Little Brother: Empowering citizenship in a digital future.

Little Brother reads like a combination of manual for an hacktivist operating system and a manifesto for liberty in a progressively digital world. Behind a seemingly innocuous and rather stereotypical story of misadventures of a young boy fighting injustice is a powerful reflection on privacy, power of media, individual rights and freedoms, the balance between the powers of states and citizens rights, paranoia and political opportunism associated with wars on terrorism.

Doctorow uses quite effectively a narrative structure where a hapless hero has to suffer mishaps, glaring injustices and torture until his fight for the values ​​of freedom ultimately triumphs. It's a classic story of struggle of good against evil, between libertarian hackers and oppressive laws raised in the name of security. The book has the express purpose of using the young adult sub-genre to raise awareness on issues such as privacy, online security, and the struggle between free culture and political and economic interests that claim compelling needs to impose unreasonable restrictions.

Within the characters struggle against the injustices Doctorow gives us a manual for ethical hacking, exploring in depth methods of social struggle and technologies to defend individual rights. The explicit purpose is to teach young readers about privacy, encryption, hacker culture, smart mobs, free culture, open-source movements, wireless networks, civil rights and new forms of social organization enhanced by digital technologies.

Written in 2008, this book today seems eerily prescient. In our post-wikileaks/Snowden world, we know that shady governmental agencies worldwide have no qualms on using our digital tools to spy without legal oversight. Drones overfly us, surveillance cameras lurk in every corner of urban spaces. Privacy as a concept withers in a society where we freely give away personal data in exchange for services, unbeknownstingly sharing personal information. Doctorow spotted these trends early on and gave us an empowering manifesto to assert individual rights in the face of pervasive vigilance.


Coelho, A. (2009). Little Brother. Retrieved 16/12/2013 from http://intergalacticrobot.blogspot.pt/2008/07/little-brother.html

Doctorow, C. (2008). Little Brother. Nova Iorque: TOR.

Doctorow. C. (2013). Little Brother News. Retrieved 16/12/2013 from http://craphound.com/littlebrother/

(This being the last essay I'll do a little misuse of this space to wish you, unknown reader, a merry Christmas and an happy new year. I do hope you've enjoyed sharing this course and... best wishes!)


(E agora num toque autocongratulatório, há que sentir uma pontinha de orgulho numa apreciação destas: "Does the link in a foreign language mean that English is a second language for you? If so, that's extremely impressive. A few minor hiccups, but nothing major. Your vocabulary is great, and your paragraph structure makes sense. I would say that you get a bit carried away with listing things in places. A 2 from me. Well done!")

Fluid Vision

Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness.

Science Fiction still feels like a boy's adventure club, dominated by male voices. The field is skewered towards specific visions of hard science and futuristic adventure. Whether in the grand vistas of space opera or dark dystopias the tone is similar. High adventure, visions of technology underlining ebullient ideas of possible futures or alternate pasts, and two dimensional characters. As an example I need not go no further than Arthur C. Clarke's grand, optimistic technological visions of mankind's future and his absolutely shallow characters, automatons fully servant to the author's vision. Asimov and the the other golden age greats are also guilty of this. Even the huge scope of the Foundation series is based in a narrow technocratic vision conveniently fulfilled by drone-like characters.

Perceptions of fluid sexuality are the most distinguishing marks of The Left Hand Of Darkness. Writing in an era marked by the classic vision of SF, LeGuin's tale must have been felt as deeply disturbing. At the time, the sinuous relation between the human Ai and the androgynous/male/female Estraven gave editors and the conservative writer's guild heart attacks. This fluid post-modern view of human sexuality hadn't appeared before in the genre.

If this is the most striking aspect of this book, possibly the most influential is the one that gives density to the story and which is also a constant in Le Guin's oeuvre: detailed worldbuilding, centered not in a narrow view of technology and society but in a comprehensive vision that takes into account the confluence of history, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies into the vast fictional societies that form the backdrop and define the plot. Spaceships and FTL communication devices are but elements in a wider interwoven galactic civilization.

Ground-breaking at the time, this book relies on depth of characters, unsettling fluidity and a vision of SF that takes into account both hard and soft sciences, helping to redefine this literary genre.

References:

Wray, J. (2013).Ursula K. Le Guin, The Art of Fiction No. 221. The Paris Review, N.º 206. Nova Iorque: The Paris Review.

Jones, J. (2013). Ursula Le Guin, Darkness, Exile, Dispossessed, and Human Sexuality. Amazing Stories, March 13, 2013.

LeFanu, S. (2004). The king is pregnant. Guardian, January 3, 2004. London: Guardian News and Media Limited

Ray Bradbury: Elegy

The blue cover of the classical Portuguese SF book collection edited long ago by Caminho graces one of my most dear books. It's a very suspect book, guilty of deviating my childhood mind from more orthodox readings. Quite the dangerous influence, I'd say, because since reading it i was forever unable to return to those books deemed important. You know whose I mean. Those recommended by teachers and critics, receivers of the highest literary honors. Utterly impossible, after savoring the tales in that yellowish blue book I could return nevermore. Before knowing what concepts such as surrealism, space opera, or magical realism meant the spiraling towers of the decaying ruins on the dusty shores under the red martian sky were imprinted in my mind. The Martian Chronicles was the book that made me discover and fall in love with science fiction.

What I've received from The Martian Chronicles was the first inkling of the stylistic element that distinguishes SF from other forms of literature: the sense of wonder, that far-reaching mood of boundless fascination with science, vast universe and pure adventure.

Bradbury's work is a constant in my life. I keep returning to his oneiric Mars, as well as tasting again and again his golden apples, machineries of joy, graveyards for lunatics, illustrated persons, flying men grounded by emperors, crushed butterflies that subtly change mankind's history, poetic chance encounters where men and alien beings find that they have so much in common, mechatronic dinosaurs, firemen that fall in love with the books they're supposed to burn, and rockets, rocket summers, glorious, fiery lancets that rip the skies and free mankind to dream of more distant frontiers. These, and so many other tales that delight by the purity of narrative, naivete tempered with knowledge, passion with forgotten elements of pop-cultural lore. A prolific writer and one of the great voices of the 20th Century, his legacy is delightful and marvelous.

Coelho, A. (2006). Crónicas Marcianas. Retrieved 03/12/13 from http://intergalacticrobot.blogspot.pt/2006/02/crnicas-marcianas.html
Coelho, A. (2012). Farewell, Mr. Bradbury. Retrieved 03/12/13 from http://intergalacticrobot.blogspot.pt/2012/06/farewell-mr-bradbury.html
Candeias, J. (2008). Bibliowiki: Crónicas Marcianas. Retrieved 03/12/13 from http://bibliowiki.com.pt/index.php/Cr%C3%B3nicas_Marcianas_(Caminho,_1985)
Ray Bradbury (1985). Crónicas Marcianas. Lisboa: Caminho.

Perfect and Symmetrical Utopias

Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars and Herland by Charlotte Gilman.

I was stunned a couple of months ago when actually reading A Princess of Mars. Dejah Thoris is a familiar image in contemporary comics, characterized by an highly eroticised visual style. Covers and stories usually depict  her with a luscious look, voluptuous shapes, skimpy clothing and go-go dancer poise. Since the original book comes from a more conservative era I've never thought to find descriptions such as these: "save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked, nor could any apparel have enhanced the beauty of her perfect and symmetrical figure". Clearly, this passage fed adolescent wet dreams in now long deceased generations. The book itself is essentially a variation of the white man's burden theme in an exotic and savage land.

Herland stands in direct contrast to this exotic view of highly eroticised savage lands where women are sensuous beauties ready to be enraptured by the heroic arms of the white man, even though, to be fair, Dejah Thoris is depicted as a quite resourceful young woman in Burroughs book. Herland is a curious utopia, a strange mix of the amazon myths and a feminist version of the Stepford wives. Deep in the amazon jungle, lost to the world, a perfect utopian and matriarchal society without any men is challenged by a chance encounter with three adventurers. The book itself is a huge infodump where the author expands her views of social perfection in a feminist utopia.

Perfect utopias contain within themselves the seed of dire totalitarism. There's something disturbing in an idea of perfect societies where everyone shares the same consensual set of ideas. What about those that dare to think different? In literary utopias they seldom exist, assimilated into the perfection of conformity. In real utopias they languish in gulags or concentration camps.

Both books are Utopian. Herland expounds ideas of a perfect society contrasted with our own, while A Princess of Mars is an exotic male dream-space of high adventure and sensuous natives. All Utopian reveries of pulp escapist delight.

Globalizing Wells.

The prevalence of a strong anglo-american tradition in science fiction is overwhelming in the genre. 
European views usually rally around Verne as the founding father of SF with his scientific/adventure romances that so enthralled readers. There were other precursors, from Lucian of Samosata to Kepler or Voltaire, birthing a tradition whose elements coalesced during the industrial revolution into a speculative genre where science and imagination met. For those not immersed in anglo-american culture, Wells is unjustly seen as a footnote, read as the other guy writing science fiction at the same time when Verne dazzled XIXth century readers.

If one steps out of the anglo-american literary prevalence a great things await. I write this not from a sense of inferiority but of delight in global sensibilities, now becoming fashionable in contemporary science fiction due to the editorial work of Jeff Vandermeer and Lavie Tidhar's success. Those that only know about anglo/american SF and (as John Clute says) fantastika writers are missing out on a lot of great things. Verne is but the tip of the iceberg. French SF is thriving (do discover Laurent Génefort's Omale series); the German scene goes way beyond Perry Rhodan's publishing history, Chinese writers are exploding with ideas (and party support), while Haikasoru Press is translating amazing Japanese writers. The italian Tiziano Sclavi and the portuguese João Barreiros are also devious surprises.

About Wells, then. When i discovered him i was taken by the breadth, scientific value and utopian pessimism of his ideas. Showing us that in the end human hopes and dreams crumble to dust, like the pages in the books of The Time Machine future library, but hard science opens the doors to human progress. Somewhat discarded by European critics, clearly not a footnote, Wells stands as the author that most influenced global SF themes and ideas. Global writers owe Wells a fundamental debt. 

And yes, this was a bit shameless proselytizing.

(Mais um mini-ensaio para o Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World. Desta vez o tema era a obra de Wells mas aproveitei para pregar o evangelho da FC global. Falta o emergir da africana e outras vertentes mas o limite de 320 palavras não dá para muito.)

(edit: o Coursera funciona na modalidade de peer review, e as reacções costumam ser surreais, desde o tipo que se deu ao trabalho de fazer uma análise gramatical de um dos textos sem se aperceber que foi escrito por alguém que não tem o inglês como língua nativa, apesar de vir indicado logo na primeira frase, à percepção geral que desvios às propostas de abordagem são heresias intoleráveis. Também são giras as críticas do tipo "deveria ter desenvolvido mais" em tarefas com limite de trezentas palavras. Para esta digressão à volta de Wells a crítica mais marcante foi a de arrogância: "Knowingly writing above the understanding of your general audience comes across as arrogant". Yep, pelos vistos falar de FC que escapa ao domínio anglo-americano num mooc sobre ficção científica com um público maioritariamente americano é a mais pura arrogância...)

Ficções

Novamente em modo Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World, desta vez olhando para obras específicas de Edgar Allan Poe e reflectindo sobre a suavidade negra da literatura gótica, cadência literária e elementos estilísticos.

The Oval Portrait: O assombramento da tristeza profunda, a ambiência do sentimento de perda são o grande mote deste pequeno conto. A paixão pelo ideal de beleza impossível fenecido pelo tempo, levado pela morte e fixado na tela sublinham a obsessão pela meditação depressiva tão querida dos românticos.

The Tell-Tale Heart: A obsessão conduz à loucura neste conto perfeito de um dos grandes mestres da literatura fantástica. A cadência dos pensamentos do assassino, exteriorizados nos batimentos audíveis apenas na sua mente perturbada, dão ao conto uma assinalável vertente de oralidade. A fixação com minúcias fermenta em demência na mente sensível e o escape possível é a aniquilação do elemento perturbador, mas a força do remorso interior agudiza a loucura.

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar: Dos contos de Poe este é aquele que me arrepiou desde a primeira leitura. O contraste entre a austeridade científica do narrador que nos relata o decorrer da sua experiência de hipnotismo realizada no limiar da morte e o tom cavernoso e sobrenatural daquele que está suspenso entre a morte e a vida é perfeito e cria a dissonância que provoca arrepios na espinha. A ciência desempenha aqui um pequeno papel, atendendo ao conceito à época contemporâneo da validade científica do poder do hipnotismo, mas Poe não está interessado nos meandros da descoberta, centrando-se mais no horror do além desconhecido.

The Black Cat: Ódio e obsessão colidem nesta história onde um homem violento que acredita não o ser espelha a sua violência sobre um gato que maltrata até à morte. É levado à loucura por um novo gato, sobrenaturalmente semelhante ao que estrangulou, que acaba por revelar ao mundo a violência sanguinária que tanto tenta ocultar.

The Fall of the House of Usher: Uma história que funciona quase como uma lista de elementos fundamentais do conto gótico. Mansão senhorial envelhecida de aspecto decadente? Visto. Isolamento numa vasta propriedade onde as árvores selvagens e o nevoeiro conferem uma ambiência de negrura? Visto. Personagens assombrados, de sensibilidade aguçada, atormentados pelos labirintos da mente? Visto. Toque sobrenatural onde acontecimentos inexplicados aterrorizam personagens já de si instáveis? Visto. Tragédia final que elimina aqueles que mergulham na demência oculta? Visto. Estes elementos são infindamente glosados na literatura e no cinema. O conto não é certamente o primeiro a reuni-los, até porque são elementos estilísticos comuns ao lado negro da ficção fantástica da época romântica que apelidamos de gótico.

O notável na poesia de Poe é a sua fortíssima cadência rítmica. Sente-se facilmente no poema The Bells onde é a linguagem que marca o ritmado dos sinos. Já em The Raven, poema que se sente melhor ouvido ou lido em voz alta do que na simples voz interior da leitura pessoal, o ritmo marcado colide com a sensibilidade neogótica cujas trevas e negrume se fazem sentir mais intensamente no ambiente de tristeza trágica de Annabel Lee. Para perceber o poder da oralidade e cadência rítmica em Poe nada melhor do que ouvir Vincent Price a recitar The Raven.

Discovering Hawthorne

Hawthorne is not a very well known author here in Portugal. I have to confess to being mesmerized by his prose and themes,  somewhat akin to some of E.T.A. Hoffman's writings. So, read this not as a novel insight but by what is is, a record of discoveries.

Maybe still under Frankenstein's influence, reading these examples of the fantastic tale in the nineteenth century left me feeling that they betray fears and concerns about the consequences of progress and an aversion to excessive dedication to science, seen as something fearful from which unknown dangers may arise. Similar concerns  infuse the works of other writers of the romantic era such as Hoffman or some elements in Poe, echoing a fear of the consequences of progress in an age where scientific and technological developments where starting to radically reshape contemporary society.

Rejection of blind dedication can be seen in The Birthmark, where the scientist's obsession with an almost imperceptible blemish destroys the woman he loves, signifying how searching at all costs for complete perfection may bring the loss of what we love most. Rappacini's Daughter goes further into these fears of progress portraying a man of science with little or no scruples in pursuing his unnatural interests, disregarding even the closest human bonds. Reading Dr. Heidegger 's Experiment left me thinking how this a tale does for the idea of age and experience what H.G. Wells did for the concept superiority in The Country Of The Blind. No matter our beliefs, we eventually keep repeating the same mistakes, a poignant view in today's contemporary disregard for basic history.

The Artist Of The Beautiful enchanted with its curious speculation on mechanical simulation of life and clear metaphor of the artist's work who creates to answer inner instincts and remains free in the face of outside incomprehension. Essentially, dedication to art as something pure contrasting with the perceived darkness of science.

Ficções

Quatro leituras de Nathaniel Hawthorne, escolhidas por Eric Rabkin, tutor do mooc Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind Our Modern World. Quatro exemplos do conto fantástico do século XIX, traindo um medo e preocupação com as consequências do progresso científico, e uma aversão à dedicação autista à investigação, sempre vista como algo do qual podem advir perigos ignorados, que não encontra reflexo nas atitudes similares do artista. Visão romântica, que espelha um medo que ainda hoje se sente pelas consequências do progresso, visível nas preocupações expressas sempre que se reflecte sobre novas tecnologias. Quanto ao mooc em si, deixem-me dizer que está bastante abaixo das expectativas que cria. Academicamente é muito bom, mas perante o tema e a nossa contemporânea modernidade tecnológica esperamos algo mais acutilante que não nos é transmitido num curso centrado sobre a tradição romântica dos séculos XVIII e XIX. Se esperam leituras que forcem reflexões sobre futurismo alastrante e o papel da tecnologia na contemporaneidade, este mooc não é para vós. Mas é interessante como abordagem que aprofunda conhecimentos sobre a evolução histórica das literaturas do género fantástico.

Dr. Heidegger's Experiment: Um cientista intrigado convida para uma experiência quatro idosos, vencidos pela vida e cheios de mágoas do passado. Uma viúva de reputação arruinada e beleza fenecida, um mercador falido, um militar de saúde arruinada por uma vida dissoluta e um político corrupto bebem um líquido que, de acordo com o Dr. Heidegger, é água recolhida na mítica fonte da juventude e terá o condão de lhes restituir a juventude há muito perdida. Animados pelo regresso da vitalidade aos corpos, bebem e percebem que realmente o líquido lhes faz efeito, embora temporário. As mágoas dos erros do passado são depressa esquecidos e os novos jovens depressa regressam aos velhos hábitos. Guerreando pela atenção da agora bela viúva derrubam o barril de elixir da vida. Regressando aos achaques da velhice, decidem partir em busca da mítica fonte e reconquistar a juventude perdida. Atónito, ou consolado pela certeza, o Dr. Heidegger observa que se acreditamos que a experiência nos traz sabedoria a hipótese de um regresso passado, por temporária que seja, nos leva a cair novamente nos erros de sempre.

The Birthmark: Um cientista afortunado casou com uma mulher perfeita, de rara beleza e personalidade. Mas algo o incomoda, uma pequena imperfeição que com o passar do tempo, o obceca: um sinal mínúsculo a perturbar a beleza do no rosto da mulher. Dotado de grandes conhecimentos de ciências e medicina, dedica o seu saber a procurar tratamentos que eliminem o sinal e completem a perfeição da esposa. Finalmente é bem sucedido, mas após se alegrar com o desaparecimento da marca assiste, impotente, ao falecimento da esposa desprovida de força vital. Buscar a perfeição total a todo o custo traz como preço a perda daquilo que mais se ama.

Rappaccini's Daughter: Um jovem estudante de medicina apaixona-se pela filha do obscuro Dr. Rappaccini, que entrevê da sua janela a passear por um estranho jardim repleto de flores letais. É avisado por um amigo mais experiente para se afastar, dada a reputação do Dr. Rappaccini para experiências macabras advinda da completa falta de respeito para com os seus pacientes. Para este cientista mais vale um grão de conhecimento adquirido do que uma vida salva. Talvez, dizem ao jovem estudante, esta paixão seja mais uma elaborada experiência do infame cientista. Mas o amor é cego e a paixão fala mais alto, mesmo quando o jovem contempla a sua amada a colher alegremente flores cuja seiva mata instantaneamente animais e insectos. São as flores a chave da experiência. Isolada no jardim, a jovem filha do doutor adquiriu resistência às toxinas letais mas é ela própria flor de estufa, incapaz de passar além dos limites do jardim. A paixão do jovem estudante vai-o aproximando da beldade e adquirindo imunidade às toxinas, mas a revelação da verdade leva-o ao desespero.

The Artist Of The Beautiful: Um jovem relojoeiro vive de tal forma obcecado com as suas intricadas construções mecânicas que esquece tudo à sua volta. O negócio que o sustenta desfaz-se e a rapariga que é a sua paixão de infância casa-se com um ferreiro. Os altos e baixos da vida e a desconfiança dos vizinhos não demovem o relojoeiro do seu implacável ritmo de trabalho. Rejeitado pelos pares, vendo a mulher que ama nos braços de outro homem, apesar de tudo o relojoeiro sorri. E um dia dá ao jovem casal uma prenda que apenas uma criança consegue apreciar: uma intricada borboleta mecânica, simulacro quase perfeito de vida. Todos acham a criatura bela mas inútil, admirando o engenho do relojoeiro enquanto o aconselham a aplicar as suas capacidades a criações mais práticas e lucrativas. A intricada borboleta mecânica acaba desfeita pelas mãos inquisitivas da criança. Apesar de tudo o relojoeiro sorri. Está feliz porque foi capaz de com perserverança criar algo de belo e perfeito, tão belo e perfeito que as pessoas comuns admiram mas são incapazes de compreender. O conto é uma metáfora do trabalho do artista que cria, essencialmente, para responder às suas pulsões interiores e se mantém criador e livre face às pressões externas e à incompreensão dos que o rodeiam, com uma simpática dose ao estilo século XIX de especulação sobre a simulação mecânica da vida.

Frankenstein: Summoning Pandora

Our attitude toward technology is one of our most striking paradoxes, which inspire countless romanticized stories and philosophical treatises that mirror anxieties and fears. Our survival as individuals and species has always been conditioned by technologies created to improve living conditions and dependence on technology has never been so strong as in our contemporary era. On the other hand we have an almost visceral fear of technology and the science behind it. New technological developments are seen as potentially opening Pandora's box, spreading untold evils and corrupting mankind . Today, when the benefits of a universal education largely raised the cultural level of most humans and wonders of science are no longer mysteries, we feel a visceral fear of technological impacts. The old fears never faded. For example, biotechnology scares us with dreams of devastating plagues or freakish modifications to the human genome. Cybertechnology is still perceived as a threat to humanity, changing our lives and our minds in unpredictable ways.

Frankenstein is one of the stronger texts addressing the dichotomy between progress and its hulking potential horrors, made ??even more valuable for its earliness. Mary Shelley wrote in the early nineteenth century, when the industrial revolution was in its infancy and the impact of science in everyday life was very low, but touched a nerve that pervaded 20th and 21st century sensibilities.

The impact of the story of a man whose hubris and blind belief in the power of science takes him beyond moral boundaries in the quest for pure progress still resonates in our contemporary concerns . Not coincidentally, the subtitle of the book is The Modern Prometheus. Cursed by hubris, Doctor Frankenstein reaps the consequences of his actions, while the nameless creation is condemned to persecution by those who mistakenly see it as evil through no fault of his own. Ultimately, knowledge terrifies the human soul. We crave it, yet punish its unrelenting search with our fears.

(Mais uma tarefa do Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World. A imagem vem da extraordinária interpretação do clássico de Shelley por Berni Wrightson.)


(Edit: atenção que vem aí autocongratulação. É giro abrir a página das avaliações do curso, deparar com uma nota simpática e ainda com comentários deste calibre: "peer 3 → Your writing was absolutely phenomenal. I could find almost no flaw in it, other than the occasional punctuation omission. You vocabulary was excellent and shows that you had a very good knowledge of literature, especially using tragedy-related words such as hubris. Your sentence structure and grammar was impeccable, and this was truly a delight to read."; "peer 2 → Very much liked your argument and especially the conclusion. The best essay I read during the evaluation. Excellent last paragraph."; peer 3 → You made very good points in your essay, and it was actually extremely insightful. My problem with your essay was that there was a lot of analysis, but virtually no analysis related to the book. It is very good to analyze the human condition, but the readers want you to analyze the book. First of all, your very first sentence, which should be your thesis, should be related to the book. The novel is not mentioned until more than halfway through your essay. Second, the following paragraphs should be arguments supporting your thesis. These should always be examples taken from the book. Finally, finish by going back to your thesis.". Nada mau para um texto martelado a partir de alguns posts antigos sobre Frankenstein no cinema e literatura, aglomerado dentro do exíguo limite de 320 palavras dos ensaios do curso. E sim, pouco analisei do livro porque o que sempre me fascinou na obra de Shelley, aliás, Mary Shelley para distinguir do namorado poeta, é precisamente a dicotomia entre o mito de Prometeu e os temores dos impactos da ciência e tecnologia espelhados no hubris do doutor que quer transcender a finitude mortal do mundo natural.)

Dracula: high tech versus darkness

We look at Dracula as an ancient book steeped in old ways, not as cry for modernity. Fascinated by the horror of the vampire and the strugle against darkness, we miss that the true fight is fought with what could be termed Victorian high tech. To our desensitized gaze those technologies may seem archaic but for its contemporaries the book, more than an horror story with deep psychosexual issues, could be read as a tale of technological speculative fiction.

The structure of the novel uses an epistolary mode of storytelling in which fragments of diaries coalesce into a coherent narrative. Mina and Johnathan write them in shorthand, a note-taking and dictating technology, while Dr. Seward recording his thoughts into a machine may be seen as quite the very futuristic prevision in its time.

Technology and modernity emerge in many aspects. Europe is crisscrossed by a network of rail, mail and coach capable of quickly connecting the centers of civilization to the most remote places. That becomes the decisive element in the harrowing final chase across Europe and the final defeat of Dracula.

While Lucy is an aristocratic child, Mina is an independent woman with her own means of sustenance who takes the leading role in the relation with her husband while, like a liberated woman, fences off the vampire's power. Johnathan Harker may be a symbol of the emergence of the middle class, while Dr. Seward introduces to the world the then novel science of psychiatry. Quincey Morris epitomizes new world optimism.

Dracula itself stands for the old, superstitious spirit, whose attempts to modernize itself within the ancient mindset collides with the modern ways. He is fought and defeated by the scientific spirit of Professor Van Helsing, that looks at the power of tradition with an inquisitive mind, and a combination of then new technologies. Essentially, all a symbol of modern times supplanting the olden ways.

Simon Bacon. Exactly the Same but Completely Different: The Evolution of Bram Stoker's Dracula from Page to Screen.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Vampires, Class, Colonialism, Discourse.
Kaitlin Blanchard (2009) Beyond Belief:The Role of Science and Modernity
David Etxeberria (2013). Bram Stoker Dracula: Relationship’s between Modern Science and Superstition
Joe Friedman (2010) Analysis of Technology and Attitudes in Bram Stoker's "Dracula."

Feed your head

I wonder if Lewis Carroll had an inkling of what he was unleashing into the world when he wrote down the whimsical tales that so delighted Alice Liddell. Probably hadn't, immersed in the sheer delight of wordplay and ideas. While composing his nonsensical collages of visions, weaving logic into the illogical, he struck upon a chord that resonates to this day. His tales, devoid of traditional morals or life lessons aren't childish manuals for good behavior. Instead he opened a door that J. G. Ballard came to explore so well, that of the innerspace, where the mind and its dream logic is our final frontier.

With little surprise the surrealists were quick to aproppriate the works of Carroll. The whimsical dream logic played right into the dreamscapes that these painters and writers were boldly trying to go into, where no man had ever gone before. No man, except Carroll, or the painter Hyeronimus Bosch, or writers such as Poe and Lovecraft, all co-opted as grandfathers to an artistic movement that craved hanging boring old staid reality upside down with extreme prejudice. His influence on surrealism is twofold. First there's the new and unexpected meanings to be found in meaninglessness, true kernel of surrealism, visible in works as different as Magritte's calm dreamscapes or Dali's masterful inversions of logic, amongst the most well known. Second, as inspiration for countless revisitiations, starting with Tenniel's sublime renderings that turned the unreal into real and extending into a rich pictorial tradition in which the dream iconography, latent sexuality or psichedelic landscapes of Alice's world were explored in several media and techniques.

Perhaps one epitome of just how far Carroll carries us is the song White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane where the innocence of childhood and strange, dark meanings come full circle. Outerspace is huge, but Alice showed us the first steps into the vast innerspace inside our minds.

Jefferson Airplane (1967), White Rabbitt.
Hiltz, S. (2011). Curiouser and Curiouser and Curiouser: An exploration of surrealism in two illustrators of Lewis Carroll’s Alice. The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's Literature, Vol 15, No 2
McAra, C. (2011). Surrealism’s Curiosity: Lewis Carroll and the Femme-Enfant.
Peliano, A. (2012). Através do Surrealismo e o que Alice Encontrou Lá.

Grimm

Grimm's Fairy Tales

In a violent, harsh world, how do you teach your children, conveying the necessity of keeping one's wits, be reasonably suspicious and react to invisible threats disguised as friendly offers? In the profundly poor and unjust world of medieval and post-medieval europe, how do you survive in the face of rapacious nobility?

Distilled through Grimm's and Perrault's collections, sanitized by countless film and children's book adaptations, today fairy tales appeal to us as innocent tales of a fantasy era gone by, with a clear cut morality where good triumphs in the face of evil. Betterment of social conditions and the rise of the bourgeoisie help to explain how we started to perceive fairy tales as innocent stories. But there was a time in wich it wasn't so. When Cinderella wans't woken by a gentle kiss but by a violent rape - and had to marry and bear children by the rapist. Or the revenge of Puss in Boots, showing how a peasant who keeps its wits may stand a chance against the feudal overlord, the sort of chance that could not happen in real life. Like this there are many others, visceral, violent, harsh and unjust traditional versions of todays tales of innocence.

They were a teaching aid, told by the dim lights of the hearth or the candle in the long cold nights of pre-industrial europe, with regional variations and yet a curious sameness of themes. All of them to teach children how harsh and violent the outer world is, how safety is an illusion and a kind smile hides a lurking danger. Or dreams of prosperity, mostly about abundance of food, for those whose dreams of the fabled land of cockaigne helped to bear their absolute poverty and isolation. As Robert Darnton puts it, "The peasants  (...) inhabited a world (...) of inexorable, unending toil, and of brutal emotions, (...) people whose lives really were nasty, brutish, and short."

Ensaios rápidos para o mooc Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World).