With a broad approach to the fantastic
The concept of the fantastic
The concept of the fantastic is usually linked to genre descriptions of fantasy, science fiction, and horror in film and literature studies. The purpose of the Network is to broaden the relevance of the concept to include studies of the fantastic in its widest sense, from antiquity to the present day, seeking to investigate how the fantastic in different societies and cultures concretizes relations with the surrounding world through the portrayal of norms, attitudes, needs, and dreams.
The Network’s research page is the hub for information about upcoming seminars and conferences, for tips on newly published literature or calls for papers for journals, and for courses given at Linnaeus University associated with the Network. Both in artistic education, such as creative writing, and in scholarly education, such as comparative literature, archaeology, and history, there are courses dealing with the genre of the fantastic, the use of history, and cultural heritage.
Research
The research focuses on how the metaphysical and the metarealistic are presented in different media.
Participants in the Network are engaged in research on topics such as how the fantastic processes collective beliefs that confirm or challenge perceptions of reality, on relations between rival knowledge paradigms, and on the creation or maintenance of political orders.
The Network is based at Linnaeus University but has a national and Nordic reach. It serves as a meeting place for research interests, with the members participating, for example, in joint seminars, panels at conferences, and publications.