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“The books are true while reality is lying...” Championing the popular Fantasy genre on the same terms as its readers, Rayment casts a critical eye over the substance and methods of political critique in the Fantasy novels of Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman and China Miéville. Ranging across subjects as diverse as exquisite fundamentalism and revolutionary trains, encountering pervert-priests, dwarf hermaphrodites and sex-scarred lovers and pondering the homicidal tendencies of fairy tales and opera, Fantasy, Politics, Postmodernity develops a theoretically wide-ranging and illuminating account of how the novels of these writers do and do not sustain politically insightful critique of the real world, while bringing intellectual and ethical concerns to bear on the popular Fantasy form.
This fascinating study of literary theory is the first work of its kind to examine the intersection of fantasy and postmodernism, and to analyze contemporary fantasy writers comparatively. After carefully developing working definitions of postmodernism and fantasy, the author goes on to analyze works by various postmodernist fantasy writers. Olsen's approach is eclectic, bringing to each text or textual complex those forces he feels most interestingly stir up its sediment--be they biographical, structural, psychoanalytic, philosophical, reader-response, or otherwise. Finally he argues that postmodern fantasy is the literary equivalent of deconstructionism, for it interrogates all we take for granted about language and experience, giving these no more than shifting and provisional status. It may be seen as a mode of radical skepticism that believes only in the possiblilty of total intelligibility.
Why read Shakespeare? This work draws extensively on the work of Slavoj UZiUzek and other contemporary thinkers to discover the truths of Shakespeare's drama and relate them to contemporary issues within the discipline of English literature."
A new epic fantasy series from the New York Times bestselling author chosen to complete Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time® Series
Fantasy is a creation of the Enlightenment, and the recognition that excitement and wonder can be found in imagining impossible things. From the ghost stories of the Gothic to the zombies and vampires of twenty-first-century popular literature, from Mrs Radcliffe to Ms Rowling, the fantastic has been popular with readers. Since Tolkien and his many imitators, however, it has become a major publishing phenomenon. In this volume, critics and authors of fantasy look at its history since the Enlightenment, introduce readers to some of the different codes for the reading and understanding of fantasy, and examine some of the many varieties and subgenres of fantasy; from magical realism at the more literary end of the genre, to paranormal romance at the more popular end. The book is edited by the same pair who produced The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (winner of a Hugo Award in 2005).
This handbook is the first-of-its-kind comprehensive overview of fantasy outside the Anglo-American hegemony. While most academic studies of fantasy follow the well-trodden path of focusing on Tolkien, Rowling, and others, our collection spotlights rich and unique fantasy literatures in India, Australia, Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia, China, and many other areas of Europe, Asia, and the global South. The first part focuses on the theoretical aspects of fantasy, broadening and modifying existing definitions to accommodate the global reach of the genre. The second part contains essays illuminating specific cultures, countries, and religious or ethnic traditions. From Aboriginal myths to (self)-representation of Tibet, from the appropriation of the Polish Witcher by the American pop culture to modern Greek fantasy that does not rely on stories of Olympian deities, and from Israeli vampires to Talmudic sages, this collection is an indispensable reading for anyone interested in fantasy fiction and global literature.
Fantasy provides an invaluable and accessible guide to the study of this fascinating field. Covering literature, film, television, ballet, light opera and visual art and featuring a historical overview from Ovid to the Toy Story franchise, this book takes the reader through the key landmark moments in the development of fantasy criticism. This comprehensive guide examines fantasy and politics, fantasy and the erotic, quest narratives and animal fantasy for children. The versatility and cultural significance of fantasy is explored, alongside the important role fantasy plays in our understanding of ‘the real’, from childhood onwards. Written in a clear, engaging style and featuring an extensive glossary of terms, this is the essential introduction to Fantasy.
This timely and assured book provides a unique guide to critical legal studies which is one of the most exciting developments within contemporary jurisprudence. It is the first book to systematically apply a critical philosophy to the substance of common law. The book develops a coruscating and interdisciplinary overview of the politics and cultural significance of the institutions of the law.
Postmodernism and the Politics of 'Culture' is a comparative critical analysis of the political and intellectual ambitions of postmodernist critical theory and the academic discipline of cultural studies. Katz's polemical aim is to show that cultural studies comes up short in both areas, because its practitioners focus on too-narrow issues-primarily, celebrating the folkways of micro-communities-while denying the very possibility of studying, understanding, and changing society in any comprehensive way and to any universally beneficial purpose. He argues that scholars and activists alike would do well to make use of the analytical tools of postmodernist critical theory, whose practitioners acknowledge the political significance of the differences between social groups, but do not consider them to be unbridgeable, and so seek to develop a set of practices for creating a truly inclusive, truly democratic public sphere.
Womb Fantasies examines the womb, an invisible and mysterious space invested with allegorical significance, as a metaphorical space in postwar cinematic and literary texts grappling with the trauma of post-holocaust, postmodern existence. In addition, it examines the representation of visible spaces in the texts in terms of their attribution with womb-like qualities. The framing of the study historically within the postwar era begins with a discussion of Eero Saarinen’s Womb Chair in the context of the Cold War’s need for safety in light of the threat of nuclear destruction, and ranges over films such as Marguerite Duras’ and Alan Resnais’ film Hiroshima mon amour and Duras’ novel The Vice-Consul, exploring the ways that such cultural texts fantasize the womb as a response to trauma, defined as the compulsive need to return to the site of loss, a place envisioned as both a secure space and a prison. The womb fantasy is linked to the desire to recreate an identity that is new and original but ahistorical.