LIT Contemporary Fantasy
Thematic Focuses



In this course we will be reading a range of texts from the past few years which in a variety of ways depart from our usual notions of what is "real." Fantasy in narrative fiction might be said, in fact, to be just such a departure from the often unexamined and tacit consensus about what's real. Putting it this way, however, points to a central issue in this course: what is the "real" in these novels; and how and why does the novel achieve and undercut this appearance of the real.

Why depart from consensus reality in the first place? The novels in this course provide several kinds of answers to this surprisingly complex question, but we will find a number of interconnecting themes and concerns stitching together these answers. Most of these texts explore the formations and diversities of identity, the filiations of community, and the complex relationships of power, will, and definitions of the good. Many also use the fantastic to interrogate gender relations, the nature of the human, and the possibilities of personal or communal transcendence. 

Perhaps the best way to to suggest the direction of our research in this richly complex domain will be through a series of suggestive questions, offered here in no particular order or precedence, but with the expectation that some or all of these will come into play in our readings in the course. We're looking forward to your additions to this list of questions and to our community's emerging answers--or responses--to them.