Wow, those literary analyses can get technical.

As well as possibly a leeetle wrong-headed.

Check this out:

Furthermore, in her discussion of Cassandra and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s engagement with the Gravesian notion of prehistoric matriarchies being swept away by (much less pleasant, of course) patriarchal social order, Steinmeyer neglected to contextualise the historicity of the matriarchy hypothesis – that, inter alia, whether prehistory had matriarchal or patriarchal societies isn’t a question that can definitively be answered, that all claims about social order and social power in prehistory are contingent ones – and left one rather with the impression that she felt prehistoric matriarchy was a Real Thing with Real Evidence supporting it.

Wow, did you get that? The “Gravesian notion of prehistoric matriarchies” and all?

This is Liz Bourke pointing out, with some justice, some provoking paper presentations the recent SF Classics Conference in Liverpool. Good times, good times. Glad I wasn’t sitting through those papers.