Otherness
: Collected Stories by a Modern Master of Science Fiction
by
David Brin
From multiple award-winning author David Brin comes
this extraordinary collection of tales and essays of the near and
distant future, as humans and aliens encounter the secrets of the
cosmos--and of their own existence. In "Dr. Pak's
Preschool" a woman discovers that her baby has been called
upon to work while still in the womb. In "NatuLife" a
married couple finds their relationship threatened by the wonders
of sex by simulation. In "Sshhh . . . " the arrival of
benevolent aliens on Earth leads to frenzy, madness . . . and
unimaginable joy. In "Bubbles" a sentient starcraft
reaches the limits of the universe--and dares to go beyond. These
are but a few of the challenging speculations in Otherness,
from the pen of an author whose urgent and compelling imaginative
fiction challenges us to wonder at the shape and the nature of the
universe--as well as at its future.
Boy-Wives
and Female-Husbands : Studies of African Homosexualities by Stephen
O. Murray (Editor), Will
Roscoe (Editor)
Among the most persistent European myths about
Africa, explain the editors of this anthology, is that
homosexuality is "absent or incidental" in African
societies. Since black Africans were felt to be the most primitive
of people--the closest to nature--it followed that they must be
the most heterosexual, their "sexual energies and outlets
devoted exclusively to their 'natural' purpose: biological
reproduction." That the field work of early anthropologists
didn't always support this assumption merely led researchers to
suppress their findings, or to fail to inquire too closely of
subjects who were reluctant, in any case, to discuss their sexual
lives with outsiders. The contributors to this volume argue
convincingly that even native denials of homosexuality are often
politically motivated (the sexual values of the West having
permeated most of these cultures), and should be regarded as
skeptically as the accounts of Western anthropologists, who in
most cases have not seriously investigated same-sex patterns,
"failing to report what they do observe, and discounting what
they report." In the essays collected here, dating from the
colonial period to the present and covering the major regions of
black Africa, evidence of same-sex marriages, cross-dressing, role
reversal, and premarital peer homosexuality challenges the myth
and calls for further study. --Regina Marler
Among the many myths created about Africa, the
myth that homosexuality is absent or incidental is one of the
oldest and most enduring. Historians, anthropologists, and many
contemporary Africans alike have denied or overlooked African
same-sex patterns or claimed that such patterns were introduced by
Europeans. Among African Americans questions surrounding sexuality
and gender in traditional African societies have become especially
contentious. In fact, same-sex love was and is widespread in
Africa. Boy-Wives and Female Husbands documents same-sex
patterns in some fifty societies, in every region of the
continent. Essays by scholars from a variety of disciplines
explore institutionalized marriages between women, same-sex
relations between men and boys in colonial work settings, mixed
gender roles in East and West Africa, and recent developments in
South Africa, where lesbians and gays successfully made the nation
the first in the world to constitutionally ban discrimination
based on sexual orientation. Also included are oral histories,
folklore, and translations of early ethnographic reports by German
and French observers. The first serious study of the subject, Boy-Wives
and Female Husbands is a significant contribution to
anthropology, history, and gender studies, offering new, often
surprising views of African societies, while posing interesting
challenges to recent theories of sexuality. An invaluable resource
for everyone interested in the continent's history and culture, Boy-Wives
and Female Husbands reveals the denials of African
homosexualities for what they are--prejudice and willful
ignorance.
