I've been looking at the submission guidelines for Modern Fiction Studies.

6000-9000 words, MLA style, but the "historical, interdisciplinary, theoretical, and cultural approaches" have got me stumped.

Anyone got ideas for me?

*Author of Strange Gardens [www.lulu.com]


*Editor of Calenture: a Journal of Studies in Speculative Verse [calenture.fcpages.com]

*Visit my homepage: [voleboy.freewebpages.org]

"historical, interdisciplinary, theoretical, and cultural approaches"

The time-honored advice is always "write about what you know." If we give you ideas, they'll probably be useless and only relate to what we know.

What historical or cultural settings (or events) fascinate you?

In which areas of knowledge do you have some amateur or professional experience?
------

Is this fiction, or the analysis of fiction they're soliciting?

"high quality glossy print or camera-ready reproductions should accompany the accepted version of the manuscript."

Whathahey? Isn't this the 21st century? They have a website yet can't accept electronic text?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 20 May 05 | 10:40PM by geocorona.

To quote Brennan: "What do I know? Myself alone".

CAS, Lovecraft, Ramsey Campbell, similar authors. John Fowles, among others. It's not the authors that stump me, it's the approaches: how would one approach CAS culturally?

*Author of Strange Gardens [www.lulu.com]


*Editor of Calenture: a Journal of Studies in Speculative Verse [calenture.fcpages.com]

*Visit my homepage: [voleboy.freewebpages.org]

Dear Voleboy,

To approach CAS culturally, you contemplate how he lived and worked in this culture.
His culture within a culture more accurately.
His penury caused him to live by his wits and by wood cutting and fruit picking.
He dressed "differently" causing him to be remarked upon, considered weird, to be avoided - He cultivated a brooding and aloof presence (born really of the hurts he had endured)-- He survived as an anomaly in a conformist culture -- he appeared unapproachable and distant, even outre, yet was urbane and sophisticated, and
obviously cultivated and well-read in conversation. As may be said, he was a man
of opinions which he could footnote. He rode above his culture (or below depending on your point of view) and only dove into it occasionally of necessity. For daily life he relished the companionship of the common plain folk of the "Happy Hour" in old town; ordinary working people of the time still remembered the depression and were accepting, non-judgmental folk - yet he needed intellectual and cultural contact, which over the years came from his friends and mentors, the Sullys. His writing reflects his attitudes toward the good folk who mind their own business, and toward the cultural icons like newly arisen deities like Freud. It's all there.
DrF

Another cultural-historical approach would be to compare CAS fiction to ancient Greco-Roman classics, or to Near East mythology, or even to Shakespeare.

Of course, using either of these approaches requires knowledge of matters outside the writings of the author(s). Research could take some time.

An essay comparing and contrasting CAS's poetry to/with that of Thomas Lovell Beddoes positively screams out to be written. I haven't the time, interest, or competence to do so, but would love to see someone else tackle the project.

While reading the entire Zothique cycle, I was reminded of 1001 Arabian Nights, and wondered if CAS had ever been inspired by it.

voleboy Wrote:

> I've been looking at the submission guidelines for
> Modern Fiction Studies.

I think you'll be wasting your time submitting anything on CAS or anyone like him there.

> 6000-9000 words, MLA style, but the "historical,
> interdisciplinary, theoretical, and cultural
> approaches" have got me stumped.
>
> Anyone got ideas for me?

"...historical, interdisciplinary, theoretical, and cultural approaches" is a long way of saying "BS, and lots of it". Read some of the sample articles:

Quote:

How can we map the Americas in our age of globalization as a cohesive but complexly differentiated space? How can literary and cultural studies become less state-centric? John Rechy's The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gómez and the songs of the Mexican Elvis, El Vez, provide insight into these issues. The diverse cultural discourses signified upon in these works reflect the embeddedness of the subaltern subject in a variety of cultural discourses and material practices produced by the flows of global capital.

Yes, Smith did read and enjoy the THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS. In an October 21st, 1954 letter to L. Sprague de Camp, he lists THE ARABIAN NIGHTS among the books he read when he began his "real education".

Jim

Personally, I feel that part of my mission as a critic is to take the study of figures like CAS and others, and take them to wider venues, such as MOdern Fiction Studies, not just the limited circle of venues that we have. At the same time, I'm concerned to developing a venue where the study of speculative poetry is not only welcomed but encouraged.

I want that study to be the core of my critical work, as it's the role of imaginitive literature to challenge the complacencies and the faddishnesses of ourselves.

*Author of Strange Gardens [www.lulu.com]


*Editor of Calenture: a Journal of Studies in Speculative Verse [calenture.fcpages.com]

*Visit my homepage: [voleboy.freewebpages.org]

voleboy Wrote:

> Personally, I feel that part of my mission as a
> critic is to take the study of figures like CAS
> and others, and take them to wider venues, such as
> MOdern Fiction Studies, not just the limited
> circle of venues that we have.

Then I think you've taken on a mission impossible. It takes two to tango and I do not think MFS will be interested in CAS or that they're worth trying in any case.

What I would most like to see is more detailed analyses of individual poems and stories along the lines of the essays in Cleanth Brooks's THE WELL WROUGHT URN and others critical landmarks. Comparisons of his work to authors a) he is known to have read and admired or b) whose work he may not have mentioned but which he may have encountered while reading every book in the Auburn library whose influence can be clearly demonstrated would also be welcome. Smith's work is not going to be recognized as worthy of critical attention by the world at large until it has been demonstrated that his works stand up to, and can be enriched by, such analysis. Whether Modern Fiction Studies is yet ready for such studies is uncertain, but I am sure such highly respected journals specializing in weird fiction as Scott Connors's LOST WORLDS, S. T. Joshi's STUDIES IN WEIRD FICTION, and Mark Valentine's WORMWOOD would welcome any well-considered essays in this direction.

Jim

I'm working on another essay, albeit slowly, for Scott, on the personal elegies.

How far do you feel that The Black Diamonds and The Sword of Zagan would stand up to critical scrutiny? I'm thinking of a piece on the construction of the orient in these.

I'm also considering something on the grotesque nature of the humour in the Zothique sequence, but that's just a general idea at present.

*Author of Strange Gardens [www.lulu.com]


*Editor of Calenture: a Journal of Studies in Speculative Verse [calenture.fcpages.com]

*Visit my homepage: [voleboy.freewebpages.org]