WisCon programming: Idea Generation Post

[sasha_feather]

WisCon programming submission closes on January 28th! This post is for idea generation and creating more ideas for WisCon programming.

Here is the FAQ page for programming at WisCon.

What do you want to learn about? What do you want to talk about? What's exciting to you this year?

Please comment and converse in this post, and feel free to link to it!

Comments

[laceblade]

I want there to be panels about manga and/or anime!

But nobody should nominate me to be on them, because I decided not to be on any panels this year!

Satoshi Kon?

[laceblade]

Last year there was a panel about Studio Ghibli.
It would be nice to have a panel about Satoshi Kon's work, as he sadly passed away this year. I generally like more focus in panels, than just "this artist was involved in all these works!" though.

Representation of women is interesting, but again pretty broad.
Representation of bodies in his work could also be interesting (dreams in Paprika, gender presentation in Tokyo Godfathers, for horror in Perfect Blue).

Re: Satoshi Kon?

[wrdnrd]

Representation of bodies in his work

That would be a brilliant topic!!

[sasha_feather]

I've already submitted a Janelle Monae panel idea! Are there other music or multimedia panel ideas of interest to anyone?

[jesse_the_k]

Beyond Gender Binaries: Where are the Trans* People in SFF?

Don't know who'd be willing to be on the panel, and I think it would be good to advertise it as "not a 101 discussion".

[littlebutfierce]

Or a more specific one (I'm tying in your comment & laceblade's above) -- Beyond Gender Binaries wrt anime/manga? I've seen a lot of shitty handling of that kind of thing in anime & have just last night watched a shining example (which I will blog about sometime soon!). But I know I don't know all that much about it -- so I would like to see the panel, not be on it, ha.

[laceblade]

That would be cool! It'd be nice to listen to people talk about the....fluidity of gender? In some series, people pass back and forth between genders (Sailor Moon), or have gender confusion (After School Nightmare); cross-dressing certainly leaves a lot of options (Kaze Hikaru, Ouran, etc.).

[littlebutfierce]

I know you said you decided not to be on any panels but you should totally be on this one!

[laceblade]

Wahhh! I like thinking about ideas for panels, but I think that last year, I decided I really don't like being on them.

At the moment, at least, I communicate (academically) a lot better through writing than through talking. Additionally, I'm trying ti find as many ways as possible to limit stress. I think WisCon weekend will already be stressful, :[

[sasha_feather]

I support your decision Jackles!

[wrdnrd]

I think WisCon weekend will already be stressful

You know where to come for some de-stress mimosas!! ;) [HUGS]

[laceblade]

I can't have mimosas, ;_____;

[wrdnrd]

OH FUCK, i completely forgot!!! >_< I apologize for being kind of a space cadet jerkwad.

Duct Tape Your Inner Critic

[jesse_the_k]

...and be on the panel. You have several months to do research, and you're an expert in anime/manga generally.

Well, you have some time to ponder that. In the meantime submit it! Include the names of shitty and wonderful examples!

Re: Duct Tape Your Inner Critic

[littlebutfierce]

I appreciate the vote of confidence! Although it is v. unlikely that I'll be able to afford to go to the con this year, unless we become a even temporarily two-income household v. soon.

[aamcnamara]

I would also like to see Beyond Gender Binaries in prose works--there could plausibly be a whole panel on the use of pronouns in SF/F.

[jesse_the_k]

ooooh! Personal Pronouns in SF/F is a fascinating topic. Any works that come to mind that do it well or poorly?

[aamcnamara]

A few I was thinking about, off the top of my head: Left Hand of Darkness is a classic one that could go either way, of course (and the short story set on that world that le Guin retroconned to use all English-female pronouns)... The way Delany uses pronouns in Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand fascinates me, and I would like to know of other writers who do similar sorts of things with pronouns, because I haven't seen much of anything else along those lines. (Does it exist? Am I just not seeing it? Why?)

And then there are gender-neutral pronouns, characters who don't have any pronoun at all, and the classic trick of "I will make this work first-person so as to avoid (for whatever reason) having to use a pronoun or name for the narrator". (A lot of Elizabeth Bear's work, Eon which I just read, the first draft of a novel I wrote last summer...) I'm sure there is more.

[welcomingsong]

Depending on how broadly you define the topic, other examples might include Bone Dance by Emma Bull and maybe The Bone Palace by Amanda Downum.

Lots of spoilers, though. I mean, you'd pretty much have to talk about a lot of the plot details in order to talk about the way pronouns are used in a meaningful way.

[aamcnamara]

Spoiler warning for EVERYTHING EVER in the panel description? ...then again, often the fact that there IS a remarkable pronoun-usage is itself the spoiler. We could talk about that phenomenon for a while, I bet.

[welcomingsong]

Heh. Tricky, that.

Admittedly, I was mostly thinking of The Bone Palace since it's new, but you're right. Any suggestion that a book has interesting pronouns COULD be a spoiler.

[littlebutfierce]

I still have that idea kicking around about how to be a good audience member at panels (what's wrong w/the "not a question, just a comment" style of interacting w/the panel, what do you do if you see the panel being bullied, blah blah) but I seriously doubt I will get around to making it concrete enough to submit (for what, the second or third year in a row?), so if anyone else wants to run w/it... ?

[jesse_the_k]

That's a brilliant idea!

Programming welcomes semi-cured ideas! We see scores and scores, and can mate several submissions into one panel.

Other audience behaviors that send good panels off the rails? Behaviors which elicit thoughtful replies or help the audience understand better?

[littlebutfierce]

What inspired the idea was sitting in a panel where a v. talkative audience member (also a popular author :P ) made 4 or 5 lengthy comments/just-barely-questions in quick succession & it was pissing me off, but the panel was just letting her talk even though there were lots of other people raising their hands. So I thought about what I could've done to change that dynamic, if anything, as another audience member; whether that person was aware of how much conversational space she was dominating; & what the panel could've done, if anything.

Edit: To clarify, I don't see the audience member's behavior as bullying -- when I mentioned panels being bullied upthread I was thinking more generally of hostile audience members shouting down the panel, etc.

[laceblade]

I think the panel could be titled something like, "How to not be a tool," :D

Admiration v Pleasure

[jesse_the_k]

In my life and pop culture, the test is whether one enjoys a book. In the academy and higher culture generally, the highest praise is that one admires a book. Is the self-righteous boundary patrol of pleasure v admiration itself a source of pleasure? Do popular works avoid hard subjects because they minimize pleasure?

— Does that make any sense to you?

Re: Admiration v Pleasure

[sasha_feather]

That is a GREAT idea!

Re: Admiration v Pleasure

[wrdnrd]

Ahhhhh!!! This is brilliant! I want to be in the audience for this discussion!!

[aamcnamara]

I think I may have submitted this idea to programming after the last WisCon, but: I want to see an intergenerational panel/discussion about GLBT(etc.)/queer culture in SF/F fandom over the decades. What it was like earlier on, what it's like now (from various viewpoints), what kind of language is and is not appropriate ("queer" is a word to reclaim for some people, mostly younger, while for others it's still a slap in the face), what that all means in the context of SF/F or what SF/F means in the context of all that... just to sit down and talk with each other.

[sasha_feather]

I love this idea!

[yarram]

(Here via the post in Wiscon comm:) May I steal this idea for another GLBT*-friendly con?

[aamcnamara]

Definitely! Which one, if I may ask?

[yarram]

There are a couple that would be open to this topic, but I was specifically thinking of Minicon[1], which has quite a few out GLBT* folk both on concom and among attendees. IDK how well the topic would fly with current Programming folk, but I'm going to suggest it anyway...

[1] The others are Convergence and Diversicon, plus Gaylaxicon will be in Minneapolis in 2012.

[chr0me]

I want to see more crafty stuff at Wiscon including workshops.

I've also promised Nisi a Michael Jackson flashmob/performance/something, and I need help in making that happen.