English 44 - Spring, 2019

Introductory Topics in Fiction

Topic: Fantasy Fiction

 

Class Information

Instructor: Jerng, Mark
CRN: 71809
Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Location: 26 Wellman
 

Description

This course is an introduction to fantasy fiction, focusing specifically on three modes: epic fantasy in the Tolkien tradition, sword and sorcery, and retellings of myth and history. We will explore the overlapping historical, thematic, and formal concerns of each of these modes. These include a) moral, philosophical, and political issues such as the nature of transcendence, questions of causality, agency, and will, and the construction of social and cultural values; b) formal and structural issues in storytelling such as the processes of world-building, the formation of myth, and the critical uses of genre analysis; c) historical issues such as the great wars of the twentieth-century, the imagination of slavery and market economies, the gendered formations of work, play, adventure, and power. We will read representative works by J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Lord Dunsany, Ursula K. LeGuin, Joanna Russ, Samuel Delany, Angela Carter, and Nalo Hopkinson, among others.

Grading

Two short literary analysis papers
2250 word review essay
Final Exam
Mid-quarter Quiz

Texts

Return to Neveryon, Samuel Delany
The Gifts, Ursula K. Le Guin
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Angela Carter