Why I love Glasgow University

[happybat]

No, seriously. Honest. This is a happy story...

I had intended to spend yesterday at a conference on the Da Vinci Code; primarily because there is bound to be a kid that wants to study it for their personal study, but also out of a certain nosiness about what the Religious Studies department might want to say about it. Unfortunately I forgot to pay, lost the details of the venue and only remembered about the dratted thing at around three am Saturday.... (and thanks to the friend who happened to mention it)

So, nine forty five I am wandering along University Avenue, sleep deprived and vague, looking for helpful signs and thrilled when I find one on the English department door. Unfortuately when I finally manage to focus on it, it is instead advertising a teacher's CPD course. Sounds like a good one too - Science Fiction and Fantasy. It's on today, too.

 So I wander in to try my luck.

Now, this is the reason why I love Glasgow Uni. I could not have been made more welcome. We had a wonderful day - I learned a new way to categorise fantasy - intrusive, immersive, portal and estranged - and was convinced, once again, that SF is a variety of fantasy (the real distinction is between texts with more and less explanation). We talked about Le Guin, Wells, Blish, Pohl, Byatt... And, by the by, I'm such a snob - I know she writes fantasty at least most of the time - "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye"? But I hadn't ever thought of her as a fantasy writer... Stupid me.

Discussion of how much of this stuff you could actually use in the classroom was interesting - the undeniable truth that if you teach a class science fiction or fantasy texts, the one (or two, or three) in the corner for whom this is the best thing that has ever happened to them will be outweighed by the majority who do not see why they should have to read this trash. But then, as was pointed out, they will probably feel the same way about Jane Eyre, so why worry? And yes, they will have to deal with domestic realism but, hell - the way that pop culture is at the moment they are hardly less likely to be exposed to fantasy. And why shouldn't I teach texts I like now and again....?

So, how will this course impact upon your classroom practise, Ms Happybat? Well, THIS is the year that I will teach Buffy the Vampire Slayer to my Intermediate Two class. And my boss can say what she likes.

Comments

[the-lazy-fox.livejournal.com]

I would've loved to have had you as a teacher. As it was, I graduated from grammar school without even knowing that the fantasy field existed. The only book that I had ever read that classified as sci-fi was 1984. o_o

And yes, I had to read Jane Eyre too, and I hated it.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

That sounds very serendipitous!

Never had to read Jane Eyre, but would LOVE to have studied Buffy (except that it didn't exist back then). Do it!

[lalajia.livejournal.com]

I wish I'd had a teacher like you at school :)

(Natalie!)