Discussion prompt gathering

[damned_colonial]

Over on podficmeta they did something for 3W4DW that I think might work well here. One of the moderators, zvi, posted asking people to suggest things they'd like to have discussed on the community. So, I'm going to do the same, lifting most of the phrasing from her post ;)

Please comment to this post if there's a discussion you'd like to see happen on this community. If you have a full fledged entry, you can tell me that you'd like to do the posting. If you just have an idea you'd be okay with me riffing on, say that and I will.

I'll then post top-level posts prompting discussion on the subjects suggested.

Comments

[damned_colonial]

Some things I'd like to see:

1) Discussion of articles from the Baker Street Journal -- which, if any of them, touch on subjects of interest to us? Or, if they don't, how/why don't they?

2) Crossdressing in the canon.

3) Reviews of specifically queer pro-published pastiches, or stuff like that series of Oscar Wilde mysteries I've heard of.

[starlady]

One thing I'd like to see: discussion of queer women's experience in the era, particularly as it differed (or didn't) from men's. With book recs.

[melannen]

I'd be interested in talking about Holmes pastiches and contemporary detectives who aren't middle-to-upper-class white men. I'm not really sure if that fits the mandate of the community, since it wouldn't necessarily go to a lgbt place? The userinfo gives the impression that you're using a really broad interpretation of queering, though, and it might work.

I have a start on a post about it, and asked awhile back on dreams_library about detectives in the period who were neither male nor white, so there are interesting places to go.

ETA: And I could always post about Their Majesties' Bucketeers. :D

[wrabbit]

I think this was touched on by other comments, but it would be cool to explore Holmes and Watson as a character/duo type. For example Strangers talks about Poe's detective fiction and the queer nature of the detective character. Then there are re-interpretations like House and Wilson and to what extent the show is or is not drawing off the same tropes.

[oursin]

As indicated above in thread on the topic, I'd be happy with putting some thoughts and reading suggestions out there re queer women in the later C19th

[damned_colonial]

Another one I thought of last night... I would like to gather up all the references to music (eg. what Holmes plays on his violin) and see if they suggest anything. There was some talk in this thread about queer composers, so basically continuing along those lines.

[damned_colonial]

As per this thread, we should totally have a discussion about Bohemianism and what it meant.

[ingridmatthews]

I'd like a topic about Watson as an observer of Holmes. Obsessive, list-making, hand-fetishizing repressed lover or just a thorough journalist/biographer?

I think Holmes deduced it was the former, in not so many words. ;)

[melannen]

How about Holmes as asexual, in the context of queer readings of Holmes, modern asexual identities, and the ways previous commentators have used asexuality to refute his queerness?

[kindkit]

1) The cultural norms issue, especially as it turns up in the anti-slash argument in Holmes and other historical fandoms: "But they wouldn't have done that! That was criminal/sinful/taboo back in those days!" It would be nice to get into some nuanced discussion of how people are influenced by their culture's sexual ideologies without necessarily obeying all the rules.

2) The nineteenth-century medicalization of homosexuality, especially since Watson is himself a doctor.

[marshtide]

Kind of following on from the general stuff about queer womanhood that's being discussed at the moment, I'd love some more specific discussion of Irene Adler as a possible bisexual character. I'll just leave this here and run off again to try and work through my thoughts on the topic a bit more thoroughly.