Ann Bartow at Feminist Law Professors writes:
“Viola’s Bookshelf is a new project blog dedicated to publishing altered out of copyright, or creative commons licensed fiction, where the character’s genders have been reversed. The idea behind this is to help provide an understanding of gender construction in fiction and to an extent in everyday life.”
Viola’s Bookshelf is here. Via Hoyden About Town.
Once electronic textbooks are more usable and adaptable, it would be interesting to do some gender bending of the language of judicial opinions, to see if holdings, and the rules derived from them, still sound reasonable and just. See generally.
This is a fascinating exploration, and I’m looking forward to reading some of the pieces. One thing that strikes me about it, however, is that it is one of those things uniquely facilitated by information technologies. Without an electronic (or online) and easily adaptable version of the text, this exercise is much harder. Not impossible; one could retype (using a typewriter, perhaps) a published book, being careful to make all the changes required. But it would be a long, difficult, paintstaking process. But because of information technology — specifically computers — you can do search and replace, checking each one to see whether context dictates a change. That is, the plasticity of electronic versions allows us to more easily adapt them to our own ends. Then, because of the Internet, you can distribute it widely for others to consider. Excellent.