English 44 - Fall, 2016

Introductory Topics in Fiction

Topic: FANTASY FICTION

Class Information

Instructor: Jerng, Mark
CRN: 32380
Time: MWF 1:10-2:00
Location: 6 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

The Gifts, Ursula K. Le Guin
Return to Neveryon, Samuel Delany
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Angela Carter