Beschreibung:
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.
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.
Part I Theory and Methodology
What Is Fantasy and Who Decides?
Fantasy as Genre: On Defining the Field of Study
A Biocultural Taxonomy
Allotopia: A World-Building Narrative
A Thousand and One Book: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Serialized Fantasy
Crosshatch Fantasy: Unsettling Portals, Crisis Heterotopias, and Comings-of-Age
Hybrid Secondary Worlds: Animal Fantasy
“How Did you Go about Saving a City? She Googled it”: Urban Fantasy Cities as Communities of Citizens
Punk Subculture in Urban Fantasy: Life on the Border
Part II Countries and Cultures
History and Other (Colonial) Fantasies: Indigenous Time Play in Cleverman
Chinese Danmei: Male-Male Romance, Women’s Fantasy, and the Feminization of Labor in the Digital Age
Between Scylla and Charybdis: A Survey of Greek Fantasy Fiction
Re-imagining Hindu Mythology in the Twenty-First Century: Amish Tripathi and Indian Fantasy Fiction in English
Wilderness as Wonderland: Jewish Fantasy from Ancient to Modern
Israeli Fantasy and Science Fiction: Fantastical Chronotopes and the Modern Promised Land
Looking for an Italian Style fantasy
The Little Red Gloves: Apocalyptic Fantasy and the Bodhisattva of Mercy in a Japanese Picture Book on Hiroshima
Latin American Fantasy as Heterogeneous Literature: Between Neomedievalism and Latin Americanism
Cultural Appropriation of Poland’s Fantasy: The Cold War Saga o Wiedźminie Moving into American Mainstream Culture
Syncretism in Russian Fantasy
Mystification, Religious Imagery, and Fantasy in Modern Tibetan Literature