Fantasy Narratives Research Articles

AFRICANFUTURISM IN CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN LITERATURE: THE CASE OF ‘PET’ BY AKWAEKE EMEZI

This article is devoted to the literary analysis of Akwaeke Emezi’s ‘Pet’, the novel, as an Africanfuturist artifact of the contemporary literature of the Nigerian diaspora in the United States. Africanfuturism is considered in both political and methodogical opposition to Afrofuturism, and is understood as a critical artistic method that, within the framework of Black science fiction, recounts an alternative version of the future of African people. The scientific article describes the features of the implementation of science fiction subgenres in the literature of Nigerians, residents of Nigeria, and representatives of the Nigerian diaspora, and also substantiates their differences from traditional (European) fantasy narratives. By the case of ‘Pet’ by A. Emezi, which at many artistic levels goes against both the Nigerian and pan-European canons of science fiction, the markers of Africanfuturist criticism of the culture, the correlation between the magical (mythogical) and futurological as the main difference between Africanfuturism and Afrofuturism are shown.

The Theme of Magic in Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher Saga Cycle of Novels

The role of magic in Andrzej Sapkowskiʼs fantasy series “The Witcherʼs Saga” has been studied in the article. In his text, the author focuses on the types of magic, magical rituals, and the magic of the annual cycle holidays. The magical rituals which form the composition of the novels have been researched.The peculiarities of the writerʼs perception of the sphere of magic have been revealed. It has been proven that the image of magic is closely related to reality and has signs of aetiology (the key difference between myth and fairytale).The importance of magic in the construction of the fantasy genre in the example of “The Witcherʼs Saga” by A. Sapkowski has been highlighted and compared with other fantasy narratives. One of the defining features of “The Witcherʼs Saga” is that the protagonists are born from magic. The article studies how the magical origins of the protagonists influence their development and story.Magic in A. Sapkowskiʼs novels is not only sorcery. It is also associated with the impact of one person on another, the impact of a human being on nature and is an important component of rituals. These facts prove the mythologization of A. Sapkowskiʼs text.It has been highlighted that in A. Sapkowskiʼs octalogy features of neomythologism are connected with the depiction of fantastic creatures whom A. Sapkowski gives human traits, such as the ability to love. Love in A. Sapkowskiʼs novels is the strongest magic because the highest manifestation of magic is the magic of human relationships.

Situating Learning in AR Fantasy, Design Considerations for AR Game-Based Learning for Children

(1) Background: Augmented reality (AR) game-based learning, has received increased attention in recent years. Fantasy is a vital gaming feature that promotes engagement and immersion experience for children. However, situating learning with AR fantasy to engage learners and fit pedagogical contexts needs structured analysis of educational scenarios for different subjects. (2) Methods: We present a combined study using our own built AR games, MathMythosAR2 for mathematics learning, and FancyBookAR for English as second-language learning. For each game, we created a fantasy and a real-life narrative. We investigated player engagement and teachers’ scaffolding through qualitative and quantitative research with 62 participants aged from 7 to 11 years old. (3) Results: We discovered that fantasy narratives engage students in mathematics learning while disengaging them in second-language learning. Participants report a higher imagination with fantasy narratives and a higher analogy with real-life narratives. We found that teachers’ scaffolding for MathMythosAR2 focused on complex interactions, for FancyBookAR, focused on story interpretation and knowledge explanation. (4) Conclusions: It is recommended to mix fantasy and real-life settings, and use simple AR interaction and pedagogical agents that enable teachers’ scaffolding seamlessly. The design of AR fantasy should evaluate whether the story is intrinsically related to the learning subjects, as well as the requirements of explicit explanation.

The Case of the Curious Comestible from Bengali into English: Rendering Sarcasm, Polysemy, Ambiguity, and Connotation by Direct Translation, Footnoting, Transliteration, and Addition

A translator's choices include directly translating source language words into the target language (with and without inverted commas), retaining these in transliteration, explaining them in footnotes, and inserting unmarked additional words (a few or many) as seems best. This essay focuses on a single word, a metaphor for reddening in anger, its literal referent most likely the word for a sweetmeat, the Bengali lāl-mohan, used sarcastically (so it seems) for the angry being to whom it is applied. This comes from Gaganendranath Tagore's classic humorous fantasy narrative Bhondaṛ Bahadur (1926), translated in Fantasy Fictions from the Bengal Renaissance (OUP, 2018). This word lāl-mohan has several referents, multiple etymologies, and pairs of positive/negative connotations. A sense of all these is automatically part of the linguistic capital of the Bengali speaker, and not that of Anglophone readers, pan-South Asian or other. Hence I attempt to justify my inclusion of what seemed to be the most important shades of meaning, and how I attempted this, and why I left out the others.

Effeminate Gay Bottoms in the West: Narratives of Pussyboys and Boiwives on Tumblr

ABSTRACT Recent discussions of gay male bottom identity have been cautious about positioning bottoms in relation to a gendered identity, and thereby colluding with stereotypes about gay bottoms being effeminate and effeminate gays being bottoms. In wider LGBTQ media in Europe and North America there is an effort to destigmatize effeminate gay men in a dating culture that privileges “masc4masc.” While this is welcome, it obscures the existence of effeminate gay bottom fantasies that are gender stratified and which insist on a connection between sex role preference, sex object choice, and gender presentation. This paper analyses sexual fantasy narratives on the social media platform, Tumblr, and interrogates a deep structure of gender-stratified male androphilia that finds thematic similarities in non-Western settings, where “egalitarian” or Western “gay” expressions of male same-sex unions compete with traditional “heterogender” forms. It concludes by reaffirming the need to consider gender positionality among gay bottoms’ narratives in Western contexts, and for further research on Western gay men to recognize the heterogeneity of gay identities and experiences.

Exploring the populist ‘mind’: Anxiety, fantasy, and everyday populism

This article is focused on the appeal of far-right populist politics in the everyday and how this appeal is related to continuity and change in the global order. Contemporary societies have witnessed an upsurge of populist movements and groups set on filling a political space by appealing to a population in search of solutions to an ever-changing political and economic landscape. Here, we specifically highlight the role of ontological insecurity, fantasy narratives, and emotional governance as critical for understanding far-right populist politics. The analysis consequently attends to the centrality of gendered and racialised narratives and to how these are fuelled by feelings of pride, shame, vulnerability, and insecurity. The aim is to show how structures and emotions work in tandem to create far-right support and how these developments are similar across Western and non-Western contexts. Particular attention is paid to far-right narratives that pertain to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Religion and fantasy in the context of post-secularism

This article explores various types of interrelations of religion and fictional works in the fantasy genre. Research is based on key works for the genre (J.R.R.Tolkien, C.Lewis, U.Le Guin, Ph.Pullman, G.Martin, etc.) using methodological approaches developed in contemporary religious studies (E.Bailey, R.Bella, K.Cusack, R.Davidsen, E.McAvan). The article demonstrates that it is important to interpret the phenomenon of fantasy in the context of the modern post-secular world, which is characterized by such phenomena as religious bricolage, individualization of religion, and implicit religiosity. The article shows that fantasy authors not only use religious imaginary and symbolism, drawing inspiration from various religious systems, but also construct invented religions, which, in addition to their intra-plot meaning, carry an important message, expressing different views on religion, sometimes critical and anticlerical. Fantasy from the realm of the unreal becomes superreal, highlighting issues that are significant both for its authors and for the society. Communities and fandoms arise on the basis of fantasy narratives, and some of them not just implicitly, but quite openly turn into religious ones. Understood and interpreted in the context of post-secularism, the phenomenon of the fantasy genre itself with its incredible popularity appears in a new light, since this popularity can be correlated with new post-secular religiosity, with popular culture being its important source.

FICÇÃO ESPECULATIVA: O processo de hibridização na Ficção Científica e na Fantasia

ABSTRACT: This study aims at promoting a debate about speculative narratives, particularly those commonly classified as Science Fiction or Fantasy, assuming that the first works of speculative literature were not intended to encompass a single generic category given their dialogue with epistemological changes and their close connection with religious and mythological discourses. By close readings and bibliographic analyses, we build on the literary scholarship of Gunn (2005), Alkon (1994), Araújo (2020), and Manlove (1975), among others. The results suggest that there is no stylistic uniformity in Science Fiction or Fantasy narratives, as they directly dialogue with historical, political, and cultural moments, as well as with existing literary styles or movements.
 Keywords: Speculative fiction; Science Fiction; Fantasy; Hybridization

Chinese Folklore for the English Public: Herbert A. Giles’s 1880 Translation of Pu Songling’s Classical Tales

Chinese Folklore for the English Public: Herbert A. Giles’s 1880 Translation of Pu Songling’s Classical Tales

Slovanská fantasy globálnym popkultúrnym fenoménom

The aim of the paper is to introduce or rather (re)present The Witcher as a model-like pop cultural phenomenon illustrating the mechanisms within the framework of which a local hero, the main character of fantasy narratives written by Andrzej Sapkowski, transforms into a global hero. The Witcher — the character as well as the trademark, or rather brand — represents popular culture pars pro toto and emblematically a pop cultural artefact, undergoing a transformation on an axis from short stories to a novel saga, becoming an object of local cinematic and television-based adaptation and also a thematic basis for a successful digital-game series distributed globally, as well as recently a source of a high-budget television series designed for a global television market.

On the Idea of the Secondary World in Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi

The paper seeks to explore the concept of the secondary world as developed in Susanna Clarke’s 2020 fantasy novel Piranesi. The analysis is conducted in the context of the evolution of the literary motif of fairy abduction between the classic medieval texts and its current incarnations in modern speculative fiction. The argument relates the unique secondary world model found in Clarke’s novel to the extensive intertextual relationship Piranesi has with the tradition of portal fantasy narratives, and discusses it in the context of the progressive cognitive internalisation of the perception of the fantastic which has taken place between the traditional medieval paradigm and contemporary fantasy fiction.

‘What? Olaf is the taxi driver?’

While children’s remarkable ability to co-construct spontaneous fantasy narratives in pretend play interaction has been noted, sequential organization embedded in the collaborative construction of narratives have received little research attention. Drawing on an ethnomethodological and conversation analysis perspective, the current study examines the sequential organization of pretend play narratives co-constructed in children’s play interaction. Close sequential analysis based on 30 hours of audio and video recordings reveals an array of resources and interactional practices used to construct and maintain the spontaneous narratives. Sequential analysis allows to observe sense-making procedures embedded in the way participating children respond to and develop the storyline. The paper concludes with a reflection on how real-world knowledge informs and regulates the co-constructional process of fantasy narratives.

A EVOLUÇÃO DA LITERATURA FANTÁSTICA DE "AS ROSAS”, DE JÚLIA LOPES DE ALMEIDA A “AS FLORES”, DE AUGUSTA FARO

Este artigo pretende discutir a construção do fantástico clássico e do fantástico contemporâneo nos contos As rosas, de Júlia Lopes de Almeida, integrante da obra Ânsia eterna (2019) e As flores, de Augusta Faro, da obra A friagem (1999). A pesquisa será de cunho bibliográfico e realizará um breve percurso pelos teóricos do fantástico clássico, como Todorov (2017) e Bessière (2012) e do fantástico contemporâneo, também chamado de neofantástico, como Alazraki (1990) e Roas (2014). Objetiva-se analisar a presença do fantástico na obra de Júlia Lopes de Almeida e a evolução do gênero na narrativa de Augusta Faro. Além disso, é de fundamental importância trazer à tona os escritos de Almeida, importante escritora do século XIX, esquecida pela historiografia literária brasileira. Isso também aconteceu com Faro, que tem sua prosa alegórica pouco mencionada no cenário atual.

Fantasy at the Service of Mathematics

This article aims to introduce the reader to a book published in 2016 under the title “Amazing Tales from the Magic Wood and Famous Problems of Mathematics” by Elli Shor and Clara Ziskin. The book offers an original method of presenting mathematical facts and history through a fantasy narrative. The book’s two authors, Clara Ziskin and Alla Shmukler (Elli Shor), together with consultant psychologist Esther Williams, share here several excerpts taken from the first part of the book as well as related illustrations and mathematical riddles, so that the reader can form an informed impression of the book, its structure, and its nature.

From Muse to Material: The Defiance of Homeric Identity Through Creative Adaptation

The hero crossing the wine-dark sea, a king kneeling at the foot of his son’s killer, a boy defending his homeland in his father’s absence. The world of epic Greek myth is an alluring and vast web of heroic narrative and moral dilemma. These iconic moments transcend history and cultural decay. They live in the literature, art, and philosophical framework of the contemporary human experience. Homeric myth is intrinsically embedded in our cultural landscape; it is the thread that runs through the most mundane storytelling and the most epic fantasy narrative. The narratives of the Iliad and The Odyssey have been institutionalized in the Western canon and prescribed as the essential foundation of academic discourse. Yet these same myths also include a daughter sacrificed by the hand of her father, a woman raped and held hostage by the greatest of the Greeks, and a girl whose beauty launched a thousand ships and killed even more men. There is room, though, in the oeuvre of Homeric myth, for an elevation of otherwise silenced voices. Through reimagining epic narratives such as the Iliad and The Odyssey, women authors transform exclusionary texts into stories that encompass the identities reflected in contemporary society.

Early Fantasy Narrative in Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies.

Early Fantasy Narrative in Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies.

On Entrepreneurial Stories: Tolkien’s Theory of Fantasy and the Bridge between Imagination and Innovation

Innovations are the product of entrepreneurs’ imaginations. To turn imaginations into realized innovations, entrepreneurs must attract the resources necessary to create the innovations they envision. Resource acquisition involves crafting and communicating compelling narratives that persuade stakeholders to provide resources. However, there is not a clearly articulated theory linking entrepreneurial imagination, narratives, and the production of innovations. To construct such a theory, this paper extends work on narratives in literary theory and, specifically, Tolkien’s theory of narrative fantasy. It is proposed that entrepreneurs’ narratives about innovations are, initially, “fantasies” because they describe possible worlds in which the imagined innovations exist. As fantasies, the characteristics of persuasive fantasy narratives, such as the degree to which narratives achieve an inner consistency of reality and suspend audiences’ disbelief, influence entrepreneurs’ ability to convince stakeholders about the viability of imagined innovations. The proposed theory contributes to entrepreneurship scholarship by developing a process model that articulates how entrepreneurs’ imaginations manifest in their narratives, which, in turn, influence the realization of innovations. The theory generates concrete implications for entrepreneurs and suggests that as the novelty of an imagined innovation increases, it becomes more critical for entrepreneurs to construct compelling narratives to describe the innovation. Thus, entrepreneurs and scholars should be attentive to the role narratives play in moving beyond the idea phase of entrepreneurship and bridging imagination and innovation.

Pan speaks – Mythologising Non-human Voices in Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth

SummaryNarrative myth tellings have the magical capacity to give voice to the non-human and to initiate dialogue between forces and figures previously assumed to be binary opposites. These well-established binaries draw on the multi-dimensional experience of the "collective unconscious" (Jung 1964: 153), and so mythological readings of human/non-human relationships are informed by an awareness of this. Such readings require an interdisciplinary approach. It is through this interdisciplinary engagement that the complexities of narrative myth tellings are unravelled, and the tenuous human mastery over an Othered natural world - whether real or fantastical - is revealed. The relegation of Nature to silent setting is being challenged by a growing ecocritical need to establish and acknowledge Nature's counter-voice - to resurrect Pan who, according to writers such as D.H. Lawrence, had been killed by ideology and human ambition. Hearing him speak once more in fantasy narratives such as Neil Gaiman's Stardust (1999) and Guilermo del Toro's Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), represents a significant resurrection of the mythological influence of Nature over Culture. Drawing on various mythological and ecocritical theorists, this article attempts to determine the agency with which the non-human voice, as represented by Pan, speaks in these fantasy narratives, and how this, in turn, informs anthropocentric views regarding natural and cultural appropriation.

Distinguishing reality from fantasy in adults with autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from eye movements and reading

Understanding fictional events requires one to distinguish reality from fantasy, and thus engages high-level processes including executive functions and imagination, both of which are impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We examined how adults with and without ASD make sense of reality-violating fantasy narratives by testing real-time understanding of counterfactuals. Participants were eye-tracked as they read narratives that depicted novel counterfactual scenarios that violate reality (e.g. “If margarine contained detergent, Mum could use margarine in her washing/baking”, Experiment 1), or counterfactual versions of known fictional worlds (e.g. “If Harry Potter had lost all his magic powers, he would use his broom to sweep/fly”, Experiment 2). Results revealed anomaly detection effects in the early moments of processing (immediately in Experiment 1, and from the post-critical region in Experiment 2), which were not modulated by group. We discuss these findings in relation to the constraints from real-world and fantasy contexts that compete to influence language comprehension, and identify a dissociation between ToM impairments and counterfactual processing abilities.

Old slavery seen through modern eyes: Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred and Haile Gerima’s Sankofa

Time travel has been at times employed by writers and filmmakers alike as a means for addressing sociopolitical discourses. This is the case of the novel Kindred (1979) by Octavia E. Butler, and the film Sankofa (1993) by Haile Gerima. In both works, the topic of spatio-temporal migration is dealt with in such a way as to make a political statement in order to elicit a response on the part of the reader/viewer. Tightroping between fantasy and slave narrative, Butler and Gerima use time travel as a device investigating the amplified effect of old slavery on contemporary people. This essay approaches the idea of seeing old slavery through modern eyes. Experiencing the senselessness of old slavery from the apparently unreal perspective of a contemporary outsider may inspire the reader/viewer to minimize the typical desensitization with which contemporary slavery - still a very tangible phenomenon - more often than not is met today