature of “cognitive estrangement.”  What does that mean?  Science Fiction is estranging, that is it puts the reader in unfamiliar territory.  You might say that other literature such as the gothic or even postmodern literature does the same thing, and you’d be right.  However, what sets Science Fiction apart is the cognitive aspect of its estranging function.  The cognitive estranging aspect of Science Fiction is called the novum, which is the technological and scientific extrapolation from the here-and-now that is the kernel of the story, the techno-scientific kernel of the narrative that is essential to the story and sets it apart from mainstream or fantasy literature.  What are some novum examples?  One example of the novum might be robots.  Can you name some others?  Space ships, ray guns, aliens, and humans with a multiplicity of sexes rather than just male and female are a few other examples.

    Okay, so now you roughly know what Science Fiction is, however did you know that Science Fiction is a little more complicated than that?  You see, for much of the history of Science Fiction, beginning with its naming by the pulp magazine publisher, Hugo Gernsback, in 1929, academic and journalist elites have often sneered at Science Fiction as marginal, low, or pop culture.  These Science Fiction detractors pointed to the weakest stories and worst movies as examples of the supposed overall low quality of Science Fiction.  An early response to this problem was offered by the Science Fiction author Theordore Sturgeon in the 1950s when he stated that, “ninety percent of everything is crap.”  That observation is now known as Sturgeon’s Law and is available in the Oxford English Dictionary.  Sturgeon’s point is that there’s a lot of good Science Fiction, but there’s a lot more bad stuff that people point to when they talk about Science Fiction.  Also, the implication is that ninety percent of mainstream literature is also crap, and canonical literature such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet isn’t derided because of the multitude of trashy Romance novels.

    This state of affairs expanded with the widespread adoption of the truncated term, sci-fi.  Sci-fi became widely used to describe Science Fiction by journalists with an implied insult toward the genre as a whole. 

    In the 1970s, Science Fiction scholars and critics decided it was time to distinguish hackwork from the 10% of good stuff.   The new term for the best work, which often received the most critical attention, was simply SF.  SF works are those based on a novum and are as well or better written than its mainstream counterparts.  Sci-fi was used to label works with a much less extrapolated novum, and a very low level of quality in writing or production in the case of movies or television. 

    So, what are some examples of SF and sci-fi?  A recent example of SF film would be The Matrix.  It extrapolates from our world to create a reasonably plausible future based around computer simulation, autonomous robot beings, and a planet devastated by war.  An example of sci-fi would be George Lucas’ Star Wars movies.  Sure, there are space ships, ray guns, and aliens, but there’s also the Force, which is more fantasy than Science Fiction, and the laws of physics are violated egregiously in space such as having things slide off space ships in outer space as if it were an airplane in the Earth’s atmosphere.  What are some Science Fiction movies that you’ve seen, and what would you classify them as–sci-fi or SF?  Some other examples of sci-fi include Plan 9 From Outer Sapce, Back to the Future, Cloverfield, and Red Planet.  Other examples of SF include A.I. Artificial Intelligence, A Scanner Darkly, WALL-E, The Dark Knight, and Mission to Mars.

    Now you’re all initiate Science Fiction scholars who know the difference between SF and sci-fi!

  • Paul Kincaid’s What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction

    Before a week’s long vacation, I finished reading and writing a review of Paul Kincaid’s What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction.  This is a great collection of Kincaid’s essays on a variety of topics centered around SF and the fantastic.  

    In his introductory essay, from which the title of the book is taken, he tackles one of the major concerns of SF scholarship, which is the definition of SF.  He skillfully manages to create a pragmatic definition that draws on Samuel R. Delany’s idea of a SF language, or what Damien Broderick calls the SF “mega-text.”  

    The collection is broken down into these sections:  Theory, Practice, Christopher Priest, Britain, the World, Gene Wolfe, and 1 April 1984.  The Priest section is very strong, and there are many other insightful and enthusiastically written pieces throughout the thirty-two essays and reviews in the book.

    Keep an eye out for my full review in an upcoming issue of Foundation:  The International Review of Science Fiction.

    Discover more of Paul Kincaid’s scholarship online here, and read about his current work on his blog here.

  • Sonja Fritzsche’s Science Fiction Literature in East Germany

    I finished reading Sonja Fritzsche’s Science Fiction Literature in East Germany (2006) for a review that I’m writing for The German Quarterly.  Before writing the review, I do want to share some of my first impressions as I organize my thoughts for the official review. 

    This is a fantastic synthesis of history and cultural analysis of Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) SF.  Fritzsche opens up an often-neglected field of SF research with this work.  Building on a dearth of earlier scholarly work on DDR SF, she builds a history of the DDR, SF authors, SF publishers, and DDR fandom through a contextualization of Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland (SED) policies and the thematic and theoretical elements of a variety of DDR SF, but focusing a deep analysis on three emblematic works:  Eberhardt Del Antonio’s Heimkehr der Vorfahren (Return of the Forefathers, 1966), Johanna and Günter Braun’s Unheimliche Erscheinungsformen auf Omega XI (Uncanny Manifestations on Omega XI, 1974), and Angela and Karlheinz Steinmüller’s Der Traummeister (The Dream Master, 1990).

    Fritzsche’s Science Fiction Literature in East Germany succeeds at adding to SF history as well as DDR history.  I recommend this book to SF and German Studies scholars alike–it has much to offer to SF and German discourses.  Also, I have to find translations of some of these books that she writes about, because they sound so damn interesting!

    Keep an eye out for my full, very positive review in an upcoming issue of The German Quarterly.

  • Deleuze, Guattari, and The Dark Knight

    I’m currently reading Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus:  Capitalism and Schizophrenia, and I couldn’t help thinking about it as I watched The Dark Knight this past Sunday with Y, Seth, Kolter, and Masaya at the Independence Regal.

    Actually, I had thought about the connections between Batman and Deleuze and Guattari’s nomadology a few months ago as I was working on my SFRA 2008 paper on Mike Resnick’s Ivory, nomadology, and how to make meaning for students.  I’m not well versed in the extended Batman history and mythology, but I have read Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again.  While talking with Professor Trogdon outside the Kent State library, it occured to me that Miller’s formulation directly relates to my reading of nomadology and the war machine, because Batman emblematizes resistant force against the all pervasive power, skewering Gotham, of the gangs and organized crime.  Furthermore, Batman leads a war machine, made up of individuals against the oppressive power of evil that permeates through fear.

    The Dark Knight, and the earlier Batman reboot movie, Batman Begins, further reinforces Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of resistance, nomadology, and the war machine.  There is the assemblage of Bruce Wayne, Batman, and his technologies–his suit, grapple gun, cape, the Tumbler, and Bat cycle–that resists corruption and organized crime within his hometown of Gotham.

    Turning it around, there is the Batman-Joker-Two Face assemblage.  They are retellings of one another–breaking rules and law for various psychic traumas in their pasts.  They each serve a particular ideology that overlaps and builds off of one another.  Batman does what the law cannot do in delivering justice.  The Joker is an “agent of chaos,” unhinged by some ancient trauma (if it can be said the Joker has a history), but not to be mistaken as uncalculating, even the Mandelbrot set appears to have a form of order, and likewise, The Joker manipulates and arranges his world to suit his anarchic vision.  Harvey Dent works within the system, unafraid of the risk to his life, and his metamorphosed self, Two Face, seeks revenge and retribution for his loss of Rachael with a white heat intensity.  In a sense, none of these characters may exist without the presence of the other.  As in the earlier Batman movies, The Joker says to Batman, “you created me.”  Their world necessitates their becoming-heroes or becoming-villians.

    There are some interesting convolutions and permutations around the Batman.  Bruce Wayne is able to do what he does, because he has old money that gets bigger and more influential because of Wayne Industries’ work and investment.  Ignatious Fox represents this go-between of money and the Batman’s ability to fight crime.  It’s the high tech weaponry developed by Wayne Industries under the guidance of Fox that enables Batman’s meting justice.  How then is Batman a nomad?  He lives the nomad life, especially illustrated in Batman Begins, but his nomad existence is made possible by capital and the power that comes from it.  Can the nomad represent both the war machine and the State (in this case capital–money is ever present in Batman–stopping bank robberies and such, and the State is only shown to be the police force protecting that capital).  What about The Joker?  Is he the true nomad in The Dark Knight, because he resists the power of the Batman?  Actually, Batman appropriated the war machine of the crime bosses by redirecting the affect of fear from the populace to the criminals.  Deleuze and Guattari say that the war machine will be appropriated by the State and used for its own ends, and if Batman represents capital, then this operation has been accomplished.  Then, The Joker comes on the scene as a resistance to the affect of fear created by the Batman.  The Joker organizes the force of resistance against the power of the Batman by employing the affective weapons of fear, uncertainty, disorder, chaos, and the supposed dearth of good human nature.  He fights what he perceives to be an oppressive power that comes from the shadows and the sky above, but he’s unafraid and resists that power to the end.  Does this mean that The Joker is the true hero of The Dark Knight?

    Awhile back, Sha warned me against becoming a Deleuze and Guattari acolyte, which at the time struck me, because I had not thought of being any sort of acyolyte–the word itself stung me into reconsidering some things.  And, as Jim Gunn says, “the unconsidered belief is not worth holding.”  There are some important things that Deleuze and Guattari have to say that I want to add to my toolbox, but I need to work more at developing my own tools.  Instead of picking up the Craftsman guaranteed tool, I need to walk up to the furnace, lathe, and milling machine and start carving out some of my own tools.  Perhaps I’ll borrow a gadget here or a bob there to enhance my own theories, but I must add my own tools to the toolbox so I’ll be all the more confident and proud to use and carry it.