The Reading Room

6:28 AM

Zines by women, a continuation of a long tradition of feminist alternative and grassroots publishing #womensart https://t.co/TF2FmT84eF

Tweeted by womensart1 on August 14, 2017 at 6:24 AM

Bookworm

5:42 PM

0

Q: How was "Contos para os nossos filhos" used in schools?

Reading about the Portuguese author Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, I came across the following interesting tidbit of information: The collection of stories for children she wrote with her husband, Contos para os nossos filhos ("Tales for our Children", 1886) was approved by the Board of Public...

Hamlet

@heather im not able to chat in real time atm, but feel free to send me a message and ill respond if I can

heather

i was wondering what about most of my answers warrants a downvote.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor i don't really have time to give this the full response it deserves, but I think we could use a modified version of the "back it up rule."

heather

i have tried to answer your complaints in comments and i really don't see what's wrong with them; however, i am happy to learn/improve. you seem to dislike most of my answers, so i'd like to know what's wrong.

Hamlet

Which has been successfully implimented on other sites

Rand al'Thor

5:53 PM

Back It Up principle - main meta discussion <--- note to self for future reading

heather

@Randal'Thor is the answer I posted to your most recent question in the vein you wanted?

i'm still looking for more citations, of course.

Rand al'Thor

@heather It's not complete enough yet, but definitely helpful.

Knowing that they were fairy tales doesn't necessarily tell us how they were used in schools - for entertainment, for literature class, as cautionary tales, ...

heather

right...

Rand al'Thor

(shouldn't all these questions be tagged greek-literature?)

heather

probably, yeah.

and what about these questions? Is roman-literature a thing?

Rand al'Thor

6:03 PM

latin-literature, I guess?

Haven't got time to look properly now.

heather

neither seem to be tags.

Hamlet

@heather i believe I've left comments on the posts that I've downvoted. But if I had to give an underlying reason...

@Randal'Thor ping BESW about it at some point.

@heather ... I get the sense that when you write an answer, you tend to start out with a conclusion.

heather

@Hamlet sure, i suppose so. most people do, i think.

Hamlet

And then you find details that support the conclusion.

heather

that i would have to disagree with, but how do you see that in my answers?

(i.e., what do i need to do so it doesn't appear that way?)

Hamlet

6:15 PM

And a lot of the time, I've noticed that if a detail doesn't support the conclusion, you sometimes twist the detail until it does

heather

could you give an example?

Hamlet

E.g. your definition of the genre in this answer

0

A: Why is the future "a safe, sterile laboratory"?

Ideas can be frightening, and can hurt those who produce them. See for an example the ideas of Galileo, and where they got him - house imprisonment, banned from discussing the heliocentric view. Science fiction, on the other hand, can be frightening, but it is contained. It is fiction. Yet still...

Sorry, not genre.

Your definition of the word steril

heather

i don't think that is such a stretch.

sterile means to be clean of something.

i've seen the term used before in the way i talk about it.

Hamlet

"Perhaps instead of free from bacteria, we should think of it as free from the restraints of our society." That is not any definition of sterile that I am aware of. Right now your just making a wild guess about the meaning of sterile, could you support that guess with evidence? — Hamlet ♦ yesterday

heather

"fig.: Barren of ideas; destitute of sentiment; as, a sterile production or author" - here from Webster dictionary definitions

so in this case: a laboratory barren of previous ideas to create new ones.

Hamlet

6:19 PM

@heather yes

heather

alright, i'll add that.

any other examples?

Hamlet

@heather good

heather

added.

Hamlet

@heather i would go a bit farther

heather

more citing, you mean?

Hamlet

6:22 PM

Further, the science fiction novel is sterile from the restrictions of reality. While the laws of physics and other such physical restrictions are included here, by that I mean more social restrictions. Writing an in-depth book about controversial topics can lead to many repercussions, not all wanted.

@heather the paragraph I quoted above needs citations.

heather

okay

Hamlet

Like, how does any of that relate to the word sterile.

Also

> So in this case: a laboratory barren of previous ideas to create new ones.

That sentence needs elaboration

After that sentence, you say

> Want to write a novel in which there is no government? Go for it. Talking about robots? Carry on

heather

Is it better there to say

> So in this case: a laboratory barren of previous ideas, so it is therefore open to the creation of new ones.

Hamlet

Which doesn't really explain things.

heather

okay

Hamlet

6:26 PM

@heather what you really need to do is explain why it is important to be free of old ideas in order to create new ones.

You kind of do that with this sentence.

> The science fiction novel is a laboratory that is sterile, totally clean, from other ideas and impressions. The world can be born anew in it.

But not really.

heather

> It allows you to be more open to new ideas by taking them away from the backdrop of the old ones. Perhaps you'd be more open to robot overlords in a different star system in a fictional book.

is that more clear?

::bangs head on desk::

it just feels very clear to me.

i'll keep trying.

Hamlet

@heather no, you need to back that up with an example or a citation.

> Perhaps you'd be more open to robot overlords in a different star system in a fictional book.

This is a poor example because it's not clear from the example if I would actually be more open to a story about robot overlords.

heather

okay, got a citation

> fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape.

(from Boston Globe)

Hamlet

@heather 1) cite the study, not the boston globe article.

2) you don't necessarily need a study, you could describe a personal experience

heather

hmm, the article doesn't cite the study...let's see if i can find it

Hamlet

6:36 PM

@heather for the purposes of writing this answer, I would recommend a personal experience, not a study.

heather

okay, is it okay if i include both?

Hamlet

I have to go soon, but a few points.

Many of my comments on your answers are about situations like this: passages where your reasoning makes sense in your head, but when you write it down you skip several steps.

E.g.

> Further, the science fiction novel is sterile (again, using the definition of "barren of ideas" or "clean") from the restrictions of reality.

heather

it is barren of societal ideas as well as others.

it's really a restatement of the previous section, so i think i'll remove it.

Hamlet

@heather that doesn't make sense to me.

amflare

To my bilingual friends (or anyone really), do any of you know of a "choose your own adventure" book in a non-english language?

heather

6:41 PM

i just said in the previous section that a definition of sterile is "Barren of ideas"

societal ideas fall under that.

Hamlet

Barren of ideas doesn't mean societal rules don't exist.

Not ideas, norms/rules

And sometimes you don't cite any evidence, e.g.

heather

@Hamlet societal rules are ideas about how we should act/interact/all that.

Hamlet

> Writing an in-depth book about controversial topics can lead to many repercussions, not all wanted. When those topics are discussed in the guise of a novel, it is less likely to hurt you. While this has not always been the case, it sometimes can be helpful to plant the seed of an idea in a way that is less drastic.

heather

which i talked about above...

so that paragraph is also duplicating previous content.

Hamlet

But in the answer you don't cite a single example of where this was the case.

heather

6:44 PM

see the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs.

> See for an example the ideas of Galileo, and where they got him - house imprisonment, banned from discussing the heliocentric view. Science fiction, on the other hand, can be frightening, but it is contained. It is fiction. Yet still, like all literature, it contains an idea - it conveys the author's point, but more subtly than outright stating it.

> > Samuel R. Delany [says], “The variety of worlds science fiction accustoms us to, through imagination, is training for thinking about the actual changes—sometimes catastrophic, often confusing—that the real world funnels at us year after year. It helps us avoid feeling quite so gob-smacked.”

and then i explain how the quote is relevant, etc.

Hamlet

@heather this is not an example of when fiction is received better than a scientific argument.

heather

...and then we come to the study and discussion down below...

Hamlet

You don't cite an example of, say, a fictional story about the earth rotating the sun.

@heather last few comments and then I really have to go.

heather

well, no, but i do cite a study and examples - like, there have been many studies showing that women are just as capable as men, but the Mary Tyler Moore show improved people's thinking about women on their own with jobs as well.

@Hamlet sure, i don't mean to keep you.

Hamlet

> Semi-recent examples can be found in the Mary Tyler Moore show or the Bill Cosby show.

Imagine that I know nothing about either shows.

In this case, I'm lost. You need to explain why these are good examples.

heather

6:51 PM

> Semi-recent examples can be found in the Mary Tyler Moore show or the Bill Cosby show, which improved how people thought about working, single women and African-Americans respectively, in a fictional format.

(edited to above)

Hamlet

And with that, I have to go. Hope some of this was helpful. Of course, this is just one answer. You do a lot of similar things in other answers, and there are still a lot of places in this answer that need to be elaborated

See ya.

heather

okay. thank you.

have a good day.

Gallifreyan

7:19 PM

@neilhimself Hello, Neil. Just wondering your thoughts on your Sandman character being involved in DC's summer event? Thanks and take care!

Tweeted by colinnwilliam on August 14, 2017 at 6:13 PM

It should be fun. I trust @Ssnyder1835. https://twitter.com/colinnwilliam/status/897159369728700418

Tweeted by neilhimself on August 14, 2017 at 6:18 PM

I'm a bit anxious about this.

Napoleon Wilson

Understandably.

Bookworm

8:01 PM

0

Q: The ending of Fire and Hemlock

If there is anyone out there that understands the ending of Fire and Hemlock, I'd be very grateful for a detailed explanation. Fire and Hemlock was, of course, written by the late great Diana Wynne Jones. She is unaccountably missing from this site, so I'm happy to remedy this omission.

diana-wynne-jones

Shokhet

@Bookworm Oh, I love Diana Wynne Jones!

Don't think I've read that book, though.

Gallifreyan

@Shokhet I know Ghibli's Howl's Moving Castle was based on her novel, and that she very much liked the adaptation.

That' about it. though.

What is this book about?

Shokhet

@Gallifreyan Oh, I'll have to check that one out, then :)

@Gallifreyan I don't know, I don't remember reading it. *checks WP*

Fire and Hemlock

Fire and Hemlock is a modern fantasy by British author Diana Wynne Jones based largely on the Scottish ballads "Tam Lin" and "Thomas the Rhymer." It was first published in 1984 in the United States by Greenwillow Books then in 1985 in Great Britain by Methuen Children's Books It has been republished several times since then in paperback, by various publishers. In-print versions are published by Collins in Britain and by HarperTeen in the United States, both divisions of HarperCollins. Firebird, an imprint of Penguin Group, released a new paperback edition on 12 April 2012. Fire and Hemlock was...

@Gallifreyan I recommend Howl's Moving Castle and its companion books.

Also Chrestomanci. Those were required summer reading in elementary school, and I enjoyed them immensely.