Queering Faith in Fantasy Literature

Queering Faith in Fantasy Literature
Author: Taylor Driggers
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2022-01-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1350231754

Fantasy literature inhabits the realms of the orthodox and heterodox, the divine and demonic simultaneously, making it uniquely positioned to imaginatively re-envision Christian theology from a position of difference. Having an affinity for the monstrous and the 'other', and a preoccupation with desires and forms of embodiment that subvert dominant understandings of reality, fantasy texts hold hitherto unexplored potential for articulating queer and feminist religious perspectives. Focusing primarily on fantastic literature of the mid- to late twentieth century, this book examines how Christian theology in the genre is dismantled, re-imagined and transformed from the margins of gender and sexuality. Aligning fantasy with Derrida's theories of deconstruction, Taylor Driggers explores how the genre can re-figure God as the 'other' excluded and erased from theology. Through careful readings of C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces, Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve, and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and the Earthsea novels, Driggers contends that fantasy can challenge cis-normative, heterosexual, and patriarchal theology. Also engaging with the theories of Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Marcella Althaus-Reid, and Linn Marie Tonstad, this book demonstrates that whilst fantasy cannot save Christianity from itself, nor rehabilitate it for marginalised subjects, it confronts theology with its silenced others in a way that bypasses institutional debates on inclusion and leadership, asking how theology might be imagined otherwise.

Wrath

Wrath
Author: John Gwynne
Publisher: Orbit
Total Pages: 775
Release: 2016-12-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0316386332

The fourth in the Faithful and the Fallen series from John Gwynne, an epic fantasy perfect for fans of George R. R. Martin, Brandon Sanderson and David Gemmell. Events are coming to a climax in the Banished Lands, as the war reaches new heights. King Nathair has taken control of the fortress at Drassil and three of the Seven Treasures are in his possession. And together with Calidus and his ally Queen Rhin, Nathair will do anything to obtain the remaining Treasures. With all seven under his command, he can open a portal to the Otherworld. Then Asroth and his demon-horde will finally break into the Banished Lands and become flesh. Meanwhile Corban has been taken prisoner by the Jotun, warrior giants who ride their enormous bears into battle. His warband scattered, Corban must make new allies if he hopes to survive. But can he bond with competing factions of warlike giants? Somehow he must, if he's to counter the threat Nathair represents. His life hangs in the balance -- and with it, the fate of the Banished Lands.

Fanfiction as Queer Healing

Fanfiction as Queer Healing
Author: Alice M. Chapman-Kelly
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2024-10-31
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1350350877

Exploring the phenomenon of Femslash fanfiction (fan narratives that bring together heterosexual female characters from mainstream media and fiction), this book analyses fan-authored works as forms of literature worthy of studying at length. It examines the anti-racist, feminist, sapphic fan works produced in response to white supremacist, heteronormative, queerbaiting mainstream fantasy and argues that they represent a significant site of queer healing for marginalised audience members. Focusing on the 'Swan Queen' fandom, where fans pair the 'white trash' heroine, Emma Swan and the villainous Latina Evil Queen (Regina Mills) from ABC's hit show Once Upon a Time, Alice Kelly redresses the widespread academic neglect of queer female fandoms and responds to urgent calls to diversify fan and fantasy scholarship. With reference to complex theoretical subjects such as ethnography, sociology, psychology and decolonial, queer, film and media studies, the book also delves into the alternative timescales on which queer female and genderqueer fan authorship runs; offers intriguing insights into fanfiction narrative structures; and tackles the issues of broader fandom representation and contextualization. Making the case that fan texts deserve attention in the academy, Kelly shows how some of the most prolific fan works have the ability to enact colour reparation and a reclamation of memory, fantasy, romance, maternity, childhood, parenting and magic. These fictions serve fan communities as a whole through intersectional challenges to the power dynamics of the source text and within the fandom itself and, as the book demonstrates, offer attendant validation to fantasy fans who have been repeatedly told that the genre is not for them.

Reading Tolkien in Chinese

Reading Tolkien in Chinese
Author: Eric Reinders
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2024-03-21
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1350374652

Approaching translations of Tolkien's works as stories in their own right, this book reads multiple Chinese translations of Tolkien's writing to uncover the new and unique perspectives that enrich the meaning of the original texts. Exploring translations of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The Children of Hurin and The Unfinished Tales, Eric Reinders reveals the mechanics of meaning by literally back-translating the Chinese into English to dig into the conceptual common grounds shared by religion, fantasy and translation, namely the suspension of disbelief, and questions of truth - literal, allegorical and existential. With coverage of themes such as gods and heathens, elves and 'Men', race, mortality and immortality, fate and doom, and language, Reinder's journey to Chinese Middle-earth and back again drastically alters views on Tolkien's work where even basic genre classification surrounding fantasy literature look different through the lens of Chinese literary expectations. Invoking scholarship in Tolkien studies, fantasy theory and religious and translations studies, this is an ambitious exercises in comparative imagination across cultures that suspends the prejudiced hierarchy of originals over translations.

An Introduction to Fantasy

An Introduction to Fantasy
Author: Matthew Sangster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2023-09-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1009429914

A vibrant introduction to Fantasy that explores its uses, processes, traditions, manifestations across media, stakeholders and communities.

William Hope Hodgson and the Rise of the Weird

William Hope Hodgson and the Rise of the Weird
Author: Timothy S. Murphy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2023-06-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 135036570X

The first comprehensive study of the works of William Hope Hodgson, one of the true innovators of Weird fiction, this book examines the Weird novels and stories upon which his posthumous reputation rests, his non-fantastic writing, identifiable literary influences, and the historical contexts in which he wrote. Focusing extensively upon major works such as The House on the Borderland (1908) and The Night Land (1912), Timothy S. Murphy surveys topics including Hodgson's experiments with code switching and linguistic experimentation; his depictions of racial and ethnic differences and gender and sexuality; the function of space and place in his writing; the adaptation of his shipboard experiences; and his use of abyssal time. With special attention paid to his paradoxical nihilist humanism, this book explores what made Hodgson a respected precursor to later innovators such as H. P. Lovecraft and C.L. Moore, and what makes him an important ancestor to 21st-century writers such as China Miéville, Greg Bear, and Charlie Jane Anders. Demonstrating how his work is both of his time and 'untimely', Murphy recovers Hodgson as the most significant figure to precede the fantastically popular but deeply controversial Lovecraft, as well as a figure whose work challenges what has thus far been accepted about the genre and the interpretive perspectives from which we view it.

Huntress

Huntress
Author: Malinda Lo
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2011-04-05
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 031617520X

Nature is out of balance in the human kingdom. The sun hasn't shone in years, and crops are failing. Worse yet, strange and hostile creatures have begun to appear. And the people's survival hangs in the balance. To solve the crisis, the oracle stones are cast, and Kaede and Taisin, two seventeen-year-old girls, are picked to go on a dangerous and unheard-of journey to Tanlili, the city of the Fairy Queen. Taisin is a sage, thrumming with magic, and Kaede is of the earth, without a speck of the otherworldly. And yet the two girls' destinies are drawn together during the mission. As members of their party succumb to unearthly attacks and fairy tricks, the two come to rely on each other and even begin to fall in love. But the Kingdom needs only one huntress to save it, and what it takes could tear Kaede and Taisin apart forever. The exciting adventure prequel to Malinda Lo's highly acclaimed novel Ash is overflowing with lush Chinese influences and details inspired by the I Ching, and is filled with action and romance.

It Ends in Fire

It Ends in Fire
Author: Andrew Shvarts
Publisher:
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2022-06-07
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 9780316381444

A James Patterson Presents novel Only those from the most powerful magical families can attend Blackwater Academy, but new student Alka has them fooled. Now it's time to take down the oppressive wizard ruling class from the inside. Alka Chelrazi is on a mission: 1. Infiltrate Blackwater Academy 2. Win the Great Game 3. Burn Wizard society to the ground As a child, Alka witnessed her parents' brutal murder at the hands of Wizards before she was taken in by an underground rebel group. Now, Alka is deep undercover at the most prestigious school of magic in the Republic: Blackwater Academy, a place where status is everything, where decadent galas end in blood-splattered duels, where every student has their own agenda. To survive, Alka will have to lie, cheat, kill, and use every trick in her spy's toolkit. And for the first time in her life, the fiercely independent Alka will have to make friends in order to recruit the misfits and the outcasts into her motley rebellion. But even as she draws closer to victory--to vengeance--she sinks deeper into danger as suspicious professors and murderous rivals seek the traitor in their midst, as dark revelations unravel her resolve. Can Alka destroy the twisted game...without becoming a part of it?

Stories about Stories

Stories about Stories
Author: Brian Attebery
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2014-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0199316074

The first comprehensive study of fantasy's uses of myth, this book offers insights into the genre's popularity and cultural importance. Combining history, folklore, and narrative theory, Attebery's study explores familiar and forgotten fantasies and shows how the genre is also an arena for negotiating new relationships with traditional tales.

Pale Fire

Pale Fire
Author: Vladimir Nabokov
Publisher: ببلومانيا للنشر والتوزيع
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2024-02-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

The American poet John Shade is dead. His last poem, 'Pale Fire', is put into a book, together with a preface, a lengthy commentary and notes by Shade's editor, Charles Kinbote. Known on campus as the 'Great Beaver', Kinbote is haughty, inquisitive, intolerant, but is he also mad, bad - and even dangerous? As his wildly eccentric annotations slide into the personal and the fantastical, Kinbote reveals perhaps more than he should be. Nabokov's darkly witty, richly inventive masterpiece is a suspenseful whodunit, a story of one-upmanship and dubious penmanship, and a glorious literary conundrum.