Why was Dune so successful despite being largely inaccessible to a mainstream audience? How did Herbert manage to write the best-selling sci-fi novel of all time (surpassing classics such as the works of Asimov and Wells)? While rumors of its reboot arise, why might a major studio (Legendary Entertainment) take on such a sprawling project?
Overall, what is the appeal of Dune, and why has it been so enduring?
Are we entering an era of lost rights for women? Are our futures as bleak as Margaret Atwood predicted in 1986? Analyze Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in its portrayal of women and its implications in modern day politics. Discuss the importance of the book as speculative fiction and the aspects of Gilead possible in modern society.
This is a very relevant topic and I look forward to it being explored. We may not have reached Gilead just yet, but some people would certainly will us that direction. Is there a difference today because we have people fighting it? What about the people at the time of the novel's writing that were fighting this same thing? (Has the fight changed at all?) – Mariel Tishma8 years ago
The tall, noble and beautiful elf has become almost a cliche in fantasy at this point, but this was not always so. As Tolkien traces in his landmark essay, "On Fairy Stories," from Spenser's "The Faerie Queene" and Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" up to his time, elves had been diminutive creatures of mischief, cutesy and not worth taking seriously. Beginning with Tolkien, and his reliance on Northern European mythology to craft his legendarium, analyze this shift in the treatment of the Elf, and what it meant for fantasy as a genre. Also, compare Tolkien's Elf with a more modern one, and look at recent deviations of the now archetypal elf.
Great topic! A portion of this article should definitely be devoted to the portrayal of Christmas elves, as a complete 180 deviation from the kind seen in Tolkein. How did the archetype of a tall, noble, immortal warrior turn into the short, subservient toy-makers (or tree-dwelling cookie-makers, or nocturnal shoe-makers, etc) that's become so ubiquitous in our contemporary lore? – ProtoCanon8 years ago
The writer could also stand to look into pixies/imps/brownies and other fae folk for this topic. More than a few of them have gotten mixed together. – Mariel Tishma8 years ago
Oh, the possibilities.... I'd highly suggest devoting a whole section of the topic to the Christmas elf, since they have about 1000 incarnations themselves. I've seen them as whimsical humans (Buddy in "Elf"), a Nordic-looking stop-motion troupe ("Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer") and as children with silver-specked cheeks (The Santa Clause franchise). – Stephanie M.8 years ago
I started reading American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis during the final debate, and finished the novel shortly after the election. At the start of the novel, there is a particular quote that, I think, mimes the political rhetoric used during election season (well used frequently, but only recognized by a wider audience during election season). While watching a Milo Yiannopoulos talk (shameful–I know), a member of the audience referenced the same quote; which he refers to as the speech given during "the restaurant scene" in the film. The audience member argued that the monologue, performed by anti-hero, Patrick Bateman, mimics some of the language Clinton used during the campaign. I found it very interesting, especially since Bateman is obviously obsessed with Trump throughout the entire novel. While the novel was published in 1991, and the Clinton's weren't yet a household name, I found it very funny that both the audience member and I made that association (despite the fact that I found Bateman's speech to be a satirical monologue that could be applied to Clinton, Trump, and media's impression on the common person's understanding of politics). I want to share this quote, let me know what you think:
"We have to stop people from abusing the welfare system. We have to provide food and shelter for the homeless and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights while also promoting equal rights for women but change the abortion laws to protect the right to life yet still somehow maintain women’s freedom of choice. We also have to control the influx of illegal immigrants. We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values and curb graphic sex and violence on TV, in movies, in popular music, everywhere. Most importantly we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young people."
Ellis, Bret Easton, author. American Psycho : a Novel. New York :Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1991. p.15. Print.
It's always a monumental feat when a novel, especially in YA, gets recognized for having a diverse cast of characters, and even more impressive, if it has a diverse lead, and a diverse author writing it. So, what's the middle man, per se, in getting us from being readers going through page-turners about characters of all types, only to end up with their more cliché, whitewashed, able-bodied counterparts?
The way you're using the word "diverse" is problematic. Human beings are not diverse. Populations are. To answer your suggestion, it's important for whoever wants to write this article to realize that films and novels function differently as artistic media. We can read both as narratives, but the audiovisual nature of film is really important towards the ways that directors envision a work. The reasons why movies continue to feature whitewashed casts is because most readers have a tendency to ignore these "diverse" descriptions when they read. The basic template for a human being in the American imagination is a white person, and therefore descriptions which deviate from this are easily ignored or taken with a grain of salt. It tends to be people of color who are disgruntled with whitewashing because it contributes to their historical erasure and because they are the most sensitive to these issues. – X8 years ago
The largest problem with this topic, as mentioned, is that both forms of media have different purposes. Novels have the simple job of entertaining an engaged reader, while film has the complex job of making money. If this topic is explored, the researcher would need to include this as one of the major reasons for the "whitewashing." Since producers and directors mostly care about making money instead of diversifying and representing the correct culture and racial groups, the topic would be unfortunately straightforward, I would think. – Steven Gonzales8 years ago
Like previous commenters have said, money is a big reason, but on the other hand it's audience's reactions to diverse content. In a lot of fandoms if you write a fanfic with a poc character, many fans will say that they can't "imagine" that character being a minority. For instance even though there are plenty of stories featuring your typical white, straight character, if you create one story featuring a minority character, some people will react by saying that you're taking stories away from white characters. – seouljustice8 years ago
To expand on what seouljustice said, I think that diversity is easy to ignore in a good book. Looks are not as important as values and motivations in books, but are much more important in more visual media, including films. Engaging with characters and projecting yourself onto them means finding similarities between yourself and them, while being able to ignore differences. Target audiences for most popular movies have large percentages of white viewers who would then have trouble empathizing with characters of different backgrounds, including (but not limited to) race and sexuality. – C8lin8 years ago
Albert Camus is one of the fathers of Absurdist philosophy and one of the greatest writers of all time; his philosophical works The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel have defined his ideas, while his novels such as The Stranger and The Plague have actualized them. Examine and breakdown the fundamentals of absurdism.
I get the desire to discuss Camus (as he's one of my favourite writers as well), but this retrospective of his life and works doesn't seem overly suitable to the here and now. I could maybe understand it if he had died recently - you may have noticed that one of our fellow contributors did so when Elie Wiesel passed, but the article has been pending for so long that it'll be hardly still relevant by the time its published, and Wiesel died 56 years AFTER Camus - but I cannot imagine anything in this article that could not be found in his many biographies or critical studies of his work.
I'm not rejecting this, but I won't approve it either. – ProtoCanon8 years ago
Could Campus work be linked to a more current theme in media? I will leave it up to you Camus experts to make a more relevant link. – Munjeera8 years ago
What might be interesting is to compare Sartre with Camus.Many had mistakenly grouped Camus as an existentialist, most consistently, with the ideological thogouht processes of Sartre. Ironically, they were very good friends, but due to their ideological differences--Sartre is an existentialist--they ended up having an epic feud that ended their friendship. In a bittersweet form of a forgiveness, Sartre wrote a tribute to Camus after his death. – danielle5778 years ago
The challenge here, with such a broad topic, is to write it succinctly, but I agree with TKing that it's relevant today. – Tigey8 years ago
The issue isn't that it's not "relevant" -- I only brought up relevance because it was a facet of why this topic struck me as unsuitable for the Artifice -- but rather that scores of books have been written on precisely this topic. Even to narrow the subject matter to something more succinct would just be to focus on one chapter of those many books. For example's sake, Danielle's suggestion to compare Sartre and Camus, in addition to being something that is thoroughly discussed in every biography of either of them, is already the subject of a fantastic book (Camus & Satre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel that Ended It, by Ronald Aronson) from 2004, which has subsequently been followed by a whole slew of other articles (http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/camus-and-sartre-friendship-troubled-by-ideological-feud-a-931969.html, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-j-stone/albert-vs-jeanpaul-why-ca_b_7699530.html, etc) and even another book (The Boxer and the Goal Keeper: Sartre Versus Camus, by Andy Martin). My response to anyone who chooses to write this article is this: "Why should I read this article when I can just read the book (which, let's be honest, is undoubtedly better written and more thoroughly research)? What can you add that hasn't been stated already?" I really don't see the point in regurgitating other peoples' research, simply because it has yet to be done on this specific online platform. We should be striving for originality, critical thought, and sparking debate via new contributions (to topics old and new alike). – ProtoCanon8 years ago
True, protocannon, it's been done, but has it been exhausted? I trust your judgment on that, but won't squelch someone's attempt to find a "new wrinkle." – Tigey8 years ago
I'd argue that it's been exhausted beyond the point to which it merit's Artifice-level discussion. Maybe a "new wrinkle" can be found, to the extent that discovering previously unstudied letters or dairies of Camus would warrant writing a new or revised biography, but if such a discovery were made, it would belong in a genuine academic journal. And there are no lack of those to which it would appropriately correspond, most centrally in The Journal of Camus Studies (http://www.camus-society.com/camus-society-journal.html), or more broadly in relevant philosophically-leaning periodicals like PhaenEx (http://phaenex.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/phaenex), The Reed (http://pages.stolaf.edu/thereed/), or Existential Analysis (http://existentialanalysis.org.uk/journal/) to French literary and cultural journals like French Cultural Studies (http://frc.sagepub.com/) or the Journal of French Language Studies (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=JFL). As much as we love the Artifice, it's not really the best platform for great strides in research; it's better suited for discussing why the time loop ended in Groundhog Day. – ProtoCanon8 years ago
Makes sense. Thanks for your insight, ProtoCanon.. – Tigey8 years ago
When approaching literary criticism should our evaluation be rooted in form, content or a combination of both? Upon surveying user-generated online reviews –through platforms such as Goodreads–it is easy to see a favouring of content>form in the evaluation of (especially contemporary) fictional works. However, a satisfying or politically correct plot does not necessarily constitute a book's literary value, as has been proven in the body of literature that has developed and grown into the present canon of classics. Does a focus on content and its potentially overbearing concern with happy-endings, chronological order or likeable protagonists cloud our judgement of what makes a "good" book? And even more interestingly, can a book be judged to be "good" at all, and if so, by who?
Interesting topic! This topic should probably include some grounding in theory and criticism: although Goodread is good, it might not be substantial enough to form an opinion and an argument! Have a look at the classic debates and theories around the issue with Susan Sontag or Frederic Jameson and postmodernism - it might about art in general or film, but definitely applicable to literature too!
– Rachel Elfassy Bitoun8 years ago
A little broad for my taste but it is very thought provoking. – rowenachandler8 years ago
I think the term "good" is debatable. There are conventions used in every genre. Most of the time, a book is based on how well these conventions are played. It is like a card game. The deck of cards remains the same 52 and the games allow a myriad number of permutations involved with the human element of how to play the cards dealt. No one can say for sure how to always win at poker or bridge but there are general principles that apply. Also, think of the ace card, in some games it is the highest, in others the lowest. I trust you get where I am going with this metaphor. So a good criticism, judges how the the traditional, conventional elements are played out according to its genre. – Munjeera8 years ago
When "critical lens" are applied to texts, which should then serve as an object of critique: the theory that supplemented the text in the first place, or the text interpreted by the theory itself?
And, if you could add more - topics are essentially like a brainstorming of the article that is going to be written, so maybe clear up some vague topics. – scole8 years ago
I would day that the critical lens is applied to the actual piece, as it is a form of literary theory. There's numerous approaches to reading a text: postcolonial, gender studies, historical lens, etc. etc. Usually, one of these approaches are applied to the actual piece read, and then you provide information from the leading scholars and theorists in this particular field as to how the text should be interpreted. – danielle5778 years ago
It should be a mutual exchange between the chosen object of critique, the text, and the critical theorist's perspectives. To clarify, the author is mobilizing the work of someone else to a text which has either a) never been subject to said critique or b) never been subject to the author's interpretation of it through a "critical lens." Something to consider, in addition to the notion of "what" to critique is "how." If I claim to be deconstructing an anime for its representation of effeminate men through queer theory, equal attention should be drawn to whose critical text am I using, what aspect of their argument accentuates my point, and, because of the nature of Artifice, something else in the theorist's text not used. – JMIWrites8 years ago
I write critical analyses of literature as part of my job, and my view is that the critical theory and the literary work both become objects of critique. The theory illuminates the literary work (it guides our close reading of the literary work, helps uncover patterns in the literary work, etc.) even as the literary work illuminates the critical theory (it serves as an example of or a complication to the theory being used). – JamesBKelley7 years ago
