Fantastika Journal

This podcast is part of the Bodily Transgressions in Fantastika Media Symposium.
Join the discussion on discord (https://discord.gg/zsMTBcnTcC) or on our Round Table Discussions on 12 November 2022 (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89886254918). See www.fantastikajournal.com for details

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Podcast by: Eda Begüm Erer

Proof That Tony Stark Has a Heart:
A Look at the Notion of the Cyborg and Transcorporeality through the Bodily Modification of Heart Surgery with the Help of MCU’s Iron Man

Keywords: Medical Humanities, Bodily Modification, Cyborg, New Materialism, Transcorporeality
Content Warnings: Blood, Medical Violence, Depression

This paper serves as a prologue to a larger book project on our metal connections to the world. Focusing on the metals inside the body, including braces, joint replacements, pacemakers, and particularly to my personal interest, stents and how metal is used to redirect the blood flow inside the body, I hope to analyze the different ways in which our bodies have been made desperate for metallic help. Focusing on Donna Haraway’s concept of the cyborg and what feminist ecocritic Stacy Alaimo terms as the “transcorporeal” existence of the human body, I look at the ways in which metal helps us be in optimal health, and the existential connotations and horror of a necessary cyborgness of living. To offer visual and emotional stimuli beyond personal experience, a popular cultural figure, Iron Man, is considered. The medical trauma and emotional suffering the character Tony Stark goes through after a life altering injury that makes him a figure that is more-than-human or better-than-human, is altered by showing his emotional and romantic growth which is emphasized by the famous saying for his arch reactor, what keeps him alive and a superhero, “the proof that Tony Stark has a heart”. The metallic modification, as portrayed in the figure of Tony Stark throughout several box office hit movies, has results beyond it’s intended purpose: to keep the body alive, or more importantly, to keep it human. The metal appendage has
psychological consequences beyond its nonliving help to alter the body. In a day and age where this sort of medical marvel has started to be widespread beyond the scope of science fiction and superhero movies, we need to once again renegotiate our concept of bodily existence, wholeness and the cyborg. Perhaps, soon enough one day, the concept of having a heart, or having a body, needs to be altered.

About the Author: Eda Begüm Erer is an independent researcher who recently completed her MA in English Literature at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey. She is currently preparing for her PhD studies. Her areas of interest include science fiction, dystopian narratives, ecocriticism and feminist new materialism.

Disclaimer: The information and ideas in these podcasts are the property of the speakers. Fantastika Journal operates under the Creative Commons Licence CCBY-NC. This allows for the reproduction or transcription of podcasts for non-commercial uses, only with the appropriate citation information. All rights belong to the author.

The views expressed in these podcasts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fantastika Journal and its editorial board. 

Transcripts have been provided by the author and there may be small changes between the written script and audio recording. We apologize for any errors. 

This podcast is part of the Bodily Transgressions in Fantastika Media Symposium.
Join the discussion on discord (https://discord.gg/zsMTBcnTcC) or on our Round Table Discussions on 12 November 2022 (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89886254918). See www.fantastikajournal.com for details

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Podcast by: Alesha Serada

Return of the Amphibian Human:
Underwater Utopias in History and Fiction

Content warning: aquaphobia
Underwater utopias remain a viable but incredibly scarce alternative to space exploration in fantastic media. In history, real-life underwater habitats were constructed in the USSR in the 1960-70s, inspired by pioneering projects of Jacques-Yves Cousteau in the West. Sadly, technological development in this field had stalled when available resources were channeled into the ‘space race’. The idea of an amphibian human, an aquatic cyborg living in harmony with the ocean, seem to be marginalized and framed as less worthy even in Western posthumanist thought e.g. Donna Haraway (2015, 2016), which demonstrates full effect of Cartesian rationalism on fantastic imagination. While humans in space can always be reduced, more or less, to ‘brains in jars’, living in the ocean requires becoming one with it on the bodily level, such as, being able to breathe underwater. To achieve this, not even completely fantastic, goal, humans may require body modifications such as described, for example, in the early Soviet science fiction novel by Alexandr Belyaev Amphibian Man (1928) and its film adaptation in 1961.
In my ongoing research, I explore body modifications of aquatic cyborgs and amphibian humans in fiction and scientific imagination. In Amphibian Man, ability to breathe underwater is framed as the key to the immensely beautiful and homely underwater world, and yet it makes its bearer less than human, or even a monster, in human society. Tellingly, almost the same framing is presented in the contemporary fantasy film Shape of Water (del Toro, 2016) that took inspiration not from Amphibian Man (although such comparisons were made), but from reversing the narrative of Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). By discovering more amphibian humans and aquatic cyborgs as main protagonists in fantastic media, I hope to find out how such constrains of imagination can be illustrative of the mind/body split in Western though.

About the Author: Alesha Serada is a PhD student and a researcher at the University of Vaasa, Finland. Their dissertation, supported by the Nissi Foundation, discusses construction of value in games on blockchain. In general, Alesha writes on exploitation, violence, horror, deception and other banal and non-banal evils in visual media.

Disclaimer: The information and ideas in these podcasts are the property of the speakers. Fantastika Journal operates under the Creative Commons Licence CCBY-NC. This allows for the reproduction or transcription of podcasts for non-commercial uses, only with the appropriate citation information. All rights belong to the author.

The views expressed in these podcasts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fantastika Journal and its editorial board. 

Transcripts have been provided by the author and there may be small changes between the written script and audio recording. We apologize for any errors. 

This podcast is part of the Bodily Transgressions in Fantastika Media Symposium.
Join the discussion on discord (https://discord.gg/zsMTBcnTcC) or on our Round Table Discussions on 12 November 2022 (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86139747151). See www.fantastikajournal.com for details

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Podcast by: Steph Farnsworth

Mutants As An Operator of Supremacy: 
Utilising The Priory of the Orange Tree

The Priory of the Orange Tree, a book released in 2020 to critical acclaim and with a sequel soon to follow in 2023, examined the tropes of fantasy and carefully dismantled them. Queens handed power to democracies, old religions were challenged for misogyny, and cultural differences were celebrated rather than shunned or forced to assimilate. One central plot is that every single Queen of Inys looks exactly alike, and can only have a daughter. It is revealed later in the text that this is due to a witch’s curse, that made every Queen (and her descendent) in the image of her.
This piece will therefore examine the concentrated power of blood lines in speculative fiction, and how The Priory of the Orange Tree highlights and then tries to dismantle this white supremacist trope. Making a mutant child specifically in the (white, abled) witch’s image has links to eugenics and the racist and debunked ideas surrounding phrenology.
Additionally, the work of Cohen and scholars such as Flanagan will be called upon to examine the role of mutants (and themes of biopunk) in adhering to genetic fetishism (Haraway, 2006). The clone, of course, has been a staple of science fiction and a source of bio-anxiety for audiences and the general media ever since stories of Dolly The Sheep broke in the late 90s. But the clone is a tool of authors, and a tool for a specific ideology and biological discomfort.
The Priory of the Orange Tree can become a template for beginning to dismantle this trope of the chosen one and of the idealized body, but first it must be fully and thoroughly examined in literary and speculative traditions.

About the Author: Steph Farnsworth is a PhD candidate at the University of Sunderland examining the role of mutants in media and audience relationships to them and biotechnology. Her research sits at the intersection of posthumanism and Gothic theory. Steph Farnsworth is also a founder of the academic network MultiPlay, which takes a multidisciplinary approach to video game studies.

Disclaimer: The information and ideas in these podcasts are the property of the speakers. Fantastika Journal operates under the Creative Commons Licence CCBY-NC. This allows for the reproduction or transcription of podcasts for non-commercial uses, only with the appropriate citation information. All rights belong to the author.

The views expressed in these podcasts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fantastika Journal and its editorial board. 

 
Transcripts have been provided by the author and there may be small changes between the written script and audio recording. We apologize for any errors. 

This podcast is part of the Bodily Transgressions in Fantastika Media Symposium.
Join the discussion on discord (https://discord.gg/zsMTBcnTcC) or on our Round Table Discussions on 12 November 2022 (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86139747151). See www.fantastikajournal.com for details

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Podcast by: C. Palmer-Patel

Fantastical Inheritance: 
Unpacking Parental Rights in the Wake of Roe Versus Wade, 1973

Content Warning: rape, abortion, forced birth, infertility, miscarriage, incest, cannibalism, abduction, child abduction, child abuse, and pedophilia 

Epic fantasy is well suited for exploring real-world concerns of heteropatriarchy and imperialism as it is a space where these structures are, not only common, but expected and frequently even accepted by audiences of the genre. Epic fantasy is particularly noted for its patriarchal anxieties as the hero is often a lost heir, one that is a descendant of a noble lineage. This conference paper will examine fantasy texts produced by American authors in the wake of Roe versus Wade (1973), posing each text as a response to real-world anxieties and concerns about parenting rights. Forming the first part of preliminary research for a much larger research project, this podcast will briefly survey conception, motherhood, and fatherhood in the following novels: David Eddings’ Guardians of the West (1987), Melanie Rawn’s Dragon Prince (1988), Orson Scott Card’s Hart’s Hope (1983), Phyllis Eisenstein’s Sorcerer’s Son (1979), Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mist of Avalon (1982), and Phyllis Ann Karr’s Frostflower and Thorn (1980). 

About the Author: Charul (“Chuckie”) Palmer-Patel is founder and Co-Head-Editor of Fantastika Journal. Her first monograph, The Shape of Fantasy (Routledge, 2020) investigates the narrative structures of Epic Fantasy, incorporating ideas from science, philosophy, and literary theory. This paper is an early draft for a chapter in her next monograph, Negotiating Motherhood and Maternity in American Fantasy Fiction (Edinburgh University Press).

Disclaimer: The information and ideas in these podcasts are the property of the speakers. Fantastika Journal operates under the Creative Commons Licence CCBY-NC. This allows for the reproduction or transcription of podcasts for non-commercial uses, only with the appropriate citation information. All rights belong to the author.

The views expressed in these podcasts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fantastika Journal and its editorial board. 

Transcripts have been provided by the author and there may be small changes between the written script and audio recording. We apologize for any errors. 

This podcast is part of the Bodily Transgressions in Fantastika Media Symposium.
Join the discussion on discord (https://discord.gg/zsMTBcnTcC) or on our Round Table Discussions on 12 November 2022 (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82649849358). See www.fantastikajournal.com for details

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Podcast by: Jamie MacGregor

“Tell me, what are you becoming?”:
The Trans Body in Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal (2013-2015)

Content Warning: Violence
Throughout Bryan Fuller’s hit TV show, Hannibal (2013-2015), the metaphor of ‘becoming’ is used to describe a character becoming the truest version of themselves, a process which is often very violent. I assert that this link between violence and transformation makes Hannibal an example of Bakhtin’s ‘grotesque’. The idea of becoming is also used almost exclusively in reference to three characters: Will Graham, Randall Tier, and Francis Dolarhyde. In this paper, I argue that this becoming metaphor can also be read as characters ‘transitioning’ – here, transition refers to the process of changing one’s outward or physical characteristics to more closely align with one’s gender identity rather than birth sex. This may or may not involve medical procedures like hormone therapy or surgery. Thus, the language of ‘becoming your true self’ is also frequently used in reference to transitioning, making a connection to the characters mentioned and transness seem natural. To further explore this, I will use Jay Prosser’s discussion of transition in Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality (1998), and Evelyn Deshane’s paper, ‘The Great Red Dragon: Francis Dolarhyde and Queer Readings of Skin’, which asserts that Dolarhyde is a potentially trans character. Alongside this, I will be using textual analysis to look at the representation of Randall Tier, Francis Dolarhyde, and Will Graham, who I argue are coded as transgender.

About the Author: Jamie MacGregor (they/them) completed their MLitt in English Literature at the University of Glasgow. Jamie has varied research interests depending on when you ask them, but they are primarily interested in the horror genre across media, queer and trans theory as well as representation in media, and fan studies. 
 
 Disclaimer: The information and ideas in these podcasts are the property of the speakers. Fantastika Journal operates under the Creative Commons Licence CCBY-NC. This allows for the reproduction or transcription of podcasts for non-commercial uses, only with the appropriate citation information. All rights belong to the author.

The views expressed in these podcasts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fantastika Journal and its editorial board. 

Transcripts have been provided by the author and there may be small changes between the written script and audio recording. We apologize for any errors. 

This podcast is part of the Bodily Transgressions in Fantastika Media Symposium.
Join the discussion on discord (https://discord.gg/zsMTBcnTcC) or on our Round Table Discussions on 12 November 2022 (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82649849358). See www.fantastikajournal.com for details

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Podcast by: El Plaza

On Doctors and Transness: Medicalisation and Objectification of the Trans(gressing) Body in Winterson’s Frankissstein (2019)

This paper examines the representation of transmasculine character Dr Ry Shelley in Jeanette Winterson’s science-fiction novel Frankissstein: A Love Story (2019), and his romantic relationship with cis male AI-expert and transhumanist enthusiast Professor Victor Stein. In a text presented as a “love story”, one wonders how body politics intervene in a love that is based on a cis person adoring a trans person for their embodying transgression in the form of gender affirming hormone therapy and gender affirmation surgery. For this reason, special attention is given to the exoticization and fetishization of medically intervened transgender bodies, which should be noted, both worryingly reduce transness to a surgical-pharmacological intervention while reproducing damaging patterns of objectification. In terms of methodology, I combine both Literary and Queer Theories, being the feminist postmodern approach of authors such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Paul B. Preciado of outmost relevance to the analysis. On the one hand, the former encourages the examination and questioning of gender and sexuality in literary texts, while the latter intersects with it, therefore allowing a further dissecting of aspects of power, identity, and language – all these resulting crucial to the analysis of the representation of transgender subjectivities in the selected work. Thus, given that the most pressuring discourse for the trans
community is the medical one, so much so that it shaped (while delimiting) and recognized their existence at the beginning of the twentieth century, it is interesting to observe to what extent is it still connected to the trans body – a century later. Analysing Frankissstein allows for a study of the revisioning of the relationship between medicine and transness in contemporary science fiction, raising old questions that simply involve new scenarios: transgender characters are presented as objectified as they historically have been, only this time the objectification comes from links to AI, transhumanism, and technological singularity.

About the Author: El Plaza (they/them) is a PhD candidate at the University of Huelva (Spain) whose research focuses on the analysis of the representation of transgender characters in contemporary British fiction written by cis female authors. Their main research interests are the (de)medicalization, objectification and pathologizing of trans bodies, as well as the (mis)representations of transness in connection to class and race.

Disclaimer: The information and ideas in these podcasts are the property of the speakers. Fantastika Journal operates under the Creative Commons Licence CCBY-NC. This allows for the reproduction or transcription of podcasts for non-commercial uses, only with the appropriate citation information. All rights belong to the author.

The views expressed in these podcasts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fantastika Journal and its editorial board. 

Transcripts have been provided by the author and there may be small changes between the written script and audio recording. We apologize for any errors. 

This podcast is part of the Bodily Transgressions in Fantastika Media Symposium.
Join the discussion on discord (https://discord.gg/zsMTBcnTcC) or on our Round Table Discussions on 12 November 2022 (https://us04web.zoom.us/j/78547989824). See www.fantastikajournal.com for details

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Podcast by: Michael Wheatley

‘There was no pleasure in the air; or at least not as humankind understood it’: 
Clive Barker’s Weird Extremes

Weird fiction is traditionally viewed through two chronologies: the ‘Old Weird’ of the 1880s to the 1940s, and the ‘New Weird’ of the 1990s to the present. Yet, from these distinctions, many authors of the decades between have been excluded from the Weird canon. One such figure, Clive Barker, is perhaps best associated with movements such as body horror and Splatterpunk. Yet, alongside
writers such as Kathe Koja and Poppy Z. Brite, Barker pushed the Weird into new explicit extremes, recentring the mode around the body and the limits of sensation.
This paper considers how Clive Barker reframed the traditional Weird tale in the 1980s, foregrounding the ‘New Weird’ grotesquery that followed. The Weird tale fundamentally centres around insight; knowledge or understanding which, once found, upends reality and destroys the mind of its discoverer. Barker’s works follow a similar trajectory, yet the quest for knowledge is supplanted by a search for sensation – “a pleasure dome where those who had exhausted the trivial delights of the human condition might discover a fresh definition of joy” – shifting the focus from the psyche to the psychosexual. such discoveries prove equally annihilating.
Drawing on elements of Queer Theory and Genre Theory, this paper analyses how Barker rewrote the limits of the Weird tale by embracing alternate sexualities, violating the sanctity of the human body, and revelling in the transgression of sexual taboos (‘Sex, Death and Starshine’ combines necrophilia with thespianism; ‘Pig Blood Blues’ critiques religion through bestiality). Close reading stories from Barker’s Books of Blood (1984–1985) alongside his novella, The Hellbound Heart (1986), this paper thus intends to reinsert Clive Barker into critical discussions of the Weird.

About the Author: Michael Wheatley is a practice-based researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London, whose work explores weird fiction in the age of climate crisis. He lectures at the University of Worcester and edited The Horned God: Weird Tales of the Great God Pan (2022) for The British Library and published the experimental short story collection, The Writers’ Block, in 2019.

Disclaimer: The information and ideas in these podcasts are the property of the speakers. Fantastika Journal operates under the Creative Commons Licence CCBY-NC. This allows for the reproduction or transcription of podcasts for non-commercial uses, only with the appropriate citation information. All rights belong to the author.

The views expressed in these podcasts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fantastika Journal and its editorial board. 

Transcripts have been provided by the author and there may be small changes between the written script and audio recording. We apologize for any errors. 

This podcast is part of the Bodily Transgressions in Fantastika Media Symposium.
Join the discussion on discord (https://discord.gg/zsMTBcnTcC) or on our Round Table Discussions on 12 November 2022 (https://us04web.zoom.us/j/78547989824)

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Podcast by: Madison Harmon

‘An indefinable air of neglect’:
Dissecting Eleanor Vance from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House

Given that The Haunting of Hill House is a Gothic novel, the ghosts and supernatural activity must be thought of as a metaphor for an internal conflict of the psyche as well as commentary for societal consciousness. There is an existing intersection that exists between sexuality and monstrosity. Viewing the Gothic and ‘queer’ as interconnected allows for the acknowledgement of the inherent queerness at the heart of the Gothic while also positioning it as a genre that persistently explores the meaning of ‘queerness.’ Understanding Eleanor Vance as a queer character can be contextualized by exploring the novel with queer and psychoanalytic theory. Reading The Haunting of Hill House through a queered lens not only adds to interpretation of the fatal ending but also changes how Shirley Jackson’s Gothic horror can be understood as a production of psycho-supernatural horror. Jackson’s rendition of the Gothic hinges purely on the ‘Mother,’ entrapment of the feminine and the spectralization of queer bodies. A biography on Jackson by Judy Oppenheimer includes a letter written by Jackson during her time at Syracuse University. Jackson writes “my friend was so strange that everyone, even the man I loved, thought that we were lesbians and they used to talk about us, and I was afraid of them and I hated them, then I wanted to write stories about lesbians and how people misunderstood them. And finally this man sent me away because I was a lesbian and my friend went away and I was all alone.” Jackson uses the Gothic framework to explore and construct “misunderstood lesbians” that elicit skewed sexual desire, embody queer abjection and subvert societal expectations of femininity. Eleanor Vance, when read as both a Gothic heroine and lesbian, highlights the connection between queerness and monstrosity and abjection to hauntology. The Gothic’s inherent ‘otherness’ matched that of a lesbian body being an extension to that same ‘other.’ Mair Rigby, a queer scholar, argues that “if to be queer and to speak is to risk flirtation with the Gothic, then to speak through the Gothic is always to risk flirtation with what is queer.” Eleanor Vance from The Haunting Hill House is an essential case study for understanding this flirtation.

About the Author: Madison Harmon is a graduate student at North Carolina State University in the MA program for Literature. Madison graduated with dual Bachelor’s degrees in English & Comparative Literature and Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Madison’s research interests lie in New American Gothic, the Female Gothic, 19th Victorian, queer theory, womanist theory and applying psychoanalysis to literature.

Disclaimer: The information and ideas in these podcasts are the property of the speakers. Fantastika Journal operates under the Creative Commons Licence CCBY-NC. This allows for the reproduction or transcription of podcasts for non-commercial uses, only with the appropriate citation information. All rights belong to the author.

The views expressed in these podcasts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fantastika Journal and its editorial board. 

Transcripts have been provided by the author and there may be small changes between the written script and audio recording.

Join two of the editors of Fantastika Journal, Drs Charul ("Chuckie") Palmer-Patel and Matthew J. Elder, as they discuss the Amazon Prime television adaptation of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time.  Note that this episode may contain spoilers from the first 5 episodes as well as a few spoilers regarding character arcs in the book series. (But we have done our best to avoid plot spoilers. If you want to avoid any character/relationship spoilers as well, we recommend you skip forward 30-60 seconds if you hear the word 'spoiler'.)

Join the conversation with us on Discord: https://discord.gg/mVMvpBxtHg and check out our peer-reviewed open-access journal at www.fantastikajournal.com

Disclaimer: The information and ideas in these podcasts are the property of the speakers. Fantastika Journal operates under the Creative Commons Licence CCBY-NC. This allows for the reproduction or transcription of podcasts for non-commercial uses, only with the appropriate citation information. All rights belong to the author. 

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This podcast edited by C. Palmer-Patel

This podcast is part of the LGBTQIA+ Fantastika Graphics Symposium.
Join the discussion on discord (https://discord.gg/fMsu2RRzy2) or on our zoom webinar on 20 Nov 2021. See fantastikajournal.com for details.

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Podcast by:  Héloïse Thomas

Lesbians in Space with Swords: 

Sapphic Representation in Contemporary Graphic Narratives

This podcast discuses the ways lesbians and queer/sapphic female characters are represented in three speculative works – two graphic novels, Cosmoknights by Hannah Templer and On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden, and one animated series, the rebooted She-Ra and the Princesses of Power – and how these modes of representation combine specific aesthetic and symbolic elements to produce certain political framings of lesbian and sapphic identities as emancipatory.

The modes of representation are tied to the specific worldbuilding of the graphic narrative, and notably to the question of whether patriarchy and gendered oppression are structural elements or not: Cosmoknights depicts patriarchal feudalism in space, while On a Sunbeam portrays a world with seemingly only female and non-binary characters, and the world of She-Ra, while clearly contending with imperialism, does not seem to feature patriarchy as part of its hegemonic system. 

Depending on each narrative’s political structures, lesbian relationships may be a form of dissidence or the norm, but in all cases, the sapphic main characters are always positioned as resisting hegemony and as subverting categories of gender and sexuality, and thus contributing to a more expansive vision of what womanhood or lesbianism entails. This is underscored by the visual representative choices of each graphic narrative, from the characters’ gender presentation (physical appearance, clothes, etc.) to color palette and drawing style. This podcast thus argues that these three graphic narratives can provide us with multiple new ways of thinking the lesbian (/queer/sapphic) as a politically crucial figure of subversion and liberation. 

About the Speaker: Héloïse Thomas (she/they) is getting ready to defend their PhD dissertation on history, futurity, and the apocalypse in contemporary North American literature. She has authored articles on the poetics and politics of memory, pandemic imaginaries, and lesbian representation, and currently teaches in the English department at Lyon 3 University.


Disclaimer: The information and ideas in these podcasts are the property of the speakers. Fantastika Journal operates under the Creative Commons Licence CCBY-NC. This allows for the reproduction or transcription of podcasts for non-commercial uses, only with the appropriate citation information. All rights belong to the author.

The views expressed in these podcasts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fantastika Journal and its editorial board.

This podcast edited by Kerry Dodd