scholarly journals HOFFMANNIAN TRADITIONS IN DOMESTIC URBAN FANTASY

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 84-91
Author(s):  
E. A. Safron
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Rhonda Nicol

Rhonda Nicol’s “‘Don’t Underestimate Her Ability to Talk, it’s Her Superpower’: Epistemic Negotiation and the Power of Community in Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville Series” interrogates the action heroine of the urban fantasy genre. By contrast to most authors of the genre, Carrie Vaughn, posits Nicol, highlights her protagonist’s interpersonal skills and community-building abilities, making them equal in value to physical power. The series thus posits a heroine easily identifiable to female urban fantasy readers while she questions the value of toughness for female empowerment.


Author(s):  
James Greenhalgh

This chapter examines the origins of the post-war Plans as a means to interrogate a number of historical stereotypes about Britain after the Second World War. In 1945 Hull and Manchester, in common with many other British towns and cities, produced comprehensive, detailed redevelopment plans. These Plans were a spectacular mix of maps, representations of modern architecture and ambitious cityscapes that sit, sometimes uneasily, alongside detailed tables, text and photographs. Initially examining continuities between the inter- and post-war plans, the chapter emphasises the importance of the Plans in local governments’ attempts to express long-held desires to control and shape the city. I argue that the Plans evidence an attempt to mould the future shape and idea of the modern city through imaginative use of urban fantasy. Images of modernism, I argue, were not presented as a realisable architectural aim, but as a way of mediating between the present and an indistinct, but fundamentally better future. I suggest flawed interpretations of the visual materials contained in the Plans are responsible for an over-emphasis on the influence of radical modernism in post-war Britain.


Author(s):  
Alexander C. Irvine
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
pp. 196-207
Author(s):  
E. A. Safron

The philosophical views of German romantics, as well as images, motives, chronotopes characteristic of German romanticism, embodied in the domestic urban fantasy are analyzed. Special attention is paid to the techniques of the comparative method. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the almost complete absence of works devoted to the study of urban fantasy. It is noted that this fantasy subgenre has not been considered in detail in the context of the continuation of the traditions of romantic German literature. The theoretical basis of the research is presented by the works of M. M. Bakhtin, N. Ya. Berkovsky, V. M. Zhirmunsky, Yu. M. Lotman, S. S. Levochsky, etc. It was revealed that urban fantasy inherits the main images, themes, motives, symbols that dominated in German romanticism: the motive of a double, the image of a doll, an artist, etc. It was established that the authors of urban fantasy not only reproduce the image of a romantic artist-creator, but depict a character-demiurge. It has been proven that urban fantasy deepens and transforms the romantic “night beginning”: the images of the dead and vampires become plot-forming characters in independent series of works. It is concluded that the authors of urban fantasy, like German romantics, activate the readers’ attention to mythology and folklore, creating new fantastic worlds with their help.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document