Overview

Fantastic fiction is traditionally understood as Western genre literature such as fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Expanding on this understanding, these essays explore how the fantastic has been used in Western societies since the Middle Ages as a tool for organizing and materializing abstractions in order to make sense of the present social order. Disciplines represented here include literature studies, gender studies, biology, ethnology, archeology, history, religion, game studies, cultural sociology, and film studies. Individual essays cover topics such as the fantastic creatures of medieval chronicle, mummy medicine in eighteenth-century Sweden, how fears of disease filtered through the universal and adaptable vampire, the gender aspects of goddess worship in the secular West, ecocentrism in fantasy fiction, how videogames are dealing with the remediation of heritage, and more.

Full Product Details

Author:   Anna Höglund ,  Cecilia Trenter
Publisher:   McFarland & Co Inc
Imprint:   McFarland & Co Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.20cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.299kg
ISBN:  

9781476680125

ISBN 10:   1476680124
Pages:   232
Publication Date:   11 June 2021
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order  
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Table of Contents

Table of Contents Preface Anna Höglund and Cecilia Trenter Introduction Anna Höglund and Cecilia Trenter The Use of the Fantastic in a Historical Perspective Dragons and Kingdoms: Political Authority and Fantasy in the Histories of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Saxo Grammaticus Hans Hägerdal Egyptian Mummies, Medicine and the Supernatural in Eighteenth-Century Sweden Joachim Östlund A Double-Edged Sword: Promises and Dangers of Hypnotism in Sweden, 1880–1915 Cecilia Riving The Use of the Fantastic and Fantastika in Contemporary Culture A Friend and Foe: The Portrayal of Otherness and Disease in Vampire Fiction Anna Höglund Priestesses of Avalon: Fantasy Fiction and Contemporary Goddess Worship Åsa Trulsson Dwarfs Are Not Religious, Sir! Gradually Reclining Dwarven Irreligion in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Universe Jonas Svensson Bringing Dragons Back into the World: Dismantling the Anthropocene in Robin Hobb’s The Realm of the Elderlings Mariah Larsson Our World Is Dew: Tor Åge Bringsværd’s Fable Prose as a Chthulucenic Exploration Marit Ruge Bjærke and Kyrre Kverndokk The Use of the Fantastic and Fantastika in Memory Culture “And this is how I tried to fathom the Lindenborg Pool”: William Morris, Medievalism and Modernity Per Klingberg Fairy Tales Transformed: Analyzing a New Wave of Feminist Retellings of Fairy Tales Maria Nilson Remediation of Cultural Memory in the Dragon Age Videogame Series Cecilia Trenter Fallout, Memory and Values: The Uses of History and Time in a Fantasy-Driven Videogame Derek Fewster About the Contributors Index

Reviews

“Offers numerous insightful, informative and original contributions to a wide variety of topics circulating around the fantastic’s multiple interconnections with cultural histories….The book will be a valuable resource for scholars/students of the fantastic...”—Sean Moreland, University of Ottawa

Offers numerous insightful, informative and original contributions to a wide variety of topics circulating around the fantastic's multiple interconnections with cultural histories....The book will be a valuable resource for scholars/students of the fantastic... --Sean Moreland, University of Ottawa

Author Information

Anna Höglund is a senior lecturer in comparative literature at Linnaeus University, Sweden. Her research areas are horror fiction and fantastic fiction in literature and film with a focal point on the functions of monsters like vampires, zombies and werewolves, as instrumental interpretations of the world. Cecilia Trenter is a senior lecturer in history at Malmö University, Sweden. She works within the research field of memory studies and public history, including heritage adaptions and remediation in fiction, for instance epic films and computer-games.

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