Ethics and Form in Fantasy Literature: Tolkien, Rowling and Meyer by Lykke Guanio-Uluru examines formal and ethical aspects of The Lord of the Rings , Harry Potter and the Twilight series in order to discover what best-selling fantasy texts can tell us about the values of contemporary Western culture.
Ethics and Form in Fantasy Literature: Tolkien, Rowling and Meyer by Lykke Guanio-Uluru examines formal and ethical aspects of The Lord of the Rings , Harry Potter and the Twilight series in order to discover what best-selling fantasy texts can tell us about the values of contemporary Western culture.
Ethics and Form in Fantasy Literature: Tolkien, Rowling and Meyer by Lykke Guanio-Uluru examines formal and ethical aspects of The Lord of the Rings , Harry Potter and the Twilight series in order to discover what best-selling fantasy texts can tell us about the values of contemporary Western culture.
This work links ethics and the formal arrangement of literary texts. It shows that specific formal techniques and devices and the overall form of literary texts always have an ethical dimension and beg certain ethical questions. Covering the three main genres of narrative, drama and poetry, the discussion addresses aspects of syntax, line breaks, mise-en-scene and narrative situation as well as the table of contents, list of characters and chapter structure in six texts by contemporary American authors (Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks, John Ashbery and Jorie Graham).
In this highly original book, Russell Blackford discusses the intersection of science fiction and humanity’s moral imagination. With the rise of science and technology in the 19th century, and our continually improving understanding of the cosmos, writers and thinkers soon began to imagine futures greatly different from the present. Science fiction was born out of the realization that future technoscientific advances could dramatically change the world. Along with the developments described in modern science fiction - space societies, conscious machines, and upgraded human bodies, to name but a few - come a new set of ethical challenges and new forms of ethics. Blackford identifies these issues and their reflection in science fiction. His fascinating book will appeal to anyone with an interest in philosophy or science fiction, or in how they interact. “This is a seasoned, balanced analysis of a major issue in our thinking about the future, seen through the lens of science fiction, a central art of our time. Everyone from humanists to technologists should study these ideas and examples. Blackford’s book is wise and savvy, and a delight to read as well.” Greg Benford, author of Timescape.
Fantasy literature, often derided as superficial and escapist, is one of the most popular and enduring genres of fiction worldwide. It is also—perhaps surprisingly—thought-provoking, structurally complex, and relevant to contemporary society, as the essays in this volume attest. The scholars, teachers, and authors represented here offer their perspectives on this engaging genre. Within these pages, a reader will find a wealth of ideas to help teachers use these texts in the classroom, challenging students to read fantasy with a critical eye. They employ interdisciplinary, philosophical, and religious lenses, as well as Marxist and feminist critical theory, to help students unlock texts. The books discussed include epic fantasy by such authors as Tolkien and Le Guin, children’s fantasy by Beatrix Potter and Saint-Exupéry, modern fantasy by Rowling and Martin, and even fairy tales and comic books. The contributors offer provocations, questioning the texts and pushing the boundaries of meaning within the fantasy genre. And in doing so, they challenge readers themselves to ponder these tales more deeply. But through each of these chapters runs a profound love of the genre and a respect for those who produce such beautiful and moving stories. Furthermore, as with all the books in this series, this volume is informed by the tenets of critical pedagogy, and is focused on re-envisioning fantasy literature through the lens of social justice and empowerment. Prepare to be challenged and inspired as you read these explorations of a much-loved genre.
An anthology of essays on the nature of fantasy, focusing on the basic principles that distinguish fantasy from other literary types and making a strong argument for its place as a major approach to the understanding of the creative act in art and literature.
Eschewing the all-pervading contextual approach to literary criticism, this book takes a Lacanian view of several popular British fantasy texts of the late 19th century such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, revealing the significance of the historical context; the advent of a modern democratic urban society in place of the traditional agrarian one. Moreover, counter-intuitively it turns out that fantasy literature is analogous to modern Galilean science in its manipulation of the symbolic thereby changing our conception of reality. It is imaginary devices such as vampires and ape-men, which in conjunction with Lacanian theory say something additional of the truth about – primarily sexual – aspects of human subjectivity and culture, repressed by the contemporary hegemonic discourses.
Fantasy literature inhabits the realms of the orthodox and heterodox, the divine and demonic simultaneously, making it uniquely positioned to imaginatively re-envision Christian theology from a position of difference. Having an affinity for the monstrous and the 'other', and a preoccupation with desires and forms of embodiment that subvert dominant understandings of reality, fantasy texts hold hitherto unexplored potential for articulating queer and feminist religious perspectives. Focusing primarily on fantastic literature of the mid- to late twentieth century, this book examines how Christian theology in the genre is dismantled, re-imagined and transformed from the margins of gender and sexuality. Aligning fantasy with Derrida's theories of deconstruction, Taylor Driggers explores how the genre can re-figure God as the 'other' excluded and erased from theology. Through careful readings of C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces, Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve, and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and the Earthsea novels, Driggers contends that fantasy can challenge cis-normative, heterosexual, and patriarchal theology. Also engaging with the theories of Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Marcella Althaus-Reid, and Linn Marie Tonstad, this book demonstrates that whilst fantasy cannot save Christianity from itself, nor rehabilitate it for marginalised subjects, it confronts theology with its silenced others in a way that bypasses institutional debates on inclusion and leadership, asking how theology might be imagined otherwise.