an inquisitive interlude

Yesterday, my e-friend Dwight asked a question on his blog about magical realism, which I (like any other overeducated young man with real work to avoid) was happy to define at length in his comments section. I enjoyed doing this. It gave me a reason to thumb through a few books I hadn't looked through in a while, and it was nice to be able to dust off some of the information in my brain and give it a good detailing.

Anyway, the experience made me think that this is something I might like to do here on this blog. After all, there are tons of names for genres and movements and historical periods and the like in the world of literature, and lots of people are too overwhelmed or embarrassed to ask what a lot of them mean. What's postmodernism? What is just plain modernism? Or how about postcolonialism? Why is this book full of rocket ships and lasers called science fiction, but this other book full of rocket ships and lasers is called speculative fiction? Who were the Victorian authors, and why should I care? For that matter, who the were the Romantics, or the Transcendentalists, or the Augustans? And just what the hell was that Vorticist Manifesto thing all about? You get the point.

So, here's my question for all of you: is this something that any of you would actually like me to do? And if so, what literary subjects are you most interested in seeing me cover?