Fantasy and the Fantastic (Panel / In-Person)


Standing Session
Genres and Audiences / Cultural Studies

Kristin Noone (Irvine Valley College)
kris@****.com (Log-in to reveal)

Fantasy and the supernatural, broadly defined, shape many of the most popular contemporary narratives and universes—from Lord of the Rings to Game of Thrones, from World of Warcraft to The Witcher, from classical and medieval tales of monsters and dragons to the worlds of N.K. Jemisin, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Nnedi Okorafor, and Ursula K. Le Guin. As a genre, fantasy engages with questions of rhetoric, identity, and power in multiple ways, across multiple media, subgenres, and cultural traditions; the enchantment of fantastic and supernatural narratives has cast a persistent and global spell. Proposals that explore fantasy's evolutions and impacts, the fantastic and the supernatural, intersections of fantasy and various genres, media, or time periods, and the conference theme of "Translation in Action" are welcome. We are open to essays about works aimed at a children's, family, or adult reading or viewing audience.
Fantasy and the supernatural, broadly defined, shape many popular narratives and universes—from Lord of the Rings to Game of Thrones, from World of Warcraft to The Witcher, from classical and medieval tales of monsters and dragons to the worlds of N.K. Jemisin, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Nnedi Okorafor, and Ursula K. Le Guin. As a genre, fantasy engages with questions of rhetoric, identity, and power in multiple ways, across media, subgenres, and cultural traditions; the enchantment of fantastic and supernatural narratives casts a persistent and global spell. For this standing session, all proposals that explore fantasy's evolutions and impacts, the fantastic and the supernatural, and/or intersections of fantasy and diverse genres, media, traditions, or time periods are invited. Proposals which intersect with the PAMLA conference theme of “Translation in Action” are welcome, particularly those which consider related questions of translation, mediation, interpretation, power and subversion, challenges and impossibilities and discoveries, histories and practice and representation of translation, language-learning and world-construction, and cosmopolitanism.