Addressing the world of the imaginary, the dream, the uncanny, the
paranormal, and all forms of speculative fiction, Contours of the
Fantastic is a collection of twenty-two essays that were originally
presented at the Eighth International Conference on the Fantastic
in the Arts at Houston in 1987. The volume gives valuable
perspectives on the territory covered by the fantastic, showing the
diversity of the field and the variety of approaches used to survey
and comprehend it. Each essay brings its own method of
investigation--phenomenological, theoretical, historical,
sociological, psychological, textual--in an effort to situate the
border between reality and fantasy and the passage from one to the
other. Authors and works discussed in the volume include Balzac,
Dickens, Poe, Aldous Huxley, C. S. Lewis, Tolkien, Muriel Spark,
Mary Shelley, Albee's The Zoo Story, Pynchon, Coleridge's
Christabel, Le Fanu's "Carmilla," and Stephen Donaldson's Thomas
Covenant trilogies. Following the editor's introductory essay, the
work is divided into 7 sections: "Fantasy and Discontinuity,"
"Theory of National Fantasy--Tradition and Invention," "Fantastic
Vision in Children's Literature," "Science Fiction and Fantasy
Films," "Fusion, Transfusion, and Transgression in the Fantastic,"
"The Fantastic and Science," and "The Fantastic World--Space and
Time." Individual essays within these major divisions zero in on
specific works of fantasy; offer a psychology of fantasy writers;
analyze language; assess fantasy from a national perspective; and
investigate Christian horror in fiction. The final two sections
delineate the border between fantasy and reality--in science and in
relation to space and time. Amongthe outstanding contributors are
Brian Aldiss, novelist, poet, and critic, author of more than two
dozen books-- many of which are considered science fiction
classics; Vivian Sobchack, science fiction film critic and writer
on semiotics and phenomenology; and Nancy Willard, author of
prize-winning novels, collected stories, poetry, and children's
books. Generalists in literature and the arts, sociology, the
natural sciences, engineering, and aeronautics as well as students
and scholars, aestheticians, and critics of the fantasy/science
fiction genres in literature, film, and art will find this
collection both a useful and fascinating volume.
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