Shorter Views
In Shorter Views, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Samuel R. Delany brings his remarkable intellectual powers to bear on a wide range of topics. Whether he is exploring the deeply felt issues of identity, race, and sexuality, untangling the intricacies of literary theory, or the writing process itself, Delany is one of the most lucid and insightful writers of our time. These essays duster around topics related to queer theory on the one hand, and on the other, questions concerning the...
Search in google:
A brilliant theorist and cultural critic on race, sexuality, science fiction, and the art of writing.Publishers WeeklyLiving up to essayist and science fiction author Delany's reputation for pushing literary and cultural boundaries, these 25 essays, interviews and reviews, all of which appeared between 1987 and 1998 in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies, encompass both traditional literary criticism and autobiography. From his explication of Jacques Derrida's literary theories as applied to U.S. science fiction to his analysis of the African-American s&m scene and its effect on his writing, Delany's remarkable erudition is as evident as his ability to generate controversy. In a provocative essay, "Pornography and Censorship," he discusses how critical evaluations of pornography and other sexual writings would be more valid if the critics discussed their own arousal. In "The Making of Hogg," Delany discusses the writing and the critical reception of his novel, which was considered so sexually violent that it took 22 years for it to be published. In the middle of an interview about the literary canon, he includes a 10-page riff, replete with new scholarship, on how the suppression of information about Stephen Crane's homosexuality has helped to secure Crane's place in American literature. Delany's third book this year (after Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and Bread & Wine), this important collection demonstrates his passion and intelligence, and his dedication to pursuing difficult questions about writing, theory, teaching and sexuality. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Preface: On Creativity and Academic Writing1The Rhetoric of Sex / The Discourse of Desire32Street Talk / Straight Talk413On the Unspeakable584Coming / Out675A Bend in the Road986The "Gay" Writer / "Gay Writing" ...?1117The Black Leather in Color Interview1158The Thomas L. Long Interview1239Neither the First Word nor the Last on Deconstruction, Structuralism, Poststructuralism, and Semiotics for SF Readers14110The Para doxa Interview: Inside and Outside the Canon18611The Politics of Paraliterary Criticism21812Zelazny/Varley/Gibson - and Quality27113Pornography and Censorship29214The Making of Hogg29815The Phil Leggiere Interview: Reading The Mad Man31116The Second Science-Fiction Studies Interview: Of Trouble on Triton and Other Matters31517Antonia Byatt's Possession: A Romance35318Neil Gaiman, I, II, and III35919A Tribute to Judith Merril37320Michael Perkins's Evil Companions37721Now It's Time for Dale Peck38422Othello in Brooklyn38823A Prefatory Notice to Vincent Czyz's Adrift in a Vanishing City39624Under the Volcano with Susan Sontag39925Some Remarks on Narrative and Technology or: Poetry and Truth408AppendixSome Notes for the Intermediate and Advanced Creative Writing Student433Index461
\ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ Living up to essayist and science fiction author Delany's reputation for pushing literary and cultural boundaries, these 25 essays, interviews and reviews, all of which appeared between 1987 and 1998 in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies, encompass both traditional literary criticism and autobiography. From his explication of Jacques Derrida's literary theories as applied to U.S. science fiction to his analysis of the African-American s&m scene and its effect on his writing, Delany's remarkable erudition is as evident as his ability to generate controversy. In a provocative essay, "Pornography and Censorship," he discusses how critical evaluations of pornography and other sexual writings would be more valid if the critics discussed their own arousal. In "The Making of Hogg," Delany discusses the writing and the critical reception of his novel, which was considered so sexually violent that it took 22 years for it to be published. In the middle of an interview about the literary canon, he includes a 10-page riff, replete with new scholarship, on how the suppression of information about Stephen Crane's homosexuality has helped to secure Crane's place in American literature. Delany's third book this year (after Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and Bread & Wine), this important collection demonstrates his passion and intelligence, and his dedication to pursuing difficult questions about writing, theory, teaching and sexuality. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalDelany's (Times Square Red) sf novels have won Hugo and Nebula awards; now, he has compiled for publication 25 of his nonfiction essays on the subjects of queerness, writing, and "paraliterature." In a piece called "Neither the First Word Nor the Last on Deconstruction, Poststructuralism, and Semiotics for SF Readers," Delany draws on both his facility with modern critical theory and his commitment to the "paraliterary" (sf, pornography, mysteries, comic books, and other creative forms). In "The Para*Doxa Interview," he ruminates brilliantly on the nature of literary canonization through a riveting investigation of how Thomas Beer's fraudulent 1923 biography of Stephen Crane lifted the author of The Red Badge of Courage to exalted heights. The last section introduces readers to a batch of his contemporaries, from sf writer Michael Perkins to A.S. Byatt. Delany's erudition and use of contemporary critical terminology can be daunting, his writing style tangled and difficult. But this book will strongly appeal to a select group of brave readers who have the patience to follow a daringly original mind at work. For academic libraries.--Charles Crawford Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, MO Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\ \
