Monday Links 08/30/15: Adultery By Any Other Name, Less-Than-Stellar Star Wars, and Steamfunk's Sibling

It’s been a long hiatus, and woefully unplanned, but at last Runicfire returns with a new edition of Monday Links!

The notion that humans are obsessed with sex is all but an axiom. Every society on earth possesses its own sets of customs and taboos regarding sexuality, with some cultivating its expression and others suppressing or controlling the prurient instinct as much as possible. Our society frowns on adultery, considering the practice an insult to the sanctity of marriage, but Sarah Laskow at Atlas Obscura contends that American lawsagainst adultery were employed largely to enforce an altogether different setof taboos (NSFW). Rather than to avenge breaches of fidelity, adultery laws—which have been on the books and enforced as recently as the 1980s in some of the United States—served to punish female sexual expression as well as affections between people of different races.

On an entirely different but no less tawdry subject, Scott Mendleson at Forbes writes about why speculators on the upcoming Star Warsfilm’s profits are setting themselves (and us) up for disappointment.

Lastly, I came across a fascinating article while trying to determine if anyone else had written a novel that could be described as Renpunk. This blog post, by author Balogun O. Abeegunde, posits a name for a hypothetical genre of heroic fantasy set around the time of the Haitian Revolution. Mr. Abeegunde himself is, according to his bio, “one of the leading authorities on Steamfunk—a philosophy of or style of writing that combines the African and/or African American culture and approach to life with that of the steampunk philosophy[.]” I had not heard of Steamfunk before, but I guarantee you I will be looking into the genre more intently, as well as Mr. Abeegunde’s blog, in the future.

That is all for today’s edition of Monday Links. Until next time, stay tuned! 

Monday Links: Xbox One, Propaganda at the British Library, and Racism at Harvard

I have found two articles of note from The Economist this week, one of which is sure to be close to gamers’ hearts. Or perhaps not: the article notes that Microsoft’s Xbox One announcement heavily de-emphasizes games, ostensibly due to falling console sales. Time will tell whether the device will garner any appeal for its more conventional multimedia use.

The second article form The Economist addresses the more sobering topic of propaganda. An exhibition at the British Library, called “Propaganda: Power and Persuasion,” aims to expose the subtlety and prevalence of propaganda, as used by governments, businesses and individuals. The subject of propaganda, and the Propaganda Model of mass media, have been the focus of some of my earlier posts on this blog, and the matter remains as relevant as ever. I highly recommend you check out The Economist’s article.

Lastly, for the strong of stomach, ThinkProgress delves into the case of how a Harvard doctoral candidate, Dr. Jason Richwine, earned his degree through a sloppily composed and blatantly racist dissertation, to the shock of many. The article is long, and the sheer illogic it reveals in Dr. Richwine’s dissertation made me throw up my hands in disgust. Nonetheless, the ThinkProgress exposé itself is a worthwhile read, if you have the patience.

With the Rosaria of Venice Kickstarter campaign launch last Friday, we now return to full updates. You can see what’s in store for this week here. So please stay tuned! And also please consider backing Rosaria of Venice, my forthcoming alt-history steampunk novel of the Italian Renaissance, on Kickstarter.com. Thank you!