Carrier Bag Fiction

by Sarah Shin (Editor), Mathias Zeiske (Editor)

Was, wenn die primären Erfindungen der Menschheit nicht der Speer des Helden, sondern ein Korb mit wildem Hafer, ein Medizinbündel, eine Geschichte waren? In The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (1986) entwirft Ursula K. Le Guin eine feministische Technologie­geschichte, die den kollektiven Lebensunter­halt ins Zentrum rückt und in den Tragebehält­nissen der Sammler*innen Werkzeuge für das Erzählen seltsam realistischer Fiktionen erkennt. Neue Texte und Bilder antworten auf Le Guins erzählerische Praxis des world-making durch Sammeln und Festhalten. –– What if humanity’s primary inven­tions were not the Hero’s spear but rather a basket of wild oats, a medicine bundle, a story. Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1986 essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction presents a feminist story of technology that centres on the collective sustenance of life, and reimagines the carrier bag as a tool for telling strangely realistic fictions. New writings and images respond to Le Guin’s narrative practice of world­making through gathering and holding.

88 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Rahel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't want to be too mean in my review, given that there are only so few starred reviews on this in total. I think the title and the content don't quite match up - there isn't much, if any, fiction in this. Rather, it's a number of essays/texts/media works that try to approach Le Guin's Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction in one way or another. For some contributions, this works quite well. Others get caught up in their own thoughts and stray a bit too far from their inspiration. I read a lot of academic writing for my day job, but I found some of these passages to be convoluted and unfocused. This is probably a me thing: I read computational papers. Those don't get all that philosophical.
This collection had an interesting spread of contributors and a commendable goal in mind; sadly, it didn't quite hit that mark. I'm sure it will for someone who isn't me, though!
One thing I will clearly note and criticize, though: one essay (nimiia log by Jenna Sutela) included sentences that I found nearly word for word on the Wikipedia article on Hélène Smith. I'm not sure if this was deliberate (in a collage-style essay assembly) or if the article followed the contribution, but that did sour that essay for me.