Fafnir 2/2021

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research 2/2021

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Esko Suoranta, Laura E. Goodin, Essi Varis, & Dennis Wise
Editorial 2/2021

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Prefatory

Eugen Bacon
Trends in Black Speculative Fiction

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Articles

Debalina Das
Confronting Ghosts: History, Trauma, and Aesthetics in Guillermo del Toro’s El Laberinto del Fauno

Abstract: Historically, the presentation of collective trauma has been fraught with moral and aesthetic contradictions. Hollywood, in particular, has long struggled to visually adapt national trauma into a collective whole without rendering it into a spectacle; moreso when it comes to non-Western narratives. Given the indispensability of magic realism in the history of Latin America, it stands to reason that a culture that is so steeped in alternative ways of storytelling would employ such techniques in its national cinema. In light of the sudden boom in the popularity of Latin American cinema, this paper attempts to look at how Guillermo del Toro’s El Laberinto del Fauno incorporates elements of magic realism in the fabric of its narrative in order to speak of the collective trauma of the Spanish Civil War.

Keywords: Spanish Civil War, Laberinto, magic realism, fantasy, trauma

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Krishnapriya K. & Dr. Sumathy K Swamy
Through the Portals of the Mind – a Paracosmic Study of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline

Abstract: The worlds that children build in their minds may hold the child’s interest for a consistent period of time and evolve into full-fledged paracosms, or may last only for the duration of a single playtime. Studying a child’s fantasy world can be compared to mapping the uncharted terrains of the child’s psyche. Many parallel worlds have been recorded in the pages of fantasy literature for children. Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, published in 2002, is one such book about a young protagonist’s adventures in a parallel world. This paper studies the parallel world of the eponymous protagonist as a paracosm to illustrate that this imaginary world can serve as effective means to understand the budding mind of Coraline.

Keywords: paracosms, fantasy, children, pretend-play, imagination.

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Dorothea Boshoff & Deirdre C. Byrne
“Is there a Woman in this Space Opera?” A Gender Analysis of the Aliens of Orion

Abstract: This article provides a textual analysis of The Sentients of Orion, a space-opera series by Australian feminist SF author Marianne de Pierres, with a view to investigating the series’s depiction of aliens as a reflection of contemporary views of human gender. This highlights the question of whether aliens are still used to reflect on the state of human gender roles now that society is moving past the simple black and white of the male/female binary. We undertake a qualitative exploration of selected aliens through the theoretical lenses of Judith Butler’s theory of gender as performative and queer theory. By drawing on these interpretive paradigms, we suggest that de Pierres’s aliens both register and reflect a significant broadening of the gender spectrum.

Keywords: Marianne de Pierres, The Sentients of Orion, non-humanoid aliens, gender, feminist science fiction, queer science fiction

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Discussion

Jerry Määttä, Daniel Bodén & Michael Godhe
A Conversation on AI, Science Fiction, and Work

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Conference Report

Eero Suoranta
Conference Report: GIFCon 2021: Beyond the Anglocentric Fantastic

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Book Reviews

Sasha Myerson
Book Review: New Perspectives on Dystopian Fiction in Literature and Other Media

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Joel Evans
Book Review: J. G. Ballard

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Jim Clarke
Book Review: Space for Peace: Fragments of the Irish Troubles in the Science Fiction of Bob Shaw and James White

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Rob Browning
Book Review: Arthur C. Clarke

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David Callahan
Book Review: Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century

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Katherine McLoone
Book Review: Fantasy

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Anelise Farris
Book Review: The Inklings, the Victorians, and the Moderns

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Maria Alberto
Book Review: Tolkien and the Classics

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Call for Papers: Fafnir 2/2022

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