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.
Author(s): Elana Gomel, Danielle Gurevitch
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 345
City: London
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Fantasy Faction(s)
The Structure of This Book
Part I: Theory and Methodology
What Is Fantasy and Who Decides?
Self and Other
Game of the Impossible
Journeying Across the Border
Works Cited
Fantasy as Genre: On Defining the Field of Study
Resistance to Genre
Defining Fantasy: A Brief Overview
Fantasy/Fantasy/Fantastic: Contested Terms
Fantasy and Genre: Obstacles and Assumptions
Fantasy as Genre: Possible Approaches
Conclusion
Works Cited
A Biocultural Taxonomy
The Supernatural Imagination
Faith, Folklore, Fantasy
The Reading Brain and Fantasy’s Narratology
Conclusion
Works Cited
Allotopia: A World-Building Narrative
Introduction
The Concept of Allotopia: A Brief History
Eco’s Definition of Allotopia
Allotopia as a Fictional Heterocosm
The Topographical Otherness
Closing Remarks
Works Cited
A Thousand and One Book: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Serialized Fantasy
Works Cited
Crosshatch Fantasy: Unsettling Portals, Crisis Heterotopias, and Comings-of-Age
Introduction
Portal Fantasy Worlds as Heterotopias
Crises Heterotopias and Coming-of-Age
Crosshatch Fantasies: Crossing Over into the ‘Real’
Reading as Heterotopic: Contamination and Transformation
Works Cited
Hybrid Secondary Worlds: Animal Fantasy
Hybrid Secondary Worlds: Animal Fantasy
Scales of Animality
Adjusting Animal Worlds
Home of Tooth and Claw
You Can’t Go Home Again
Conclusion
Works Cited
“How Did you Go about Saving a City? She Googled it”: Urban Fantasy Cities as Communities of Citizens
Works Cited
Punk Subculture in Urban Fantasy: Life on the Border
Youthful Revolt: Punk in the 1980s
Transgressive Art, Punk, Fantasy
Punk, Folk, and Faerie
Faerie-Filtered Punk Philosophy: The Other Way to Think
Works Cited
Part II: Countries and Cultures
History and Other (Colonial) Fantasies: Indigenous Time Play in Cleverman
The Past Is Never Dead. It Is Not Even Past.
The Past Is Never Where You Think You Left It ...
What If You Came Back Now/To Our New World, the City Roaring
He Kakano i Ruia Mai i Rangiātea
Works Cited
Chinese Danmei: Male-Male Romance, Women’s Fantasy, and the Feminization of Labor in the Digital Age
Works Cited
Between Scylla and Charybdis: A Survey of Greek Fantasy Fiction
A Lost Road
The Case Against the Fantastic
Fantasy Ascendant
The Advent of Self-publishing
Toward the Creation of a National Scene
Conclusion
Works Cited
Re-imagining Hindu Mythology in the Twenty-First Century: Amish Tripathi and Indian Fantasy Fiction in English
Amish Tripathi and Indian Fantasy Literature
Humanization of the Divine
Scientized Mythology
Conclusion
Works Cited
Wilderness as Wonderland: Jewish Fantasy from Ancient to Modern
RbbH’s Travels
A Share of the World to Come
Anti-hero, Chaos, and Fantasy
Bialik—A Modern Implementation
Works Cited
Israeli Fantasy and Science Fiction: Fantastical Chronotopes and the Modern Promised Land
The Promised Land Chronotope
Judaic Israeli SFF
Universalist Israeli SFF
Hybrid Judaic and Universalist Israeli SFF
Local and Global SFF
Works Cited
Looking for an Italian Style fantasy
A Brief Archeology of the Italian Fantastic
The Twentieth Century and the Slow Affirmation of Italian Fantasy
The Fantasy Baby Boom and the 2012 Crisis
Recent Years: The Revival of Indies and Self-publishers
Works Cited
The Little Red Gloves: Apocalyptic Fantasy and the Bodhisattva of Mercy in a Japanese Picture Book on Hiroshima
The Development and Characteristics of Modern Japanese Fantasy Literature for Adults and Children
Kannon in Miraculous Buddhist Traditions
The Little Red Gloves—Picture Book and Apocalyptic Fantasy
Conclusion
Works Cited
Latin American Fantasy as Heterogeneous Literature: Between Neomedievalism and Latin Americanism
Introduction
Down the Rift: Space-in-Between, Cultural Appropriation and Heterogeneous Literature in Latin American Tradition
Liliana Bodoc’s Saga de Los Confines: A Fantasy Approach to the Conquest of Latin America
Verónica Murguía’s Loba: Latin America through the Lens on an Imaginated Middle Ages
Conclusions
Works Cited
Cultural Appropriation of Poland’s Fantasy: The Cold War Saga o Wiedźminie Moving into American Mainstream Culture
Polish Fantasy and Folklore
Polish History and the Saga o Wiedźminie
The Trap of Translating the Saga o Wiedźminie
Disenchanting Anti-Fairy Tales
Justifiable Appropriation: The Saga o Wiedźminie Moving to Netflix
Conclusion
Works Cited
Syncretism in Russian Fantasy
The Triumph of Fantasy in Russia
A Model Case Study
Works Cited
Mystification, Religious Imagery, and Fantasy in Modern Tibetan Literature
The Development of Modern Tibetan Literature
The Fantasy of Tibet
Is Tibet a Shangri-la?
Conclusion
Works Cited
Index
