Canon Compliance and Creative Analysis in Vorkosigan Saga Fan Fiction

2020 ◽  
pp. 269-286
Author(s):  
Kristina Busse

This chapter examines different types of fan fiction based on the science fiction Vorkosigan novels by Lois McMaster Bujold. It explores the ways in which the source texts, or ‘canon’, are used as touchstone and tool not only to tell the stories that fan writers want to tell, but also to interpret specific characters and dynamics in the text, to interrogate the political and personal implications of the worlds of the books, and to explore how original characters can offer deeper insight into the characters and societies. The chapter examines canon-consistent stories, original characters, and slash fiction, to argue that the central focus remains the close reading and analysis of Bujold’s universe and characters, albeit in imaginative and exploratory ways.

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolle Lamerichs

The plot of the Dutch novel Maak me blij (Make me happy) (2005) by Karin Giphart draws from the culture of online fan communities. It describes the life of a lesbian in her late 20s, Ziggy, who has a terminally ill mother. Ziggy is an active fan who writes and reads femmeslash fan fiction—that is, lesbian interpretations of characters from mainstream series such as Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001). By providing through Ziggy a personal view of fan communities and the genres that flourish there, Maak me blij connects the romantic motives of original lesbian fiction with its underground sister, fan fiction. The novel draws from various source texts and illustrates how fans interpret texts within a wider literary landscape. I use the concept of intermediality to analyze how Maak me blij mediates different types of original fiction (lesbian romances, science fiction) and fan fiction (femmeslash, Star Trek fan fiction) to establish new views on fandom and its construction of gender and intimacy. These motives are not only apparent within the text itself but also within the character of Ziggy as a fan writer with her own original alien characters.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-259
Author(s):  
Joseph Acquisto

This essay examines a polemic between two Baudelaire critics of the 1930s, Jean Cassou and Benjamin Fondane, which centered on the relationship of poetry to progressive politics and metaphysics. I argue that a return to Baudelaire's poetry can yield insight into what seems like an impasse in Cassou and Fondane. Baudelaire provides the possibility of realigning metaphysics and politics so that poetry has the potential to become the space in which we can begin to think the two of them together, as opposed to seeing them in unresolvable tension. Or rather, the tension that Baudelaire animates between the two allows us a new way of thinking about the role of esthetics in moments of political crisis. We can in some ways see Baudelaire as responding, avant la lettre, to two of his early twentieth-century readers who correctly perceived his work as the space that breathes a new urgency into the questions of how modern poetry relates to the world from which it springs and in which it intervenes.


Author(s):  
Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr

Reading Politics with Machiavelli is an anachronistic reading of certain key concepts in Machiavelli’s The Prince and The Discourses (as well as some of his correspondence). In 1513, soon after the Medici returned to power in Florence, Machiavelli lost his position as First Secretary to the Republic, and he was exiled. On his family farm, he began a self-consciously anachronistic reading of great political figures of antiquity, and, in combination with his own experience as a diplomat, crafted a unique perspective on the political crises of his time. At our own moment of democratic crisis, as the democratic imagination, as well as democratic habits and institutions face multiple attacks from neoliberalism, white nationalism, and authoritarianism, I argue that a similar method, in which we read Machiavelli’s work as he read Livy’s and Plutarch’s, can help us see the contingency, and the increasingly forgotten radical potential, of our politics. Louis Althusser argued that Machiavelli functions for us as an uncanny authority, one whose apparent familiarity is dispelled as we examine his epistolary yet opaque account of history, politics, and authority. This makes his readings a potentially rich resource for a time of democratic crisis. With that challenge in mind, we will examine the problems of conspiracy, prophecy, torture, and exile and use a close reading of Machiavelli’s work to make out new perspectives on the politics of our time.


Author(s):  
Hannah Cornwell

This book examines the two generations that spanned the collapse of the Republic and the Augustan period to understand how the concept of pax Romana, as a central ideology of Roman imperialism, evolved. The author argues for the integral nature of pax in understanding the changing dynamics of the Roman state through civil war to the creation of a new political system and world-rule. The period of the late Republic to the early Principate involved changes in the notion of imperialism. This is the story of how peace acquired a central role within imperial discourse over the course of the collapse of the Republican framework to become deployed in the legitimization of the Augustan regime. It is an examination of the movement from the debates over the content of the concept, in the dying Republic, to the creation of an authorized version controlled by the princeps, through an examination of a series of conceptions about peace, culminating with the pax augusta as the first crystallization of an imperial concept of peace. Just as there existed not one but a series of ideas concerning Roman imperialism, so too were there numerous different meanings, applications, and contexts within which Romans talked about ‘peace’. Examining these different nuances allows us insight into the ways they understood power dynamics, and how these were contingent on the political structures of the day. Roman discourses on peace were part of the wider discussion on the way in which Rome conceptualized her Empire and ideas of imperialism.


1995 ◽  
Vol 16 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Mary Anne Perkins

A few months ago I read Peter Nicholson's The Political Philosophy of the British Idealists for the first time. In the index I found more than a hundred references to Hegel and only one to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. However, as many of the latter's writings, published for the first time in recent years, become generally accessible there is an increasing sense that he has been unfairly deprived of his due status as a philosopher. This is partly, no doubt, the syndrome of the prophet in his own country and partly the inevitable consequence of much of his later work remaining unpublished until recent years. Coleridge himself, with what some would take to be confirmation of an over-sensitivity to criticism, felt the neglect of his work went deeper and betrayed an anti-philosophical trait in British character. Despite his close reading of the work of many of his German contemporaries it seems that he did not read more than sixtyone pages of Hegel's Wissenschaft der Logik. His margin notes to this work are, on the whole, negative in their criticism. However, despite significant disagreements, there is much common ground in theme, argument and conclusion between his many drafts of the ‘Logosophia’, his intended magnum opus, and Hegel's system.


2021 ◽  
pp. 174804852199056
Author(s):  
Baruch Shomron ◽  
Amit Schejter

This study examines how media representations of Palestinian-Israeli politicians, can help community members realize their capabilities. The study’s database is comprised of 1,207 interviews conducted with Palestinian-Israeli politicians on news and current affairs programs on the three national television channels and the two national radio stations in Israel, for 24 months (2016-2017). We identified and analyzed the differences in the modes of representation between national and local Palestinian-Israeli politicians and between Palestinian-Israeli parliament members in the Joint List and Palestinian-Israeli parliament members in Zionist parties, all through the capabilities prism. In this study, we demonstrated how different types of Palestinian-Israeli politicians may potentially affect the realization of different political functions and capabilities. Analyzing political representations in the media through the theoretical framework of the ‘capabilities approach’ contributes to a more comprehensive insight into the roles the media can play promoting people’s wellbeing and human rights, relative to traditional media theories.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026975802110106
Author(s):  
Raoul Notté ◽  
E.R. Leukfeldt ◽  
Marijke Malsch

This article explores the impact of online crime victimisation. A literature review and 41 interviews – 19 with victims and 22 with experts – were carried out to gain insight into this. The interviews show that most impacts of online offences correspond to the impacts of traditional offline offences. There are also differences with offline crime victimisation. Several forms of impact seem to be specific to victims of online crime: the substantial scale and visibility of victimhood, victimisation that does not stop in time, the interwovenness of online and offline, and victim blaming. Victims suffer from double, triple or even quadruple hits; it is the accumulation of different types of impact, enforced by the limitlessness in time and space, which makes online crime victimisation so extremely invasive. Furthermore, the characteristics of online crime victimisation greatly complicate the fight against and prevention of online crime. Finally, the high prevalence of cybercrime victimisation combined with the severe impact of these crimes seems contradictory with public opinion – and associated moral judgments – on victims. Further research into the dominant public discourse on victimisation and how this affects the functioning of the police and victim support would be valuable.


Mammalia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-François Mboumba ◽  
Maxime R. Hervé ◽  
Véronique Guyot ◽  
Frederic Ysnel

Abstract The study contributes to the knowledge of species composition and biogeographical affinities of savannas rodent in Gabon. Unlike small rodents in Gabonese forests, there is little data on the diversity of small rodents in Gabonese savannas. The diversity and distribution of rodent murid communities was studied in four different types of savanna in Gabon: Coastal Basin (South-West), Lopé/Okanda (in the Center), Batéké Plateaux (Southeastern) and Ngougnié/ N’yanga (in the South). A total of 428 individuals representing six species were captured over 11,920 trap nights. Trap success was highly variable (2.2–6.9 %). The most abundant species were Mus minutoides (69%) followed by Lemniscomys striatus (21.5%). Indices of species richness varied from 2 to 5 and diversity (Shannon and Weaver) was low in the four savannas with the highest value at Ngougnié/N’yanga (H′ = 1.2). Species distributions show that Gabonese savanna small rodents conform to four distribution types, with one species known from Zambesian savannas exhibiting austral affinities (Pelomys campanae: occurs in three southern savannas). This new information provides important insight into the biogeography of small rodents at a local and regional level. Moreover, the correspondence analysis highlighted an influence of local ecological factors on population abundance.


2003 ◽  
Vol 80 (3) ◽  
pp. 513-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Reichert ◽  
James E. Mueller ◽  
Michael Nitz

This study examines content and tone of political information in five leading general interest and lifestyle magazines from December 1999 through November 2000. The analysis revealed a low level of political information in the selected magazines. With the exception of Rolling Stone and Glamour, the nature of coverage was strategy oriented and superficial, while the tone was mostly cynical in men's magazines, yet favorable toward Gore. The results provide a glimpse of the political information available for typical young adults and insight into the apathetic attitudes of young adults toward the American political system.


2001 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donley T. Studlar

Canada is unusual among advanced industrial democracies in having some provinces which regularly have greater voter turnouts for provincial than for federal elections. Provincial and federal turnouts by province in Canada are analyzed for the 1945-1998 period using multiple regression analysis, both for each set of elections and by comparing differences between the two. Federal turnout has declined over the years but provincial turnout appears to have increased slightly. Although the effects found here largely confirm previous findings about the relative effects of different types of variables found for the Canadian federal level only, several of the political explanations previously supported in cross-national research find less support. Instead, region, population density, months since the last federal or provincial election, and season of the year generally have greater and sometimes more consistent effects. This suggests the need for more studies of turnout in democracies at sub-central levels.


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