A Window, A Light...

Major chunk of writing done today, putting me at 35 pages complete. Clearly not gonna get done by the end of October. I guess it could, if I let things get really desperate. Like, if I absolutely needed two more sections done, it could probably get done. Or like, "done," definitely in quotes. I'm pushing things as hard as I reasonably can, and there's a lot of effort on the wrong side of the reasonable curve to tap into that I don't really have to do, but notwithstanding, I'm probably going to start pushing even further in that direction. I'm not doing further planning tonight because I've got a Marvel game session, though. Tomorrow's probably an all day planning on the next section's structure, getting my probably notes together, going over theory - section two is the heart of the essay, and the thing I've been trying to get to this entire time.

Chapter one is kind of... it has to me more than describing the history of science fiction, and it has to be more than determine William Gibson's probable intentions. It's the chapter where I have to make the case that there's a real perception in the science-fiction community of a "white, Western, male" core demographic that's what science-fiction is. Note that I said "perception." Also consider that I said "a." "A perception." That doesn't mean it's a consensus or that it's accurate, but that enough people share it to influence writing and culture, and not just that it's a perception in the body literate, but that it's kind of a major perception in the general public. So, I mean, I tapped the Hugo Awards nomination fiasco of the last few years, some solid academics, and Gibson's interviews themselves for the sci-fi angle.

There's more to it, but that's the gist. My overall thesis is that Gibson's Blue Ant trilogy - if it's not about the anxiety specifically - contains symptoms of a white, Western, nationalistic anxiety that surrounds the deterioration of the post-Cold War superpower identity and how its been superceded by a kind of new-ish version of this - a technocratic, post-national oligarchy that doesn't care about the old white Western identity, except in so far as the oligarchs are willing to auction off or aquire elements of these establishments to create the foundations of their empires. I say "white" and "Western" fears because if you're not white, not Western, and generally speaking, not male (though that's surprisingly not the major theme, though I'd argue it's still present), you've already experienced this. You're not a central or generic narrative focus, you're diasporic, borderless or post-border, living in the past and future simultaniously, colonialized and post-colonial, already existing withing a dual conciousness, and so on. The fears that we see now have already come to pass - in many ways, white people are living in the past, while people of color, people of non-Western origins (and these are cultural constructions, mind you, but functionally exist), they live in the present. They've experienced the things white dudes are anxious about having happen to them. So, chapter two is examining how these things are present in the text and how Gibson treats them.

In a few hours, I have to go to the vet to pick up one of our rescue cats. I mean, he's fine or, like, fine-ish, since there's a reason he's at the vet, but we had a scare. I guess it was 1 AM. I was dead fucking tired, since I'd been up doing last minute grade submissions, and had something of a plagirism concern I simply can't verify - all the grades are in and I'm finishing off a hard cider, and Kay's like... doing litter, I guess, and our cat was peeing somewhere he really wasn't supposed to and, second, peeing blood. I was going to say, "an uncomfortable amount of blood," but doesn't that go without saying? You never see blood in your pee and go, "Oh, okay, cool. That's not too much blood."

If you do, that's bad.

At the risk of being overly obvious, there's never really a good clock-time for this, but Kay determines that he has to go to the vet, and we both determine that this is not plausible at this time of the evening, so I'm up again at 6:15 AM to take him to the vet. All told, I'm not jazzed about the time between yesterday and today, but it's whatever. I'm fuckin' tired. I'm not really getting any good sleep, lately.

Technically grade are due today - well, were due today - at noon, so I'm done with all that. I've done literally everything I could think to do that would help, but I still ended up failing students who just couldn't seem to get some critical work in. Overall, though, I would say that things generally went well. Maybe too well, in some cases, as I ended up handing out more A's than I actually wanted to, but it's a product of how I structured the class and assignments, coupled with the fact that many of my students genuinely showed impressive progress in their writing. Students who came in and didn't think much of their ability to write came out doing markedly better while students who figured they were going to do well and started out by blowing the class off ended up sweating for their A's and B's (or C's). I put an astounding amount of energy and time into the class, which the students seemed to notice, but the emotional labor was equally taxing to me.

I've taken a few days "off" in order to get my shit in order - cut the grass, sweep the house, do laundry, take care of myself, and do research reading. It looks like my thesis is narrowing to an analysis that's rooted in a kind of post-colonial marxist reading that analyses how William Gibson constructs the identity of culture and communities in his Blue Ant trilogy - especially focused around his internalized socio-political and cultural views. It's really not a particularly negative reading, nor one that I really think he'd disagree with himself - just an acknowledgement that the white, technocratic West that's situated around the former Soviet and US powers isn't the world default, even though it ('it' as a kind of universalized gestalt idea of "the West" which, The Soviet Union railed against but mirrors - I understand that this is dangerously broad, here) constructs itself as such. I mean, the dissonance in that is something I'm looking to write on. I don't have it fully parsed yet.