The Reading Room

Tsundoku

00:00

@b_jonas Celebrating in Covid-19 times? I haven't seen anything of Halloween this year.

b_jonas

@Tsundoku Yeah, but that's not the same continent. We're in Europe, they're in America.

Gareth Rees

@bobble The "Giant's Drink" is key to the novel — there are symbolic parallels with multiple episodes (Ender's attacks on Stilson in chapter 1, the boy in the shuttle in chapter 4, Bonzo in chapter 12; "the enemy's gate is down" episode & the final battle) so you shouldn't leave any of these out, it is the main theme of the novel. There is also a symbolic anti-parallel with the snake

b_jonas

Also today when I was in a supermarket, someone asked if they were selling carvable pumpkins, and got advice on where else they might find one.

bobble

... and I thought I was done with this answer :(

b_jonas

@Tsundoku More to the point my brother is in Sweden, and he reported that some kids around the neighborhood did go trick-or-treating.

@bobble Hehe

bobble

00:07

I'm thinking of pulling quotes only for my discussion of the Giant's Drink, and then having a section at the bottom where I summarize each other important parallel and how it connects to the Giant. Yea? Nay?

Gareth Rees

Also Rackham's actions in the first invasion are another parallel

bobble

I only have the first 3 books in Ender's quartet available to me. The others I'd have to track down from a library.

b_jonas

@bobble If you are researching Ender's Game, check on Sci Fi too at scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/enders-game , maybe what you found out answers a question there, or inspires a question.

Wow, 130 questions about it on Sci Fi.

I knew it was popular but I didn't know it was that popular.

bobble

See, my thought was I could whip up a nice, little answer to this one question in an hour. I've now spent >3 hours on this. It turns out that it takes a lot of effort to write a good answer. Who knew!

And I'm not looking to join any more SEs - I thought I would stick with just Puzzling, but someone lured me over here. glares at North

Tsundoku

The effort that goes into answering a question can vary a lot, from just a few minutes to several months...

@bobble Those princes ...

b_jonas

00:13

@Tsundoku Yeah. There are three entire research articles, with three interesting and different proofs, for the question that I asked on MathOverflow, and I only found any of them months after I asked the question.

The articles are from the seventies by the way.

Tsundoku

Oh, math. I'm going to back to hunting typos of SFF SE ;-)

bobble

Well, I have to leave for the day... will work more on the answer tomorrow. I'll make sure to include paragraphs about each parallel.

b_jonas

@Tsundoku Well I don't think you could help for that question anymore. :)

On Sci Fi I have a question for which I found an answer months later, one that for some reason all the users who posted the other answers missed.

scifi.stackexchange.com/a/195020/4918 ftr

Tsundoku

@b_jonas Should "Madamde Maxime" be "Madame Maxime"?

b_jonas

@Tsundoku Yes. Fixed, thanks.

And it's fixed without even pushing the question to the front page because I just edited the question too to add a link.

Librarian

00:26

0

Q: Announcing the December 2020–January 2021 topic challenge: literary theory

In accordance with our meta agreement to have topic challenges and a later meta agreement to have topic challenges lasting for two months and overlapping by one month, it is time to announce the December 2020–January 2021 topic challenge. Based on the number of votes (7 upvotes, 2 downvotes), the...

Tsundoku

Apparently, there is a limit of five edits on SFF SE until other people review the edits.

b_jonas

@Librarian What the… no thanks, I'll check the epic poetry instead.

@Tsundoku It's a soft limit, five on the front page is recommended if you're pacing a lot of the same sort of edits in a mass edit thing, but you can have more if you just encounter random problems.

It's not something very serious.

We just don't want the front page to be full of questions from the same franchise just because we're retagging or mass-editing something about it.

But the front page full of the same franchise can be fine if it's a recent movie or something like that.

Tsundoku

@b_jonas Well, I just fixed typos in five random questions and answers and now I can't continue until they've been reviewed.

b_jonas

@Tsundoku Oh, you said reviewed, because you don't have the reputation score to get edits immediately accepted. Sorry, that one might be serious.

bobble

03:36

113

Q: Rate limit suggested edits

We need a hard rate limit on suggested edits, to limit the damage someone can do with blasting the review queue with minor edit suggestions. Case in point: this user peppered the site with a whopping 133 tag-only edit suggestions in 2 hours and 15 minutes. That's one edit every minute on average...

feature-request status-completed suggested-edits rate-limiting

(Yep, there is a limit for suggested edits: 5 on graduated, 20 on beta)

Knight wants Loong back

05:42

@EddieKal If I flag a chat reply for mods, can they see who is the one that has flagged the message? I mean can they see who has flagged?

Eddie Kal

06:18

@KnightwantsLoongback I don't know. I don't usually pay attention to chat flags

Knight wants Loong back

06:52

okay

Bookworm

09:44

0

Q: Meaning of a sentence in "Ind Aff" (Falling Out of Love in Sarajevo)

We went to a restaurant for lunch, since it was too wet to do what we loved to do: that is, buy bread, cheese, sausage, wine, and go off somewhere in our hired car, into the woods or the hills, and picnic and make love. It was a private restaurant—Yugoslavia went over to a mixed capitalist-commu...

meaning short-stories

Rand al'Thor

11:33

@KnightwantsLoongback This is probably too late a reply to help you, but anyway: if you flag a message as spam/offensive, then only local moderators (mods of the site associated to the room containing the message that you flagged) can see who flagged; if you flag a message specifically for moderator attention, then all mods can see who flagged, at least while the flag is active.

@b_jonas Isn't Sweden the least locked-down country in Europe? I remember they were at some point in the spring. Or did they backtrack and decide to be stricter?

b_jonas

12:19

@Randal'Thor They're still not too much locked down. I can't guarantee "least locked down", I don't know enough about all countries.

Bookworm

13:00

0

Q: Why did Eagleton omit to explain "literary theory" in "Literary Theory: An Introduction"?

In Terry Eagleton’s preface to the first (1983) edition of Literary Theory: An Introduction he writes: This book sets out to provide a reasonably comprehensive account of modern literary theory for those with little or no previous knowledge of the topic. In light of this stated purpose, a curio...

terry-eagleton literary-theory-an-introduction

Faded Giant

14:44

@b_jonas 23 % of Finns think the restrictions even improved their daily quality of life. ;-)

Tsundoku

15:41

@b_jonas Apparently, one of the History SE mods, T.E.D., thinks the question might work there.

Bookworm

16:16

0

Q: When did Tagore write "The Victory"?

The anthology The Definitive Tagore (Rupa Publishing, 2017) contains several works, including five short stories. The book does not contain any information on the author, nor dates of publication or names of translators (except for the translator of Chokher Bali). One of these short stories is "T...

short-stories rabindranath-tagore

bobble

19:18

@PrinceNorthLæraðr, new tag: literary-theory-an-introduction. I think you're the one who writes the wikis, yes?

Prince North Læraðr

@bobble Yup!

and terry-eagleton for moi as well, I see

bobble

19:43

I have an idea for a question - one of my favorite books has two main characters with names that mean the same thing (in different languages) and I've always wondered why. Could I ask that here? And if so, what to include in the question?

b_jonas

19:53

@bobble Is that a trick question? Is their names the same?

bobble

One is named Roza ("Rose" in her native language), and the other is named Rose

And I would like to know why.

Tsundoku

That can be a valid question. Perhaps it can be answered based on an interpretation of other aspects of the book.

b_jonas

Are they family?

Tsundoku

A dress for book lovers by French creator Sylvie Facon.

bobble

No, they meet in a concentration camp & become friends there

Eddie Kal

20:10

GoreVidalNow

11 1

gore-vidal story-identification

Huh? Gore Vidal Now?

@Bookworm Seriously?

Tsundoku

@EddieKal Well, you know, if you write an entire book about X, you should at least define X...

Eddie Kal

@Tsundoku Well, I don't think that's tenable in this case

In the introduction, as is the case in similar works, Eagleton attempts to define literature by walking us through the problems of other definitions in a form of negative definition

It's apparent almost all extant definitions are at least partially flawed

Tsundoku

The question is not about the definition of literature in that book but about the definition of literary theory.

Eddie Kal

And he does say literary theory seems to be the theory of something called literature

It is a noun phrase, with theory being the head of NP

the head is well-defined (in the dictionary) and thus understood

The issue is with the adjectival modifier

Tsundoku

So you're saying, if you have a definition of literature and a definition of theory, you can infer that "literary theory" means. In that case, you'll need to pick your definition of theory very carefully, in my opinion.

For example, none of the definitions of theory on Wiktionary will help you understand what literary theory actually is.

Eddie Kal

20:26

No, I am by no means saying they have clear definitions. If anything literature has no clear definitions and it is questionable it will ever get one that's widely accepted and theoretically unproblematic

Tsundoku

I did not mean that you said the definitions are clear, but only that such definitions exist.

Eddie Kal

But it doesn't appear to be a reasonable objection to say Eagleton fails to give us at least one clear definition of the thing that his book is about

Tsundoku

Well, if you can expand on that, you can write an answer to Gareth's question.

Eddie Kal

@Tsundoku I don't see why this definition is not good enough

> the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art (M-W)

In practice, does the "theory" in "literary theory" overflow? It might. But isn't that the case with all attempted definitions of abstract concepts?

Tsundoku

@EddieKal Based on that definition, you would have no idea what literary theory is, except in a sense that is so vague as to be useless.

For one, is it the theory of a science or of an art? Or both?

Eddie Kal

20:38

@Tsundoku the M-W definition means "or"

Tsundoku

But more seriously, you would have no idea about the diversity in literary theories.

Eddie Kal

@Tsundoku But we could say that about a lot of other definitions

Tsundoku

@EddieKal Which makes that definition uninformative with regard to the definition of "llterary theory".

Eddie Kal

Why?

Tsundoku

@EddieKal In the context of Eagleton's book, we're not talking about dictionary definitions but a more detailed exposition of what literary theory "is".

@EddieKal Well, read the descriptions of theories in Eagleton's book and check back the Merriam-Webster definition and ask yourself how useful that definition really is. In my opinion, it's too vague to be useful.

Eddie Kal

20:42

But that book is written in the same English that Peter Ackroyd wrote English Music in. I don't see your point.

It is the same word as in "music theory"

Tsundoku

I never said I know what "music theory" means. Would you care explaining the relevance of Ackroyd's novel?

Eddie Kal

How come it is "unclear" "undefined" in Eagleton's book, but not "music history" in Ackroyd's book

I am saying it is the same language, Ackroyd and Eagleton both being British and of similar ages.

To use another example for an analogical inference exercise

The word "behavior" is defined as

> the manner of conducting (see CONDUCT entry 1 sense 2) oneself

Applying what you just said, that is another vague definition, of a social concept

But how do we understand "racist behavior"?

We then need to understand how "racism" is defined in various social and theoretical contexts

Tsundoku

I don't think the comparison holds. Everyone has experience of other people's behaviour, so we can work with a vague definition. Whereas the term "literary theory" is jargon; you don't know what it means by checking the definitions of "literature" and "theory" in a dictionary.

Eddie Kal

So I don't see how dictionary definitions being broad and, in your opinion, less than satisfactory, have to do with "literary theory" in Eagleton's book

If theory's definitions are the problem, we can tackle that, but it is really outside the scope of the book

@Tsundoku But then you are denying "racist/social behavior" as theoretical concepts

Which they are, in their own right

Tsundoku

I wasn't talking about racist or social behaviour.

Eddie Kal

20:55

I am not sure I am following your logic. But I hope we can both agree that "The definition of 'literary theory' is woefully missing in Eagleton's book" and "The dictionary definitions of 'theory' are not helpful" are two separate matters.

Gareth Rees

21:18

This is all very interesting and I look forward to your answers! But I think @EddieKal is understating the difficulty a reader might face in following Eagleton (1983). Perhaps Eagleton's idea was to present a survey of examples and allow the reader to form their own generalization.

But there is an inherent ambiguity there—is "literary theory" what the phenomenologists, structuralists, post-structuralists, etc. did (i.e. taking an anthropological, psychological, etc. theory and applying it to works of literature), or is "literary theory" what Eagleton is doing (i.e. analyzing and problematizing intellectual trends in the study of literature)? Or is it both?

Tsundoku

21:33

I plan to reread Eagleton's book next month (the first edition, at least); I'll see if I can come up with an answer.

@b_jonas Sorry for the confusion. I thought I could migrate the question from Lit SE to History SE, so I undeleted it and reopened it (you can't migrate a closed question), only to find out that the migration option was simply not available in the moderator tools. Apparently, that question can only be migrated from SFF SE to History SE, not from Lit SE to History SE :-(

b_jonas

22:03

@Tsundoku Hehe. It might be too old to migrate or something. Not really a problem. If you and Gareth decide that it should go to History SE, I can just delete it from SFF and Lit and post a new question with the same body to History.

Though on the other hand, if you undeleted it here, then Gareth's answer is visible, so no further action is necessary.

Except I guess we have to either delete the SFF one or at least put a link from it to the Lit.

Tsundoku

@b_jonas But if the Community user deleted it last time, it might delete it again. For this reason, reposting the question & answer on History SE looks like the safer option if you want the content to remain visible.

b_jonas

What do you think @GarethRees

Gareth Rees

22:24

@b_jonas Sure, if you repost the question on history.se, I can make an account there and repost my answer.

b_jonas

Ok. And then @Tsundoku figure out if the question should be deleted here and in SFF.

Tsundoku

@b_jonas Deleting it here is easy. Deleting it on SFF is outside my control because I am not a mod there.

Anyway, it is closed here; that is probably sufficient for Lit SE.

b_jonas

@Tsundoku It's my question, so I can delete it on SFF.

Tsundoku

@b_jonas Yes, you can, since it has no answers.

b_jonas

22:42

@GarethRees history.stackexchange.com/q/61722/24029 reposted

@Tsundoku If it's not deleted here though, then it may need a comment that links to the question on History.

I’m voting to close this question because it's a duplicate of scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/236877/… — Pieter Geerkens 1 min ago

Fun!

@Tsundoku It did exist around that moment. I undeleted it just so I can add a notice that points to History, because the question is also locked so I couldn't comment.

Tsundoku

@b_jonas Perhaps it's better to remove the note saying it was reposted from SFF SE and Lit SE.

b_jonas

No wait, it's locked on Lit. It was just deleted on Sci Fi.

@Tsundoku I don't think so.

Rofl

Fantastic creatures? Sounds more suitable for Mythology and Folklore SE. — Spencer 1 min ago

Tsundoku

After all the discussions on where to migrate it, they want it to go to Mythology SE ...

b_jonas

We'll see.

Is it too early to ask Role playing SE? :-)

Sorry, this whole situation is just too funny.

bobble

It's like a sitcom episode.

Tsundoku

22:55

Sitcom: we sit in front of our computers and communicate in a chatroom.

bobble

I'm lying down on a couch. Hah!

Tsundoku

Enjoy the couchcom ;-)

Gareth Rees

@b_jonas I reposted my answer, it is racking up downvotes already.

b_jonas

Tried that, but it wasn't possible for technical reasons. — Gareth Rees 4 mins ago

^ Technical reasons means that the question is too old I think.

bobble

> After 60 days, migrations can only be performed by Stack Exchange employees. These are performed only in very, very rare procedural cases and are usually not done on request.

from here

Transcript for