We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far

James Gilbert Caughran died from congestive heart failure on August 6th, 2024, aged 83. He is survived by his wife (my stepmother), his two sisters, his four children (including me), and his two grandchildren.

Jim was born in Tacoma, Washington and spent most of his childhood living in Lincoln, Nebraska. His family's temporary move to Pakistan when he was a teenager helped foster an interest in other cultures and gave him an international outlook early in life. He completed his last year of high school on a correspondence course and also became involved in science fiction zine fandom at this time.

He was a longtime science fiction fan, a member of Offtrails Magazine Publishers Association, Corflu, the Cult, and the Fantasy Amateur Press Association, and the first editor and webmaster of Fancyclopedia 3. He published the fanzines Erratic, A L'Abandon, and A Propos de Rien, among others.

He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of California-Berkeley and received his PhD. in Mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1967. After starting his working life as a university math professor, he immigrated to Canada in the early 1970s, and worked for more than three decades as a computer systems analyst.

Jim was active in the Toronto Monthly Meeting (TMM) of the Religious Society of Friends, and was one of the founders of a Quaker men's group at Friends General Conference in 1987, which is still meeting regularly. He served on many TMM committees over the years.

Jim was a kind, giving, philosophical man with a wide range of interests including handball, sailing, cross-country skiing, Scrabble, computer programming, and more. He kept many pets over the course of his life. In his later years he travelled widely, enjoyed classical music and opera, and was an avid reader of detective fiction and anything related to science, particularly cosmology. He instilled a love of learning, a keen wit, and an appreciation for social justice in all of his children. He is deeply missed.

If you knew Jim Caughran, in fandom or otherwise, please feel free to contact me at vicaughran at gmail.

This is a post I found in my tumblr drafts from last September.

Extremely fragmentary thoughts on Emma Donoghue’s Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668 - 1801

Donoghue mentions that the decrease of references to “female husband” cases in newspapers at the end of the 18th century is taken by some scholars as evidence that the practice died out. She doubts this very much, and indeed Alison Oram’s “Her Husband was a Woman!”, published about a decade after this book, focuses on similar cases reported in British newspapers in the early twentieth century, so I think it highly unlikely that there were no examples whatsoever in the century in between.

“On 14 December 1728 the Universal Spectator commented that every culture differentiated the sexes by dress for the sake of ‘decency’, and specifically ‘in order to prevent Multitudes of Irregularities, which otherwise would continually be occasion’d’.” (p. 90)

This seems to indicate a view that in the same clothes it would be impossible to differentiate the sexes - I am reminded of someone (but can’t remember who) pointing out that in Early Modern society the body was much less knowable than it is considered today, with even the poorest wearing at least two layers of clothes at all times, and shaping garments being normal, and clothes that hid or highlighted or enhanced certain features being usual for men as well as women.

“The radical sects formed in the seventeenth century, in particular, often allowed women to pull their friendships with each other to the centre of their lives. Quaker women such as Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers left husbands and children to travel and be imprisoned together.” (p. 151) (I don’t have anything to say here, just! Historic Quaker lesbians! Yay!)

“Nor is a study of erotica thankless work” (p. 183) – I’m just going to leave that sentence fragment there.

( Cut for financial and employment issues, which I certainly find triggering. And too much personal information. No one is required to read this. )

I was not actually expecting that to be as cathartic as it was.

Subject line quote from Bill Watterson.