Table Of ContentCollision of Realities
Establishing Research on the Fantastic
in Europe
Edited by
Lars Schmeink
Astrid Böger
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Content
LARS SCHMEINK, ASTRID BÖGER, HANS-HARALD MÜLLER
Preface .................................................................................................................. 1
THE FANTASTIC – THEORY AND HISTORY
BRIAN STABLEFORD
The Art and Science of Heterocosmic Creativity .......................................... 7
JAN CHRISTOPH MEISTER
“It’s not what you see – it’s how you see what you see.”
The Fantastic as an Epistemological Concept ............................................. 21
RENÉ SCHALLEGGER
The Nightmares of Politicians.
On the Rise of Fantasy Literature from Subcultural
to Mass-cultural Phenomenon ....................................................................... 29
CLEMENS RUTHNER
Fantastic Liminality.
A Theory Sketch ............................................................................................... 49
VISUALIZING THE FANTASTIC IN OUR CULTURE
MARLEEN S. BARR
Fantastic Language/Political Reporting.
The Postcolonial SF Illocutionary Force is with us .................................... 67
vi Content
MARKUS OPPOLZER
Visualising the Fantastic in Strange Embrace .................................................. 85
CHRISTIAN LENZ
Love your Zombie.
Romancing the Undead ................................................................................... 103
SIMONE KNEWITZ
God Hates Fangs?
Morality, Ideology, and the Domesticated Vampire
in American Culture ......................................................................................... 119
PAUL BEEHLER
The Semiotics of Sexual Transformation.
Ursula and Ariel as Representations of Metamorphosis
in The Little Mermaid .......................................................................................... 139
FANTASTIC GENRES: FANTASY
LILY GLASNER
Taking a Zebra to Vegas.
Allegorical Reality in the
Percy Jackson & the Olympians Series ......................................................... 155
ANNE KLAUS
“Real adventures weren’t about Hogwarts and Muggles.”
Intertextual References in
Amanda Hemingway’s Sangreal-Trilogy ....................................................... 175
JUSTYNA DESZCZ-TRYHUBCZAK AND AGATA ZARZYCKA
On Alien Alders.
The “Erl-King” Inspirations in
Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher Saga ................................................................ 187
Content vii
KARIN KOKORSKI
“It’s magical!”
Supernatural Elements in Children’s Literature
and Young Adults’ Fiction .............................................................................. 205
MARGARIDA MCMURRY
Story Matters.
Story and its Concept in Tolkien and Pratchett ........................................... 219
WALLACE T. CLEAVES II
Grimmerie and Primer.
Wicked and Diamond Age as Instructional Texts ........................................... 233
FANTASTIC GENRES: SCIENCE FICTION
MINWEN HUANG
The Haunted House of Science Fiction.
Modern Ghosts, Crypts, and Technologies .................................................. 251
JACOBO CANADY
Difference and Resistance in M.T. Anderson’s Feed ................................... 271
ALLAN WEISS
Disharmony and Dystopia.
Music in Classic Dystopian Fiction ............................................................... 285
ARIANNA CASALI
Facing the End of the World.
Margaret Atwood’s Post-apocalyptic Science Fiction ................................ 295
SARAH HERBE
Is the Scientist Still Mad?
Renegotiations of a Cultural Stereotype
in New Hard Science Fiction .......................................................................... 311
viii Content
INGO CORNILS
Utopian, Dystopian and Subversive Strategies in
Recent German Alternate History Fictions .................................................. 325
CONFERENCE THEME STORY
PAUL DI FILIPPO
A Pocketful of Faces ........................................................................................ 341
Contributors ...................................................................................................... 359
Preface
LARS SCHMEINK, ASTRID BÖGER, HANS-HARALD MÜLLER
It has not been an easy process to establish a field as elusive and perpetu-
ally misunderstood as the fantastic in European academic discourse but
we are finally at the stage where the field is being taught and researched at
universities on a regular basis. To write “finally” might of course sound a
little drastic, especially given that since the 1970s the fantastic has been
found a worthy object of research by select academics. There have indeed
been and continue to be publications in the field, small symposia, even a
European special collection of the fantastic exists. What has been lacking
though is a systematic organization of these academic structures and re-
sources that would bring ‘fantastic studies’ up to eye level with other areas
of literary studies (which is still the discipline where most research in the
fantastic is happening). Recent media interest in the fantastic, sparked in
particular by the technological progress of CGI magic on the silver screen,
but also by surprise bestselling book series, has in its wake brought the
fantastic as a whole into the limelight and out of the genre fiction closet.
Consequently, the fantastic as an object of academic inquiry is attracting
an ever-growing number of researchers, who are looking for means to
cooperation and exchange ideas in regard to their work. They have been
frustrated by the fact that networking, at large conferences or within re-
search projects, has thus far been a privilege of the American academic
realm, where such possibilities and the facilitating structures have been in
existence for more than 30 years and where the European influence might
be characterized as an exotic perspective.
And yet much has happened in Europe, too, in the last few years, for
there is a departure of minds, a feeling of optimistic enthusiasm in the
field, which has brought with it a momentum of change. In 2010 it was
therefore possible for the first time to organize a large international con-
ference on the fantastic, “Fremde Welten: Wege und Räume der Fantastik
im 21. Jahrhundert”, in Germany. At this event more than 150 very diverse
researchers united under one agenda and established a basis for inaugurat-
ing an academic association for research in the fantastic. The Gesellschaft
für Fantastikforschung e.V. (GFF) was initiated on October 1st 2010 in
2 Lars Schmeink, Astrid Böger, Hans-Harald Müller
Hamburg with more than 80 inaugural members and has since been en-
gaged in establishing academic structures and networks that allow mem-
bers to present their work in a way commensurate with its relevance with-
in popular cultural discourse. With this work, the association has not only
strengthened the fantastic as a valid field of research but has also built a
scholarly reputation and generated a healthy self-awareness that helps repre-
sent the field in its respective academic disciplines. To this end, the associa-
tion both organizes annual conferences (the last in Salzburg 2011) and pub-
lishes a twice-yearly academic journal, the Zeitschrift für Fantastikforschung. Fur-
ther, the GFF has set as its goal the academic publication of research in the
field, especially of the results from the annual conferences. The two volumes
at hand, Collision of Realities: Establishing Research on the Fantastic in Europe (Ed.
by Lars Schmeink and Astrid Böger) and Fremde Welten: Wege und Räume der
Fantastik im 21. Jahrhundert (Ed. by Lars Schmeink and Hans-Harald Mül-
ler) each present reworked research papers from the inaugural conference
in Hamburg in October 2010. Together, the two anthologies offer an in-
terdisciplinary cross-section of current research in the field of the fantastic.
Given the size and the strong international orientation of the conference
(with half of the papers presented in English), we have decided to publish
two non-identical volumes of proceedings that complement each other, one
in English, one in German, so that close to 50 essays can here attest to the
active and innovative research on the fantastic being done in Europe.
Like the editorial team itself, the ranks of our contributors are filled by
researchers of different generations and disciplines, thus these anthologies
symbolically allow a meeting of disparate approaches that is hard to imag-
ine within other fields of research. From the beginning, research in the
fantastic has not been able to establish a consensual definition of its ob-
ject of inquiry, and particularly the continental European debates on the
in- and exclusivity of the terminology used to define the fantastic illustrate
the differences in methodology, approaches and aims of the research in-
volved. It is no wonder then that these debates have also found their way
into the essays presented here and need to be addressed. The discord on
matters of basic definition might on the one hand seem a hindrance to
progress in research and has indeed been viewed as such by some critics.
On the other hand though, one might see the opportunity that disputes of
definition provide for a lively and constant renegotiation of the fantastic
genres. The lack of unity in terminology might provide a basis for contin-
uous reconceptualization, for questioning concepts and limitations of the
fantastic. It is for this reason that we have decided to allow for a broad
frame of approaches and differences in terminology, at the conference as
well as within the pages of these volumes. We do not wish to participate
in the ongoing debates by prescribing a certain definition of the fantastic
Preface 3
and have thus left matters of definition, of the in- and exclusivity of the
terms, as well as of the methodology used to the discretion of the contrib-
utors themselves. We also realize that given the number of different disci-
plines involved in these volumes and the variability of academic practices
in those disciplines in regard to publication, citation etc. our most im-
portant task will be to balance the needs of specific disciplines with the
overall necessities involved in editing an interdisciplinary anthology.
The anthology at hand, the English volume of the conference pro-
ceedings, is divided into five sections, four of which represent centers of
research in the fantastic, while the last section remains a special nod to the
creative side of the field. Thus, section one, “The Fantastic – Theory and His-
tory” discusses theoretical approaches to, as well as historical developments
in the genre. The second section, “Visualizing the Fantastic in our Culture”
opens up from traditional focal points and allows for fantastic inquiry into
everyday politics, graphic novels, film and television as well as children’s
fairy tales. Sections three and four then deal with the two most prominent
“Fantastic Genres”, “Fantasy” and “Science Fiction” respectively. These last
two sections remain focussed on literary studies, allowing for both over-
views and specific work analyses in order to present the (currently still)
most important medium of ‘fantastic studies’ in its full variety. Finally, the
fifth section shifts the focus from the academic to the creative side of the
fantastic, honoring our guest author, Paul Di Filippo, and his ‘theme story’,
written exclusively for the occasion of the inaugural conference.
Lastly, we would like to thank all involved and especially our sponsors
for making the conference as well as the inauguration of the GFF possible
and allowing us to publish the results in the form of these volumes. We
would like to express our gratitude to the German research council (DFG),
the University of Hamburg, the ICA and the American consulate general
in Hamburg for their generous support of the conference. Our personal
appreciation goes out to the efforts of our team and their work: Julia Ga-
termann (organization, editing), Tim Gehlert (organization), Kathryn Baker
(proof-reading, networking), Steven Wosniack (technical support, record-
ings), Johanna Bauch and Nicole Zajac (administration, logistics), as well
as all of our student assistants that helped with the smooth running behind
the scenes.
