Interview with

D. Harlan Wilson

Conducted by

Jesse Dedman  

You might have seen his name associated with some of most interestingly absurd, acutely aware, well-written, violent, and yet provocative titles such as   TECHNOLOGIZED DESIRE:
SELFHOOD & THE BODY IN POSTCAPITALIST SCIENCE FICTION, BLANKETY BLANK: A MEMOIR OF VULGARIA, THE KYOTO MAN, and more. Dr. D. Harlan Wilson, an award winning novelist, has joined us for an interview.

First, I would like to say thank you for the chance to interview you. Furthermore, I would like to point out that you have a track record that any self-respecting reader should be aware of. Now, you have submitted three books for us to review and discuss, and though they are all good in their own right, the one that interests me, and those reading Deadman’s Tome, the most is Technologized Desire: Selfhood & The Body in Postcaptialist Science Fiction, a wonderful critique on the current condition of our global society.

Dedman: For those that have yet to read the book, what would you say to them? Especially those that might be skeptical to the theories presented in the work?

D.H.Wilson: I think students and critics of postmodern culture and science fiction will find something to like in Technologized Desire.  The theories I develop are extrapolated from strong, well-known voices in the field, among them Marshall McLuhan, Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, Scott Bukatman, Arthur Kroker, and Deleuze and Guattari.  Standing on these guys’ shoulders, more or less, I try to make a case for a social, cultural, ideological and ontological pathology that is the result of the increasing science fictionalization of reality.

The relationship between the self and technology that you illustrated has shown itself throughout our timeline. What made you choose to really focus on “science fiction”?

I developed an interest in science fiction scholarship when I was doing a M.A. in English at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, and after that degree, I did a M.A. in Science Fiction Studies at the University of Liverpool.  I had always planned on writing a SF-oriented Ph.D. dissertation, but I wasn’t sure what on.  My ULiverpool thesis analyzed the extrapolation of Romantic poetry (especially Keats’s poetry) in Dan Simmons’ Hyperion tetralogy, and when I started my Ph.D. at Michigan State University, I thought I could do something with that.  Then I moved away from SF and was going to focus on novels and film adaptations that dealt with the pathology of image-culture (e.g. Fight Club and American Psycho).  I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to say about that pathology, though.  I returned to SF and things fell into place, although slowly.  I didn’t know what specifically I wanted to do until I finished my first chapter on the film Vanilla Sky.  And it wasn’t until I finished my third chapter on Army of Darkness that I had a firm grip on the entire book’s scope and modus operandi.

In this book, you not only explain your theory, but you apply it on examples that just about anybody that is anybody would know about. How long did it take you to really narrow your choices with an almost endless supply of “science fiction” available?

Once I decided that the book would focus exclusively on SF, I knew more or less what texts I wanted to use.  All of them are postmodern SF novels, films and/or theories that, I argue, gesture towards a postcapitalist space.

One of the unfortunate things about a published work is that changing and revising becomes a troublesome task, and in this ever-changing world, is there anything you wish you could add or change? Has your stance regarding the ability to make decisions changed?

More than anything, I wish I could change things I’ve done in the past.  Little things.  Unkind words, embarrassing moments—social minutia.  And in terms of issues beyond my subjectivity and selfhood, there’s a lot I’d like to change, ranging from the specter of global terrorism, genocide, poverty, etc. to the increasing de-emphasis of the arts in higher education.  But I’m a stern pessimist, and I’m not an activist.  The bottom line is people are stupid and insecure and brutal and they always will be.

With the way things are now, the increasing bullshit in the media, increasing build of tension in our world, are you interested in writing another critique?

Yes.  I’m doing that now, in fact.  I’m writing a “cultography” on John Carpenter’s film They Live for U.K. publisher Wallflower Press, whose distributor in the U.S. is Columbia University Press.  Cultographies are an ongoing series of short books on individual cult films that present authors’ personal involvement with the film, production and reception histories, and analytical commentary and theory.  The dominant themes in They Live will allow me to further some of the themes I address in Technologized Desire.  Originally I had planned to write a chapter on They Live.  But it didn’t make the final cut.

Last question related to this book. One of the great aspects of culture/social commentary is that it tends to have a level of truth to it that might be painful at first, opening the eyes of many. However, in our current state, many people are become increasingly aware of this dynamic, violent relationship and appear to be doing nothing. One could defend their actions with that iconic line from the matrix “ignorance is bliss.” What would you say to them?

Like I said, I’m not an activist, and there’s a lot of shit in the world that I disavow on a daily basis.  As most of us do.  As most of us have to do.  Disavowal is an indispensable part of life; in its absence, we would sink into chronic depression.  The best we can do—the best I can do, anyway—is to live a good life and try to be good and humane to the people I interact with. That in itself can be a challenge.

Being an associate professor of English, you must have a wealth of information for aspiring, struggling, and even successful writers. Could you share a few tips about the writing process?

[1] Write every day, even if it’s only for a few minutes, even if you only produce a few sentences.  If you write one sentence a day, eventually you will have a paragraph, and then you’ll have multiple paragraphs, etc.

[2] Tell yourself that writer’s block is a myth.  Because it is.

[3] “Writing isn’t writing—it’s rewriting.”  Philip Caputo wrote that aphorism in his memoir A Rumor of War.  I live by it.

[4] Be conscious of a readership, but write what you want to write, not what you think somebody else wants you to write.

[5] Maximize SHOWING.  Minimize TELLING.

What about the courses you teach? With a background in the Bizarro, you have quite a diverse syllabus.

Actually I rarely teach weird fiction, and I don’t think I’ve ever taught a Bizarro novel, other than my own, once, Dr. Identity, in a media studies course.  Most of the literature courses I teach are surveys, e.g., English 356 (19th Century American Literature), which I’m teaching now.  The novels include Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening—canonical stuff, mainly.  The weirdest I get is when I teach courses in science fiction.  Next term, for instance, I’m teaching English 357 (20th Century American Literature) and focusing on SF novels: Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Kim Stanley Robinson’s A Short Sharp Shock, Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Philip K. Dick’s The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

A lot of writers feel the need to be unique, but there is something to the skill of learning the styles of previous literary masters. What authors, old and new, would you recommend and why?

There are a lot, of course.  Particularly influential in my case were existentialist authors—Kafka, Dostoevsky, Camus, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Gogol, Nietzsche, etc.  I liked them for their style as much as their absurdist ethics and purviews.  As for contemporary authors, very few catch my interest.  I like Steve Aylett a lot.  And J.G. Ballard, although Ballard just died of old age and isn’t really contemporary.  Perhaps my favorite author is Philip K. Dick.  He’s dead, too.  At any rate, these guys were all clearly influenced to varying degrees by the existentialists.  So existentialism is my authorial point of origin.  I never knew that until now.

What about rejection? Having been in the business as long as you have, you must have a few antidotes to share.

There are no antidotes to rejection other than to get used to it.  For most writers, it doesn’t go away.  I suppose it’s heartening to bear in mind that rejection is often subjective, i.e., what one editor or publisher doesn’t like, another one does.  I have had stories rejected with extreme prejudice—in some cases outright enmity—whereas those same stories were accepted for publication elsewhere to great acclaim.  A lot of editors are just failed or aspiring authors with affected visions of what constitutes “good” writing.  But mostly it’s a matter of personal taste.  So you just have to keep disseminating your work.

Now, you have an educational background that few people have the drive, patience, and dedication to achieve. Any advice for those daring souls that wish to brave it through grad school?

Go to grad school to do your M.A.  That’s fun, and it only takes a year or two, depending on the field of study.  My M.A. in English took two years and my M.A. in Science Fiction Studies took one year.  Both were wonderful experiences.  I wouldn’t recommend undergoing a Ph.D. in the humanities to anybody, unless you’re independently wealthy and are looking for a way to pass time for a decade.  It took me six years to do my Ph.D. at Michigan State University, but the average is nine years.  A big reason I hated it so much had to do with MSU’s shitty program and anemic, erratic funding packages.  No matter where you are, though, a Ph.D. will test your psychological and financial endurance.  And the light at the end of the tunnel is dim.  Even before the economy went to hell, the academic job market was horrible.  There are tons of out-of-work Ph.D.s., or at least Ph.D.s who don’t have tenure-track jobs, especially in the field of English.  I’m happy I did it now, I guess—I have tenure and a decent income, even if I don’t really like where I teach.  But it was a long road.  I wouldn’t do it over again.

On another note, the writer is victimized by the subjective nature of the reader.  Any advice to our readers?

Acknowledge the jackal of subjectivity.  But don’t try to account for it.

One last question, do you drink? And if so, what is your drink of choice?

Yes, I drink, but not as much as I used to—fatherhood put an end to that.  I like vodka martinis, but mainly I stick to red wine and light beer.

Please visit his website for more information at http://www.dharlanwilson.com/