fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2461 ]

[ SECRET POST #2461 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2461 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 070 secrets from Secret Submission Post #352.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
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David Gilmour (winner of the 2005 Governer General's Award and longlisted for the 2013 Giller Prize) only teaches "very serious heterosexual guys" in his modern short fiction class at the University of Toronto.

He thinks female writers are "not interesting" except for Virginia Woolf and that is why he doesn't teach female writers. Even then, Virginia Woolf is too sophisticated for his third year students. Oh, and he is only apologizing because his publisher said his comments might affect his book negatively. He wouldn't have apologized otherwise. His reason for not speaking well is because he was paying more attention to a man (speaking in French that he is apparently fluent in) than to his young woman interviewer.

See direct quotes from the man himself in the comment below!

(deleted comment)

Please wait for the comments to collapse before posting walls of text. Or linking to a post with them is fine but this is gigantic scroll.

Here is your post for later.

<blockquote>'I'm not interested in teaching books by women. I've never found—Virginia Woolf is the only writer that interests me as a woman writer, so I do teach one short story from Virginia Woolf. But once again, when I was given this job I said I would teach only the people that I truly, truly love. And, unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese, or women. Um. Except for Virginia Woolf.' 'I'm a natural teacher, I have a natural aptitude [inaudible]. I was also trained in television for many years. So I knew how to talk to a camera, therefore I know how to talk to a room full of students. It's the same thing.' 'There's an even dirtier one that I teach, by Phillip Roth, called The Dying Animal. I save it 'til the very end—I save that 'til the very end of the year because by that point they've got fairly strong stomachs, and they're far more sophisticated than they are in the beginning. So they can understand what the difference between pornography and great literature is. Um, Philip Roth's a great piece of literature. There are men eating menstrual pads, and licking menstrual blood from [inaudible] and by the time my students get to that they're ready. Roth has the best understanding of middle-aged sexuality I've ever come across.'</blockquote> These are direct quotes from the transcript (http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/gilmour-transcript) of the interview that started this wank. I've bolded a few sentences but otherwise the excerpts are copied and pasted from the transcript without changes. It was released after David Gilmour claimed his interview was taken "out of context" in the original article (http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/david-gilmour-building-strong-stomachs). Quite a few people in the comments section asked if the article was an Onion spoof. Unfortunately, this is his real view on women writers. As one of his former students so aptly put (http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1291693), '[David Gilmour is v]ery full of himself. Painfully obvious that he favours the guys in the class. When asked why there were no female authors on the syllabus said "I don't believe in 'good for you' literature". Some students love him, but I honestly think while he might be intelligent he hasn't matured past adolescence.' On the upside, his comments about Virginia Woolf spawned this brilliant snark biography, The Life of Virginia Woolf, Beloved Chinese Novelist (http://the-toast.net/2013/09/25/david-gilmour-on-virginia-woolf/). To address the wank, Gilmour released a Q & A rebuttal (“http://arts.nationalpost.com/2013/09/25/david-gilmour-there-isnt-a-racist-or-a-sexist-bone-in-my-body/”) with the National Post. He said, (emphasis mine) <blockquote>'[the author of the Random House article] is a young woman who kind of wanted to make a little name for herself, or something, because when I said "real heterosexual guys" I’m talking about Scott Fitzgerald [and] Scott Fitzgerald was not what you'd call a real guy's guy, a real heterosexual guy. Part of Scott Fitzgerald's charm is in his feminine sensibility. But then this noise happened. But I am sorry because some of the letters I've got from people they are genuinely offended, and that's not funny. That is a drag.' 'I’ve emailed them all back, and I said I apologize. It was a careless choice of words. I'm not a politician, I’m a writer.' 'I was speaking to a Frenchman, so I was more concerned with my French than I was with what I was saying to this young woman.' 'I think anybody who teaches Truman Capote cannot be attacked for being an anti-anything. The gist of some of these remarks is that I only teach these big macho guys. What I am is I'm a middle-aged writer and I'm very interested in the middle-aged writers experience. And a lot of these people on my list, from [Anton] Chekhov to Fitzgerald to Henry Miller to Philip Roth, these are all people who write not just about being middle-aged, but about middle-aged writers, and that's a subject I feel deeply and can speak passionately about.' 'I talked to Patrick Crean. He was concerned that this was going to affect the general climate around the book, that some women might not like the book if they think that that’s my policy. And that's one of the reasons that I'm apologizing. Normally I actually wouldn't.'</blockquote> To those who say, "what's wrong with teaching only what he's good at?" Well, he actually teaches a mandatory course for first years in the Vic ONE – Northrop Frye stream (http://www.vic.utoronto.ca/students/academics/vicone/Streams_of_Study/Northrop_Frye_Stream.htm) titled "Cultural Forms and their Meanings: Cinema, Literature & the Modern Mind" in addition to "Love, Sex and Death in Short Fiction" (http://www.vic.utoronto.ca/students/academics/othercourses.htm). His classes are general literature courses, not "great European male writers," and he casually dismisses non-European and female writers in class. Besides, great teachers are willing to go beyond their comfort zones and make even their most despised units interesting and engaging for their students. This, however, appears to be someone who is only comfortable playing in the same sandbox year after year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlWaTAZUxUQ

Case - Gigantor: 1-0

Oh thanks for deleting my comment case. I thought it was fine because it was going to collapse but I guess it didn't. I'll post it again now. Thank you for keeping the text version.

Quotes from the man himself (resurrected)

(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 20:42 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Quotes from the man himself (resurrected)

blueonblue - 2013-09-28 21:14 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Quotes from the man himself (resurrected)

(Anonymous) - 2013-09-29 01:16 (UTC) - Expand

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lunabee34 - 2013-09-29 01:04 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Quotes from the man himself (resurrected)

greenvelvetcake - 2013-09-29 01:17 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Quotes from the man himself (resurrected)

(Anonymous) - 2013-09-29 01:57 (UTC) - Expand

The guy's an idiot and what's more he sounds like a real self-important asshole going on about how he's a Great Author and all so great and all that so he sounds like an annoying fucker but honestly I don't know if I have anything to say except for that. He's a shit but not in a way that there's really anything that I want to discuss about it.

what a dick

One schmuck. Who cares? There are plenty of people who could run circles around this guy who don't care who they teach. They just want to teach.

Think about it. Do you really want such a close minded person as your teacher? You know you are going to be missing out because his curriculum will be limited.

I was about to defend him by saying that in theory there is nothing wrong with thinking that women generally write differently than men, but then I saw the quotations and that it was a mandatory course and realized that he is just stupid as fuck. I seriously cannot imagine how anyone this stupid could become a teacher.

And a lot of these people on my list, from [Anton] Chekhov to Fitzgerald to Henry Miller to Philip Roth, these are all people who write not just about being middle-aged, but about middle-aged writers

haha stahp no what

yeah it is kind of funny how much of a shit he is

It's like he's a parody of the middle-aged college professor novelist or something

lol irl. Now I'm going to think that he was created by some superior being for the purpose of living a parody life.
That biography of Virgina Woolf the Chinese Novelist really doesn't help

I seriously cannot imagine how anyone this stupid could become a teacher.

Mostly because becoming a teacher takes time but not skill, at least in this country.

Whhhoooooooo ccaaaarrrreeeessssssssssssssss?

people get upset over the stupidest shit these days. is this going to affect you in any way? No? then why waste the time and energy?

That guy is an asshole.

But not really worth wanking about. The uni should do something. The students should do something. What do you want us to do, get mad over the internet?

No, laugh at this guy digging a deeper hole for himself with his Q&A.

...Wow. I didn't eating and licking those things were ~super big~ parts of "middle aged sexuality". : /

.....huh?

Re: Delicious author/prof wank!

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Re: Delicious author/prof wank!

forgottenjester - 2013-09-28 20:01 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 20:03 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Delicious author/prof wank!

forgottenjester - 2013-09-28 20:05 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 20:28 (UTC) - Expand

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forgottenjester - 2013-09-28 20:32 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 20:39 (UTC) - Expand

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forgottenjester - 2013-09-28 20:40 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 21:26 (UTC) - Expand

Yeah, this :/ IDK if I want to enter this phase when I'll want to eat menstrual pads

Haven't we fixed this already? Try reading more, Gilmore, you might learn something.

"After the death of Mary Hastings Bradley in 1976, "Tiptree" mentioned in a letter that his mother, also a writer, had died in Chicago — details that led inquiring fans to find the obituary, with its reference to Alice Sheldon; soon all was revealed. Several prominent science fiction writers suffered some embarrassment. Robert Silverberg had written an introduction to Warm Worlds and Otherwise arguing, from the evidence of stories in that collection, that Tiptree could not possibly be a woman. Harlan Ellison had introduced Tiptree's story in the anthology Again, Dangerous Visions with the opinion that "[Kate] Wilhelm is the woman to beat this year, but Tiptree is the man."" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tiptree,_Jr.

do you really think an asshole like this guy is going to be super down with science fiction

guarantee you he'll just dismiss it with "well the only reason they couldn't figure it out is because they're science fiction fans and therefore dumb" (a thing that people have said to me on this very subject)

for real though, james tiptree forever

Re: Delicious author/prof wank!

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(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 20:36 (UTC) - Expand

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Re: Delicious author/prof wank!

(Anonymous) - 2013-09-28 21:29 (UTC) - Expand

I'm so glad I tested out of the mandatory lit class in college and never had to take any. My geology professors were nothing like this.

"It was a careless choice of words. I'm not a politician, I’m a writer."

Hahahahaha. Oh, the sheer lack of awareness in this remark is absolutely delicious. I'd like to be in this guy's class just to see how often he says shit like this, it must be golden.

That's pure gold. Maybe he SHOULD be a politician.

I'm a little relieved that I didn't end up in an English Lit degree while I was still at U of T, now. Yikes, I could've been in one of his classes.

If you were in one of the VIC streams, maybe. He's not part of the English department there, only Vic college.

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