{"id":2161,"date":"2023-12-22T13:42:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T20:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/?page_id=2161"},"modified":"2023-12-22T13:42:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T20:42:10","slug":"jfa-34-3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/jfa-34-3\/","title":{"rendered":"JFA 34.3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Cover image of Volume 34 Issue Number 3 of the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Become a Member of the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ufeff<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purchase from Favian Press<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Buy from Amazon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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JFA 34.3<\/strong> – Table of Contents<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Creative Think Piece: A Grace-ful Testimony                                   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Jason Oby<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toward a Broader Definition of the Unrealistic: Louise Erdrich\u2019s Future Home of the Living God<\/em> and Ernesto Qui\u00f1onez\u2019s Ta\u00edna<\/em>                 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       M\u00f3nica G. Ayuso<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communication Breakdown: Failed Embodied Individuation and Computer Mediated Communication in Samanta Schweblin\u2019s Kentukis<\/em> [Little Eyes<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Anthony L\u00f3pez Get<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benevolent Conspiracy: Biopolitics and Paranoia in Shane Carruth\u2019s Upstream Color<\/em>                                                                                     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Steffen Hantke<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filmic Transpositions of Comic Books: Theorising the Relationship Between the Languages of Cinema and Comics                                                <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Yuri Garcia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grotesque Bodies and Grotesque Power in Djinn City <\/em>and Clone<\/em>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Sayujya Sankar<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jinetes de la tormenta<\/em>: The Invasive Influence of Gender Constructs on the Journey Towards Selfhood and Societal Progress                            <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Marissa Luquette<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Queer Temporality of Gail Carriger\u2019s Parasol Protectorate     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Willow M. Conley and Natalie Grinnell<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m No Mollycoddle\u201d: A Reinterpretation of Lovecraft\u2019s \u201cPickman\u2019s Model\u201d      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Dylan Henderson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hell that You Create: Hellbound: Hellraiser II <\/em>and the Limits of the Symbolic Order                                                                                      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Barbara Greene<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elliptical Structures and Fantastic Times: Coltrane\u2019s \u201cMy Favorite Things\u201d and Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s One Hundred Years of Solitude<\/em>                   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Geoff Guevara-Geer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genre Infrastructure as Speculative Method in Latin America      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Patrick Anthony Barbosa Brock<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender and Old Age as Sources of Empowerment: Tenar\u2019s Case in Ursula K. Le Guin\u2019s Earthsea Saga                                                                        <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Jon Alkorta<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

REVIEWS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taryne Jade Taylor, Isiah Lavender III, Grace L. Dillon, and Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay\u2019s The Routledge Handbook of CoFuturisms<\/em>         <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Rev. by Alexis Brooks de Vita<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yamile Saied M\u00e9ndez and Amparo Ortiz’s Our Shadows Have Claws: 15 Latin American Monster Stories<\/em>                                                                   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Rev. by Jacob Hibbard<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Plotz’s Ursula Le Guin\u2019s Earthsea<\/em>                                             <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Rev. by Federico Palmieri di Pietro<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Abstracts<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

M\u00f3nica Ayuso<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toward a Broader Definition of the Unrealistic: Louise Erdrich\u2019s Future Home of the Living God<\/em> and Ernesto Qui\u00f1onez’s Ta\u00edna<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article argues that Louise Erdrich\u2019s Future Home of the Living God<\/em> (2017) and Ernesto Qui\u00f1onez\u2019s Ta\u00edna<\/em> (2019)\u2014the former directed towards the future, the latter towards the past–have a similar purpose. Mainly through incursions into the genre Qui\u00f1onez himself labeled urban magical realism, Ta\u00edna<\/em> recapitulates the real social and historical relations that obtain within the post-colonial culture of Latinx, mostly Puerto Ricans, in New York. In this manner, they restructure\/rewrite the past, implicitly reorienting the future. And in her one and only foray into the genre of speculative fiction to date, Erdrich\u2019s Future<\/em> Home<\/em> aims equally at dislodging present conditions involving the Ojibwe as a means of imagining a different future. Both narratives come to terms with a traumatic past. First they deploy, and then they foil, dominant histories\/narratives in order to decolonize the deterministic future that colonial\/capitalist power structures crystalize for Indigenous peoples. The genres of magical realism and speculative fiction open alternate spaces of empowerment and engagement as they broaden the definition of the unrealistic to include the magical and the futuristic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Anthony L\u00f3pez Get<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communication Breakdown: Failed Embodied Individuation and Computer Mediated Communication in Samanta Schweblin\u2019s Kentukis<\/em> [Little Eyes<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The present studyexplores the failure of technological bodies as vessels for alternative subjectivities or as viable forms of new human relations in Argentinian writer Samanta Schweblin\u2019s dystopian novel Kentukis<\/em> [Little Eyes<\/em>] (2018).  The characters in the novel represent the alienation of individuals in an increasingly technological world\u2014not futuristic, but very current and present\u2014with thousands of channels and mediums of communication, but fewer chances of human contact. This lack in the lives of the characters puts them in a vulnerable condition, exploited by the marketing of these new technologies. The element of anonymity provided by Computer Mediated Communication (CMC)\u2014here represented by kentukis\u2014contrasts with the exponential invasion of privacy some users are willing to endure in order to participate in a social game.  I argue that the novel criticizes the alienating effect of technology and the inadequacy of the vast options of CMC. Alluding to current anxieties in the Information Era related to identity and the use of alter egos mediated by computer interfaces, the author exposes the need to find meaningful channels of communication, the limitations of these embodied subjectivities by means of the different characters\u2019 inability to communicate effectively, and the fragility of these alternative lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Steffan Hantke<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benevolent Conspiracy: Biopolitics and Paranoia in Shane Carruth\u2019s Upstream Color<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Celebrated by critics for its elliptical, fragmentary aesthetics, Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color<\/em> deploys elements of the paranoid science fiction thriller, albeit without the requisite affective register of panic and anxiety. The fictional biotechnological process at the core of its narrative evolves into a complex web of visual and thematic associations in which paranoid anxiety gradually dissipates. While this appears at first glance as a critical deconstruction of conspiracy theories\u2014all the more relevant at a time when American politics engages more than ever in what Richard Hofstadter has called a \u201cparanoid style\u201d\u2014the film actually steers clear of conventional gestures of opposing or debunking paranoia. Instead, it expands the representational range in which paranoia can be rendered and experienced. Proposing what amounts of a version of conspiracy that is no longer nefarious in methods and intents, but potentially beneficial in its outcomes, Upstream Color<\/em> assumes particular relevance in regard to the biological metaphors it selects to make its point\u2014an exploration of biopolitics which, viewed in hindsight of the COVID-19 pandemic, accounts both for the productive management of biotechnological anxieties and the conspiracy theories in which these anxieties manifest themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yuri Garcia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filmic Transpositions of Comic Books: Theorising the Relationship Between the Languages of Cinema and Comics<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filmic transpositions of comic books\u2014especially superhero stories\u2014have provided huge box office gains for Hollywood, while the comic book market seems to leverage itself with the publicity of its characters and their narratives in the audiovisual. This article outlines some similarities between these two media, highlighting aspects of their languages. The first section presents the relationship between comics and live action cinema, tracing an overview of their historical elements and already developing some articulations of a more theoretical nature. Similarities between the two media through specific authors and issues of language and content will also be addressed, to provide a more complete view of this phenomenon. The second section focuses on discussing some differences and difficulties, debating the transposition process through more technical observations, and approaching the most recent scenario of film productions and specific research on the subject. This discussion of similarities and differences in the relationship between cinema and comics will highlight issues surrounding the popularization of live-action transpositions of superhero stories, a process that does not seem to be reaching its conclusive period, but rather opening new possibilities. The final section contains considerations on the most recent mutations in this field, demonstrating that this object of study is a phenomenon in constant transformation and reconfiguration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keywords: Cinema; comic books; transpositions; language; theory.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sayujya Sankar<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grotesque Bodies and Grotesque Power in Djinn City<\/em> and Clone<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The presence of the grotesque in Djinn City and Clone functions as a mirror to society, depicting various curbs on freedom and individual rights. Saad Hossain and Priya Chabria refer to a historical or mythical past located within the Indian subcontinent, which defines the plotline for their protagonists. Through this interweaving of past, present and future, the writers reflect the stark reality that humanity is predominantly repressive while simultaneously exploring what justice is in these skewed worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Djinn City and Clone begin by exploring the differences between the human and the fantastic, only to highlight the monstrosity in both. Fundamentally, both novels ask what it is to be human(e) and situate this existential question in the regional and historical landscape of Bangladesh and India, respectively. The authors shape notions of the grotesque\/ human and the monstrous\/humane not as opposing qualities, but as interchangeable characteristics among various beings. The depiction of past, present and future can be interlinked with the socio-political landscape depicted in the novels.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marissa Luquette<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jinetes de la tormenta<\/em><\/strong>: The Invasive Influence of Gender Constructs on the Journey Towards Selfhood and Societal Progress<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the lens of Jinetes de la tormenta<\/em>, a Spanish novel written by Javier Casta\u00f1eda de la Torre in 2019, this article seeks to classify gender as a primary source of human discontent and a significant obstacle on the journey towards self-actualization and social progress. Lacanian psychoanalytic theory as well as the feminist theories of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cixous are employed to demonstrate the alienation from and erasure of the self that occurs within the novel through the consistent use of European languages binarized by gender. Alongside Lacan and Cixous, theories by Judith Butler are utilized to detail the confines of the gendered body that impede the protagonist, Yarsa\u2019s, ability to develop a sense of identity and find fulfillment in her life. In conclusion, this article examines Yarsa\u2019s communications with Gumba, an artificial intelligence of extraterrestrial origin via a futuristic machine called the \u201caxionita,\u201d first, as a method for healing from gender-based violence, and second, as an accessible model of technology through which a gender-bound perception of the self can be deconstructed. As a result of inclusive language patterns set forth in user-based technology like the \u201caxionita,\u201d the undivided self can be recovered, as opposed to contemporary technology which stifles inclusivity and reinforces alienation from the self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Willow M. Conley and Natalie Grinnell<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Queer Temporality of Gail Carriger\u2019s Parasol Protectorate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most contemporary werewolf literature, the werewolf body changes shape but the contemporary werewolf heroine is still helpless to resist this temporal sequence of  birth, marriage, reproduction, and death typical of  historical romance. This article uses the concept of queer temporality to show how the werewolves in Gail Carriger\u2019s Parasol Protectorate series twist away from normative temporality to redefine the nature of the wolf, its erotic relationships, and its function in the werewolf pack, creating a queer space in the supernatural community that resists many of the clich\u00e9d tropes of other paranormal romance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dylan Henderson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m No Mollycoddle\u201d: A Reinterpretation of Lovecraft\u2019s \u201cPickman\u2019s Model\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

H. P. Lovecraft\u2019s \u201cPickman\u2019s Model\u201d has attracted less scholarly attention than the other short stories he wrote at that time, and most critics have dismissed it as pulpish and conventional. If contextualized, however, the nature of the story changes, and it becomes one of Lovecraft\u2019s most pointed, and enjoyable, satires. A close reading suggests that it reimagines recent events in Lovecraft\u2019s professional life, specifically his troubles with the new editor of Weird Tales<\/em>, Farnsworth Wright. Responding to a controversy over \u201cThe Loved Dead,\u201d which Lovecraft revised, Wright promised in early 1925 to ban gruesome horror, a compromise that would exclude many of Lovecraft\u2019s contemporary efforts. The contradictions that Lovecraft saw in this policy, and which he mocked in his correspondence, resurface in \u201cPickman\u2019s Model,\u201d which invites the reader to laugh at its protagonist and his stance toward weird art and, by extension, the stance taken by Weird Tales<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Barbara Greene<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hell that You Create: Hellbound: Hellraiser II<\/em> and the Limits of the Symbolic Order<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The horror of Hellbound: Hellraiser II <\/em>lies not in its use of menace or the boundaries of the human body that are violated but instead in its exploration of the ultimate Lack that lies within the Symbolic Order and male hegemony. Those who fully absorb the masks and identities projected upon them by the Symbolic Order remain utterly vulnerable to the mundane world\u2019s paternal order. Hell is a mirror that makes physical the inherent violence of the social order in the same way that the filth and brutality of Dr. Channard\u2019s basement is an overt version of the brightly lit mental ward above, where women are imprisoned, exploited and brutalized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hellish maternal only arises when it exists as a mirror to the mundane paternal.  Kirstie and Tiffany\u2019s ability to see the illusory nature of both realms provides them with the power to escape and find their sense of identity and peace.  This escape is only available to the feminine due to their psycho-social development.  Ultimately, their connection to reality and their intuitive grasp of the limits of the mundane world\u2019s Symbolic Order allow Kirstie and Tiffany to survive their encounter with Hell when those around them fail. Despite their status as female patients in a mental institution, they recognize that the power of the institution is not all-encompassing, just as they recognize that the power of the Leviathan is limited. Only through the liberation of resisting surrenders of identity can both worlds collapse into something truly compassionate and without horror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Geoff Guevara-Geer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elliptical Structures and Fantastic Times: <\/em>Coltrane\u2019s \u201cMy Favorite Things\u201d and Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s One Hundred Years of Solitude<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calling upon Cuban Severo Sarduy\u2019s neo-Baroque figure of the ellipse, this article considers similarities between John Coltrane\u2019s jazz recomposition of \u201cMy Favorite Things\u201d (1960) and Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude <\/em>(1967). Both are approached as ellipses, dually centered and liberated from the singular centrisms of then-recent works, Coltrane\u2019s \u201cGiant Steps\u201d (1967) and Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s \u201cThe Third Resignation\u201d (1947). Unlike those circular or linear works, these achieve a floating, fantastic time, barely tethered to pre-determined forces and immensely appealing to mass audiences. It was a moment for ellipses in the arts, works achieving a fantastical sense of time, only obliquely responding to historical forces. After these works, the arts at large, and these artists in particular, would leave ellipses and mass appeal behind with more forward-thinking works such as Coltrane\u2019s Interstellar Space <\/em>(1967) and Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s The Autumn of the Patriarch <\/em>(1975).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Patrick Anthony Barbosa Brock<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genre Infrastructure as Speculative Method in Latin America<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on ethnographic research of 100 speculative fiction creators and fans in nine Latin American countries, this article describes the contemporary social role of genre and its communities of practice. Identifying the intersection of the genre\u2019s self-organization and political intent in the region as genre infrastructure, the article argues that it constitutes a socially regenerative collectivity and speculative method. Lastly, it discusses the potential of these efforts to enact change as a new form of political imagination within the globally emerging culture of CoFuturisms. Because of the way cognition is socially distributed, this article argues that CoFuturisms can operate as political-aesthetic subjectivities that intervene in the failure to conceive and enact different presents and futures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jon Alkorta<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender and Old Age as Sources of Empowerment: Tenar\u2019s Case in Ursula K. Le Guin\u2019s Earthsea Saga<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The present paper aims at filling a gap that exists in scholarly research about Tenar\u2019s character in Le Guin\u2019s Earthsea saga once she reaches old age. The study of this period of her life is crucial because it is the combination of two factors, namely her female condition and old age, that enable her to become a powerful and individualised character. This essay establishes bridges between Tenar\u2019s own process and Le Guin\u2019s ideals about gender and social equality.  To accomplish this, the present paper focuses on Tenar\u2019s life as an adult as shown in Tehanu<\/em> and The Other Wind<\/em>, discerning the role that Le Guin\u2019s ideas about feminism and social power structures play in this character\u2019s conversion into a powerful individual.  Studying Earthsea\u2019s last two novels, Tehanu<\/em> and The Other Wind<\/em>, conveys Le Guin\u2019s anxieties related to issues such as gender and social justice. What is remarkable in these last instalments is the skill that Le Guin showcases even after getting rid of some of its main conventions, namely action and adventure. In Tehanu<\/em> and The Other Wind<\/em>, it is as if the action and main lines of the argument are moved to the background and the focus is put on the lives that certain characters lead. As Rashley points out, they are the result of Le Guin\u2019s \u201ceffort to redefine the nature of heroism to include women\u2019s experience\u201d (27). Le Guin picks and discards elements of the fantasy genre as she deems them appropriate for the telling of her story and those of her female characters, whose life stories resemble the description she gives of her own life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keywords<\/em>: gender, old age, empowering, social equality, Le Guin, Earthsea<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\ufeff Become a Member of the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts \ufeff Purchase from Favian Press \ufeff Buy from Amazon \ufeff Buy from Smashwords JFA 34.3 – Table of Contents Creative Think Piece: A Grace-ful Testimony                                           Jason Oby Toward a Broader Definition of the Unrealistic: Louise Erdrich\u2019s Future Home of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2161","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2163,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2161\/revisions\/2163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}