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Overprotecting Parents: Another Sign of Our Times

January 12, 2018

children, control, experience, feelings, growing up, life, mediocrity

Whenever the topic of overprotecting parents and overprotected children pops up in a discussion, I begin with the following story. It’s a scary funny story; to me much more funny than scary, though modern-day parents might be appalled. It’s them in particular that need to read this article.

I must’ve been seven or eight years old. As a kid growing up in the 80s, I had freedom the likes of which is only whispered today, late at night, around the proverbial fire. I walked alone to school since I was six, crossing busy highways, walking next to strangers. My mother wasn’t afraid of someone kidnapping me, or a car running me over. In the summers I went to the countryside, to spend my summer vacation with my grandparents. They loosely kept an eye on me, but I was basically running around free, coming home after dark. Overprotecting parents? What’s that?

One day – I must’ve been ten or eleven years old – I returned to my grandparents’ house after playing outdoors under the scorching sun (no sun protection, no sun glasses, and probably no cap either). I was really thirsty, so I grabbed the bottle of water waiting on the floor next to the fireplace. In fact, I was so thirsty that I didn’t stop to think why would a bottle of water be on the floor. I drank several gulps before I realized something was terribly wrong. Yep, I’d drunk lighting fluid instead, which my grandparents – in their infinite wisdom – kept in an empty water bottle. I saw a clear liquid inside a bottle still having the water brand label, so I drank it. Can you blame me?

I was terrified, but even more so when I heard a neighbor suggesting I should be taken to the hospital. My grandparents agreed that there was no danger – they gave me to drink some milk and olive oil. I threw up a couple of times, but I was fine a few hours later. Every time I belched in the next couple of days, it smelled ~~like teen spirit~~ as if a diesel engine had disintegrated. Once I actually thought to try and see what would happen if I belched over open fire, but apparently some sort of survival instinct was still present, and I didn’t. Ah, fun times… It’s these kinds of experiences and memories that give you something to write about in later years.

overprotecting parents — Do you think the parents of these children would worry about them being outdoors alone?

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Uncanny Valley and Gothic Literature

January 11, 2018

Criticism

academia, criticism, Gothic, literature, robots, technology, uncanny

Note: the following article on the concept of the Uncanny Valley is a modified excerpt (pp. 161-162) from my doctoral dissertation, “Time is Everything with Him”: The Concept of the Eternal Now in Nineteenth-Century Gothic, which can be downloaded (for free) from the repository of the Tampere University Press. For a list of my other academic publications, see here.

The Uncanny Valley: from Robots to Monsters

The term “Uncanny Valley”, coined by the robotics researcher Masahiro Mori, refers to the hypothesis that there is a sharp drop (a “valley”, when imagined as a graph) in feelings of empathy and familiarity inspired by non-human entities as these become more human-like in appearance, manners, and movement (Liu 2010, 225).

So, a figure that is almost but not totally human-like, will inspire a more uncomfortable feeling than a figure that is more clearly artificial. The concept of the Uncanny Valley is highly relevant in the field of robotics and digital technology.

However, as its name implies, it also shares commonalities with Freud’s research and is pertinent in Gothic studies as well.

uncanny valley — Robot. No, human. No, robot. Both. Neither

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Writing and Memory: Why It Is Important for Authors

January 10, 2018

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

experience, fiction, growing up, literature, nostalgia, time, writing

I have talked in the past about nostalgia and reminiscence, and in this article I will emphasize the role of writing and memory in the context of writing fiction.

Many people are under the impression fiction is a process where you just “come up with things”, as if from thin air. This is inaccurate. Deep down, writing fiction is about telling a truth (often a secret or unpleasant one) in a different way.

And so, experiencing becomes an operative element: before you write you must experience. Writing and memory, therefore, go hand-in-hand. The diagram below should give you a quick idea.

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