Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/29/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 04/19/08.
MARLEEN BARR
Novels:
Oy Pioneer!
Criticism:
Alien to Feminity: Speculative Theory and Feminist Theory
Discontented Discources: Feminism / Textual Intervention / Psychoanalysis (with Richard Feldstein)
Envisioning the Future: Science Fiction and the Next Millennium
Feminist Fabulation: Space/Post Modern Fiction
Future Females: A Critical Anthology
Future Females, the Next Generation: New Voices and Velocities in Feminist Science Fiction Criticism
Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Ficton and Beyond
MEETING SUMMARY:
Meeting Date: November 11, 2006.
Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center.
Official Attendance: 18.
Meeting Program: Talk by Science Fiction Critic and Writer.
Notes:
Meeting Memories:
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2006 Philip J De Parto:
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County met at the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center in Upper Saddle River on Saturday, November 11, 2006. Feminist science fiction critic and author Marleen Barr was the evening's guest.
Light attendance for the evening resulted in a spare attendance for the two pre meeting activities. Chuck spent most of the evening alone watching a LUPIN movie, although he was joined by a couple of people for BETTY BOOP and other cartoons after the main feature. I was only present at Ice Nine for the beginning of the event. The early focus was on media science fiction. Television shows discussed included the cartoon, THE LEGION OF SUPER HEROES, as well as JERICHO, MASTERS OF HORROR and HEROES. Recently watched--though not necessarily current--movies discussed included THE CORPSE BRIDE and SKY HIGH.
Marleen Barr is a pioneering feminist science fiction critic. She is interested in science fiction as a field of criticism because feminist science fiction can provide cognitive estrangement from patriarchy. Put another way, it allows women to envision worlds where things are done differently. Men have many opportunities for power fantasies. Feminist science fiction balances the scales: Lesbian Planets, Worlds without Men, Gender Role Reversals, and more.
Ms Barr is also the author of the novel, OY PIONEER! OY PIONEER! is the first in a projected trilogy which will continue with OY CANADA! and OY MANHATTAN! The books are not science fiction in any traditional sense, but do have science fiction and fantasy elements including aliens, talking animals, and a vampire. Interestingly enough, she says that everything in the book is true.
Our guest did not speak very much about feminist science fiction criticism, but did have a lot to say about being a pioneer feminist sf critic. Her battle for tenure at a southern university was so intense that she donned her father's World War II Army jacket and announced: "I just want to say the slaves are free and so are the women!"
She has become a born again New Yorker. When she and her husband had to go before a coop association to purchase a unit, she looked around at the elderly Jewish board members who had asked her why she wanted to live in this building and said, "I have lived with cows and goya and have had it. I don't belong there. I belong here in this building with you. I've had it. Just take me!" She got in.
Ms Barr is currenlty shopping an anthology of Black Science Fiction which she has co-edited with James Gunn. Despite having contributions by the likes of Samuel R Delany and Octavia Butler, the book was turned down by her first choice among the University Presses because she was not black. She is confident that she will find another publisher.
Although it was the works of Ursula K Le Guin that made her determined to become a feminist sf critic, the seeds had been planted much earlier. She wasn't athletic, and she wasn't a knock out, but she could read with the best of them. She got started with SUPERMAN and THE LEGION OF SUPER HEROES comics and never looked back. She has found the men of science fiction to be far more supportive of her than the men of academia.
Our thanks to John Upton for giving our guest a lift to the meeting and to Pamela Webber for accompanying me on the return trip. Also thanks to Robert Yeager for extra refreshments and to Sue Presti for the book donations. Finally thanks to Chuck Garofalo for running the animation, Barry Weinberger for leading Ice Nine, and to anyone else who assisted and was not specifically thanked.