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pjthompsonThere aren't really five separate and complete coincidences here, but I've broken the existing ones up into five easily digestible bits, so that should count for something, right?
1. Last week I pulled all the story collections I have out of the TBR bookshelves and put them near my bedside because that's the place I usually read short stories (although I left the story collections by single author in the shelves). I was gob-smacked to discover how many anthologies I had, some of which I'd forgotten about. (Which tells me I need to stop buying story anthologies until I've cleared out the ones I have.) Amongst these was an anthology called Powers of Detection: Stories of Mystery and Fantasy edited by Dana Stabenow.
2. Friday I was reading Dead Man Rising by Lilith Saintcrow in which she'd named a very minor character Ms. Stabenow.
3. "Wait," says I, "didn't somebody named Stabenow edit a collection of stories I have?" I went to the now handily available pile of anthologies and looked her up. I read the author blurb about her and noticed she'd written some mysteries centering around a detective named Kate Shugak.
4. On Saturday a book I'd ordered arrived in the mail: The Female Trickster: The Mask That Reveals by Ricki Stefanie Tannen.* I'd realized I needed to do some depth work for one of the thematic pillars of my current WIP. I started reading the book that afternoon. Although I'm not entirely in love with every aspect of Tannen's thinking, it's going to give me what I need for understanding some of the psychological underpinnings of what has been an instinctive process in this book. On page 10 Tannen mentions her favorite female detective characters, the ones she views as aspects of female trickster energy: V. I. Warshawski, Kinsey Millhone, Blanche White . . . and Kate Shugak, written by Dana Stabenow. There are several references to Shugak/Stabenow in the index. I look forward to reading what that's all about.
5. There is no fifth thing. Yet. (I told you so.)
While reading Tannen's book I'm thinking she's completely missed the boat on a whole 'nother aspect of female trickster energy as she defines it: Xena, Buffy, the vast majority of urban fantasy, and some of the paranormal romance.
How does she define a female trickster? A woman who has (Jargon warning! Jargon warning! She's a post-Jungian!) authority, agency, and autonomy and uses humor as an important tool in combating social stereotypes.
The three A's, as she defines them: autonomy - "being able to maintain a stable identity while inhabiting outsider terrain;" agency - "used as a sense of action and being able to act on others' behalf. Those who have agency have the power and freedom of physical and psychological movement within their culture" (and, apparently, they own their own detective agencies—har! Get it?); autonomy - "feeling free to choose your intentional behavior - necessary for successful identity formation" (i.e., able to run your own show).
Sounds pretty damned xenabuffyufpr to me.
(You know, it's not that I hate jargon, I can play the game. I just think that sometimes jargon is the antithesis of communication. It's about exclusivity and being an insider that pushing the marginal types and the chirping cricketdom of the commoners out of the discussion. Which is extremely amusing when it is employed to write about the marginal types, but jargon does not especially appreciate irony, in my experience.)
I may have to email Ms. Tannen and tell her about this whole well of material she's overlooked. I'm sure she'll just love my second guessing of her grand theory, don't you? If she pays any attention at all, she'll probably (with some justification) look at these older female detectives as forerunners of the said xenabuffyufpr thing. The female detectives were quite edgy in their day, real ball busters. In more ways than one.
What I'm not one hundred percent convinced of is that these types of female detectives represent true trickster energy as I understand it. It seems to me that the essence of the Trickster has more to do with chaos theory than working for a social good. These female detectives certainly busted up some stereotypes, stretched the boundaries of the system, but ultimately they all worked within the system.
I must think more on this, and see if Ms. Tannen can convince me.
*ETA 2021: Ultimately, this book left me with a sour taste. Ms. Tannen practiced a lot of cultural appropriation and pretty much shoehorned the trickster into her preconceived notions. Not a convincing thesis at all.
1. Last week I pulled all the story collections I have out of the TBR bookshelves and put them near my bedside because that's the place I usually read short stories (although I left the story collections by single author in the shelves). I was gob-smacked to discover how many anthologies I had, some of which I'd forgotten about. (Which tells me I need to stop buying story anthologies until I've cleared out the ones I have.) Amongst these was an anthology called Powers of Detection: Stories of Mystery and Fantasy edited by Dana Stabenow.
2. Friday I was reading Dead Man Rising by Lilith Saintcrow in which she'd named a very minor character Ms. Stabenow.
3. "Wait," says I, "didn't somebody named Stabenow edit a collection of stories I have?" I went to the now handily available pile of anthologies and looked her up. I read the author blurb about her and noticed she'd written some mysteries centering around a detective named Kate Shugak.
4. On Saturday a book I'd ordered arrived in the mail: The Female Trickster: The Mask That Reveals by Ricki Stefanie Tannen.* I'd realized I needed to do some depth work for one of the thematic pillars of my current WIP. I started reading the book that afternoon. Although I'm not entirely in love with every aspect of Tannen's thinking, it's going to give me what I need for understanding some of the psychological underpinnings of what has been an instinctive process in this book. On page 10 Tannen mentions her favorite female detective characters, the ones she views as aspects of female trickster energy: V. I. Warshawski, Kinsey Millhone, Blanche White . . . and Kate Shugak, written by Dana Stabenow. There are several references to Shugak/Stabenow in the index. I look forward to reading what that's all about.
5. There is no fifth thing. Yet. (I told you so.)
While reading Tannen's book I'm thinking she's completely missed the boat on a whole 'nother aspect of female trickster energy as she defines it: Xena, Buffy, the vast majority of urban fantasy, and some of the paranormal romance.
How does she define a female trickster? A woman who has (Jargon warning! Jargon warning! She's a post-Jungian!) authority, agency, and autonomy and uses humor as an important tool in combating social stereotypes.
The three A's, as she defines them: autonomy - "being able to maintain a stable identity while inhabiting outsider terrain;" agency - "used as a sense of action and being able to act on others' behalf. Those who have agency have the power and freedom of physical and psychological movement within their culture" (and, apparently, they own their own detective agencies—har! Get it?); autonomy - "feeling free to choose your intentional behavior - necessary for successful identity formation" (i.e., able to run your own show).
Sounds pretty damned xenabuffyufpr to me.
(You know, it's not that I hate jargon, I can play the game. I just think that sometimes jargon is the antithesis of communication. It's about exclusivity and being an insider that pushing the marginal types and the chirping cricketdom of the commoners out of the discussion. Which is extremely amusing when it is employed to write about the marginal types, but jargon does not especially appreciate irony, in my experience.)
I may have to email Ms. Tannen and tell her about this whole well of material she's overlooked. I'm sure she'll just love my second guessing of her grand theory, don't you? If she pays any attention at all, she'll probably (with some justification) look at these older female detectives as forerunners of the said xenabuffyufpr thing. The female detectives were quite edgy in their day, real ball busters. In more ways than one.
What I'm not one hundred percent convinced of is that these types of female detectives represent true trickster energy as I understand it. It seems to me that the essence of the Trickster has more to do with chaos theory than working for a social good. These female detectives certainly busted up some stereotypes, stretched the boundaries of the system, but ultimately they all worked within the system.
I must think more on this, and see if Ms. Tannen can convince me.
*ETA 2021: Ultimately, this book left me with a sour taste. Ms. Tannen practiced a lot of cultural appropriation and pretty much shoehorned the trickster into her preconceived notions. Not a convincing thesis at all.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-30 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-30 10:44 pm (UTC)http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrtricksters1.html
(Also has lovely artwork.)
no subject
Date: 2008-07-31 12:55 pm (UTC)http://blog.pjsattic.com/corvus/2006/09/female-tricksters/
(including a comment from Ms. Tannen pointing out her book)
no subject
Date: 2008-07-31 06:17 pm (UTC)No, I'm not fond of cultural appropriation for the purpose of shoehorning it into a pet theory. It smacks of imperialism.
Interest post, btw. I think tricksters are generally important figures, not just clowns and cultural taboos personified. Chaos theory personified, if they must be a personification, the power waiting just beneath the surface of the world to rip away that surface and be transformed into something new. Bad for individuals living in a particular time and place, but the way in which change happens.
I got the Landay book a day or two after Tannen arrived and I'm also looking for Scheherezade's Sisters and rereading Hyde. You might want to add Aunt Nancy from African-American folklore to your list, as well as Baubo/Iambe from Greek myth. Those last two also give you a nice triad goddesss thing if you're looking for it: Iambe/maiden, Demeter/mother, Baubo/crone.
As to Lilith, I think she has trickster implications. She's much degraded in Judeo-Christian tradition and what appeals to me about her as a feminine icon is what scraps one can glean about her from a broader Mess o'potamian perspective: her associations with Inanna, et al. Even within the Judeo-Christian context, her independence and her refusal to be submissive and/or ungratified and unimportant is appealing. I view that whole demon thing as propoganda for trying to keep uppity women in place. Of course they have to downgrade her to demon. She questions their grip on power.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 08:37 pm (UTC)You're not alone. A lot of scholars seem to be seeking this pattern now. I got another book (which I haven't started reading yet), Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: the Female Trickster in American Culture by Lori Landay. My instinct is that this thesis isn't going to hold up, either, but I keep trying.
Terri Windling in the article I referenced above to Kevin came up with a couple of interesting candidates: Iambe/Baubo from Greek mythology, and Aunt Nancy from African-American folklore (who I'm not that familiar with). RE: Baubo, she's been rather co-opted by Greco-Roman mythology so she's not quite a true trickster. And that's the problem with so much of this. If there ever was a true female trickster, she's been co-opted and "civilized" (made more comfortably feminine) or demonized.
I think Lilith may be a good candidate, but again, her "outside the boundaries" behavior has been demonized (literally) by Judeo-Christian tradition. Women are not allowed to be sacred clowns and embodiments of transformative chaos. They are marked as the Whores of Babylon or baby killers of spawns/mates of Satan.
There are a few examples in Native American lore, but even there--where the trickster is an important metaphor--it seems that women are consistently "taught their place" in society by being told, "You're either a good girl, a good mother, and a good grandmother--or you're a demon whore."