Call for papers
Fastitocalonvolume III (2012)
Publishedby Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier (WVT)
http://fastitocalon.kolbitar.de
Humour and theFantastic
Humourhas been a recognisable part of literature ever since antiquity. The ‘Homericlaughter' has become proverbial and Lucian dazzled the readers of his Vera Historia with a firework of comic(and absurd) ideas. Nevertheless, the co-existence or even symbiosis ofhumorous and fantastic elements is the exception rather than the rule. Lucian'swork points the way for most of the later instances, and we find elements ofthe fantastic and the humorous co-existing most often in texts that show aself-reflexive genre awareness; in consequence the ‘funny' fantastic resultsfrom parodistic exaggeration of certain traits.
Non-parodisticfantastic literature is, at least in the Western tradition, mostly free ofhumour. A cursory glance at the ‘canon' of the fantastic affirms thisimpression, though we can also note attempts at combining the Gothic with thehumorous, as in Oscar Wilde's TheCanterville Ghost (1887), or the absurd (as another category of thehumorous) with the fantastic, as in Nicolai Gogol's The Nose (1835), or the fantastique with the French humourtinged with bitter irony, as in Honoré de Balzac's L'Élixir de longue vie (1846) or Gérard de Nerval's Le Monstre vert (1852). It is only at the end of the 20thcentury that the subcategory of ‘the humorous fantasy' makes an appearance,most notably in the works of Terry Pratchett and his highly successful parodiesof the genre.
Fastitocalon is pleased to solicit proposals for papersfor its third volume, which explore the relationship between Humour and theFantastic. Contributions may focus on individual works or protagonists, discussthe historical development and transformations, or explore theliterary-theoretical aspects connected with these aspects. Even though thelanguage of publication is English, we would like to encourage the contributorsto include works in other languages in their discussion of the phenomenon.
Deadline for abstracts (issue 1): 30 November 2011
Deadline for full papers (issue 1): 29 February 2012
Deadline for abstracts (issue 2): 31 January 2012
Deadline for full papers (issue 2): 30 June 2012
Fastitocalon is a peer-reviewed journal. Abstracts and/or full paperssubmitted will be reviewed by the editors and members of the board of advisors.
Abstracts (c. 600 words or 3,000 characters) or full papers (up to c.8,000 words or 40,000 characters), together with a brief biographical sketch,are to be sent to either of the following addresses:
Prof. Dr. Fanfan Chen
Email:ffchen@mail.ndhu.edu.tw / chenfantasticism@gmail.com
Postalmail: Dept. of English & Doctoral Program of Comparative Literature
NationalDong Hwa University
97401Shoufeng, Hualien County
Taiwan
Prof. Dr. Thomas Honegger
Email: Tm.honegger@uni-jena.de
Postal mail: Institut für Anglistik& Amerikanistik
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Ernst-Abbe-Platz 8
D-07743 Jena
Germany