March 2004
University of Transgänder

Emily Enters the Annals of Anthropophagia

An alert Chesleyan enthusiast doing post-doc research at the University of Transgänder, (in the little-known wine region of north-west Norway) recently came upon an interesting lectures series being offered by the Women's Studies Department. The description alone was enough to ensure his attendance at the opening lecture:

Eating the Other:
Race, Gender and Speculative Literature
How do images of eating and of food intersect with the cultural politics of species, race and gender? Topics: hunger, colonialism, ethnic and immigrant identities, baby recipes as social history, fast food, chocolate and cannibalism. Texts include: Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World; Emily Chesley, Eating Mr. Lumpy; Philip K. Dick, The Man Who Japed; Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo; Norman Spinrad, Men in the Jungle; Knut Hamsun, Hunger.

Our correspondent was surprised to discover the lecture hall was filled to capacity, but alas he did not know that the renowned Doctor Filacia Grinditdøtïr was running the series of lectures. Her opening salvo was enough to get the entire audience muttering and shifting in their seats uncomfortably; then the lecture took an even darker tone. Our enthusiast did not have a tape recorder with him, but was able to obtain the following transcript from court documents:

In the real world power is expressed in direct ways, and for this we are largely grateful. However, is it more intellectually honest to devour a person by forcing him or her to spend a lifetime labouring joylessly through economic slavery than it is to do so by actually swallowing and digesting that person? Clearly the answer is no.

[uncomfortable murmur from the audience]

In this series of lectures, we will examine the forms of anthropophagy that follow from this assumption: omophagia, or the symbolic consumption of another being to preserve its life force; zoophagia – the most common form of cannibalism practiced by men – which is a means of possessing another person; and of course, aggressive eroticism. To whit, I will read the following excerpt from Emily Chesley's Eating Mr. Lumpy.

[the sound of shouting, chairs being thrown, and several audience members retching drowns out the excerpt]

[End of transcript.]

Though the Norwegian authorities were called, there was no statute that banned Doctor Grinditdøtïr from reading the Chesleyan passage aloud; however, several students [and a number of Grinditdøtïr's colleagues] did complain to the university rector. Rector Brüsenbut Müdflapsen told Doctor Grinditdøtïr to remove Emily's speculative novel from the curriculum. It was removed, but she successfully appealed Müdflapsen's decision to Det Norske Universitetsråd [the Norwegian Council of Universities] and Chesleyans will be pleased to note that one of Emily's books has secured a place in the annals of anthropophagia.

--"Scholarship" by The Squire