The Fantastic in Cultural History - Inventorying a growing research field
Welcome to the conference The Fantastic in Cultural History - Inventorying a growing research field! The event takes place IRL at Linnaeus University on campus Växjö and the gothic castle of Teleborg June 20-21 2022.
We are delighted to present Farah Mendlesohn and Laura Feldt as our keynote speakers. The proposal submission deadline is 30 April 2022 and we invite you to send us papers that explores the interesting field of the fantastic defined in it broadest sense.
13:15-13:30 Welcome by Peter Aronsson (Linnaeus University’s vice-chancellor)
13:30-14:15 Keynote: Farah Mendlesohn, “Responding to changes in the community in the Rainbow Age of Science Fiction: the creation and reconfiguration of awards”
14:30-18:00 Sessions 1, 2, and 3 - see below
19:00 Dinner at Teleborg castle
21 June
10:00-13:00 Sessions 4 and 5 - see below
13:00-14:15 Lunch
14:15-15:00 Keynote: Laura Feldt, “The Narrative Arts of Magic, Marvels, and Mysteries: the Fascinating Fantastic from the Gilgamesh Epic to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”
15:15 Workshop: Whats's now? With a broad approach to the fantastic: Nordic Network of the Fantastic and Cultural History (Chair: Anna Höglund & Cecilia Trenter)
16:30 Closing of the Conference
Sessions
Session 1: New Media and the Fantastic
The Fantastic and Computer Games: Tracing an Orc Epistemology (Bo Kampmann Walther)
The Horror Body Fantastic in Music Video (Anna Arnman)
The Chronotope and Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation (Maria Holmgren Troy)
Session 2: Nostalgia and Dystopia
”Longing for What Never Was – Steampunk and Nostalgia” (Maria Nilson)
“Mothers and Murderers: Adults’ Oppression of Children and Adolescents in Young Adult Dystopian Literature and Its Educational Potential” (Malin Alkestrand)
The fair fantastic: A foreseeable future or mere fantasy? (Amélie Hurkens)
Session 3: Fantastic in the Past
Fantastic Europeans; Imaginations of Western Visitors in Southeast Asian Tradition (Hans Hägerdal)
Hidden history: The antediluvian age in early modern Nordic Egyptology (Joachim Östlund)
Session 4: Performing Folklore
“Don’t Call Me a Fairy”: Folkloresque Metacommentary in Contemporary Fairy Fictions (Saga Bokne)
Creatures of the Enchanted Forest: The Fantastic in Folklore (Tora Wall)
Session 5: Hunting, Haunted and the Power of Ghoststories
Ghost Hunters and the membrane between the Unreal and the Real (Anna Höglund)
“The haunted Löfstad Castle: Spectacular sensations and educational aids in the wake of a castle ghost” (Cecilia Trenter)
Keynote speakers
Laura Feldt is Associate Professor of the Study of Religion, Department of History, University of Southern Denmark. She is author of The Fantastic in Religious Narrative (Routledge, 2012) as well as many articles on narratives of the fantastic and monstrous in ancient religions and in contemporary popular culture. Another, related research focus is wilderness mythologies and relations between religion and non-human environments in the ancient and contemporary world.
Farah Mendlesohn is Co-Editor of the Hugo Award Winning Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, author of The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein and is currently working on a short book about Joanna Russ’s The Female Man. In her spare time she is a vaccinator for the Covid roll out.
About the network
This conference is arranged by the network Nordic Network of the Fantastic and Cultural History, based at Linnaeus University but with a national and Nordic reach. It serves as a gathering point for research interests in the realm of the fantastic
A sustainable event
This conference is of course a sustainability-assured meeting in accordance with Linnaeus University’s guidelines for sustainable events. These guidelines are linked to the 17 global goals in Agenda 2030 and comprise the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, the social, and the environmental. Learn more about Linnaeus University’s sustainable events here.
