BSFA event, London

.mp3 of an interview sounds quite comfortable :).

Hi, Filtr - no problem, watch this space.

(Hi, Steph!
I am watching... still.)

Thanks again on behalf of the BSFA for coming and being such an interesting guest, and I hope you got home okay.

I found what you were saying about the Internet not being the same as face-to-face in forming a literary movement very interesting. With one of my other hats on, I teach for the Open University, and there's a big push on these days to promote the virtual learning environment as a replacement for traditional face-to-face tutorials. I'm firmly convinced that they can't, so it's interesting to see a different view of the same sort of issue.

Tony,

Thanks for inviting me! I really enjoyed it and it was great to see so many people there – Thank you everybody for your warm welcome and response. I felt I was among friends.

Yes, the ongoing obsession with the internet is skewing some debates often in problematical ways. If I was still lecturing in archaeology I would try to use the internet as little as possible. You can’t handle virtual artefacts or invite quiet students to air their views.

I bet we’ve seen the same practical problems in online discussions:

1. Technical problems – some authors who wanted to talk about the New Weird didn’t have broadband and got left behind while fiddling with phone cables.
2. Access problems - I was in regular employment at MOD at that time so felt I shouldn't post from work.
3. Pressures of time management. I was coping with chronic back pain so couldn’t contribute to online discussions for hours on end but had to prioritise the novel.
4. All the problems of the impermanence and archiving of online media. The main messageboard where the ‘New Weird’ was discussed has long since vanished.

Then you know the communication problems. Reading online is so often misconstrued you spend more time clarifying than you would face-to-face. There’s no cues from body language or tone of voice. I would never type as much as I could say aloud in a whole tutorial – and even if I did, the length would deter readers. Then there isn’t the same back-and-forth as in a conversation. It’s too stilted!

I wish I’d known you were a tutor, what subject do you teach? Brian, my boyfriend, studies with the OU and has a perceptive take on the issue he might post shortly.

However, with the ‘New Weird’ I think the problem was it didn’t recognise disparities in the authors’ approaches. I was keen to talk face-to-face with China and tried to on a number of occasions but he didn’t want to, possibly owing to the differences in our personal philosophies. The NW was never a movement but just a grouping of similar sorts of books, or at worst a marketing ploy on his part. I realised that in May 2005, which is when NW ended for me. Since then, as I said, the publishers appear to want to return to tried-and-tested fantasy. Seems as if Miéville wanted to rock the boat but has only succeeded in rocking it to sleep.

I may have been too sweeping in saying that the time pressures of writing commercially as well as the geographical distance between authors mean that face-to-face communication is difficult so movements in SF these days result from the choice of the publishers not the authors. Instead, small regional groups of people who live close together and can afford face-to-face time can achieve much - but shouldn’t expect to be able to successfully expand their opinions to a national or global scale. It’s like the OU’s local tutorials, which I always thought were a great system and if the winds of change are blowing there too, I idealistically hope the choice of using online forums is left to individual tutors.

Sorry I'm only just responding to this.

I hadn't realised that you were an archaeologist before the meeting, otherwise I'd have chatted about it. My own field is Classics, and I currently teach on the OU's Culture Identity and Power in the Roman Empire course.

Personally, I'm a firm believer in the use of the Internet to supplement traditional teaching methods, and it's particularly useful in the OU, where there are students who, for one reason or another, simply can't get to tutorials. But I don't care for its use as a replacement for them, which is the way that the OU seems to be going. But if I launch into a rant on this, I could be here all day ...

The OU is, incidentally, about to launch a World Archaeology course that is entirely online ... but then my archaeologist friends complain that the trend these days it to undergraduate degrees shorn of any actualy practical experience anyway, so it perhaps doesn't matter that much.

Hi Steph

Sorry I missed this, I was offered a free ticket to see Tool at Brixton Academy. Have you any idea if you'll be at EasterCon? China is there but don't let that put you off ; )

Managed to hook another one of my friends on to YOOW.

Take care

Den

(That Dreamwatch guy)

Hi Den

Eastercon 2008? Heavens, I hardly know where I'll be next minute, let alone next year!

Yes, I am considering it. Not decided yet but the presence of Dr. Hubris won't put me off.

Thanks for spreading the word about YOOW. Now get them to read NPLT - it's better! ;-)