Silk for calde blog: Wolfe thesis

Matthew Keeley · 22 Sep 2009, 20:32 · from 2009-September.txt.gz

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From: matthew.keeley.1 at gmail.com (Matthew Keeley)
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:32:55 -0400
Subject: (urth) Silk for calde blog: Wolfe thesis
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On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 2:51 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Additional thought:
>
> Genre SF is an American phenomenon (in origin). SF is about exoticism. To
> the largely Protestant and Jewish kids who formed the "golden age" writers
> bloc, Catholicism was fairly exotic, Judaism less so, and Protestantism, as
> the American mainstream culture, not at all.
>
> --
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

If we're going this direction, it might be significant that many
Catholic sf writers are converts. Walter Miller Jr. converted to, and
later from, Catholicism. Wolfe was a convert. Though I guess Tim
Powers comes from a Catholic family.

To move on to more general comments:

If you want something "light" to look at, you might want to glance at
Space Vulture, co-authored by Gary K. Wolf and the Archbishop of
Newark. SF by a priest!

Also, some "mainstream" Catholic writers have stories that have a sf
elements. I believe Graham Greene has a story called "The Last Word"
about the last pope. I suppose that veers towards sf? Evelyn Waugh has
Love Amongst the Ruins: A Romance of the Near Future, which was
originally published independently as a novel but now appears in
Complete Short Stories.

Charles Williams might also be interesting to look at. I don't think
he was Catholic, but he certainly knew one or two influential Catholic
writers...
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article4164208.ece

Zac - I nearly did an undergraduate honors thesis on a similar topic,
but decided I would take extra classes instead. Good luck with yours.

-Matt

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