HomeThresholds and crossing points
Thresholds and crossing points
Seuils et lieux de passage
Published on Tuesday, May 09, 2023
Summary
For Fantasy fiction characters, crossing worlds is rather common, especially in Low Fantasy. Many works in this genre also have the heroes travel from one space to another through doors, tunnels, windows, portals or specific means of transport. This new issue of Fantasy Art and Studies aims to question the thresholds and places of passage in Fantasy fiction, from the most common to the most singular, and possibly to identify a typology.
Announcement
Argument
For Fantasy fiction characters, crossing worlds is rather common, especially in Low Fantasy[1]. Many works in this genre also have the heroes travel from one space to another through doors, tunnels, windows, portals or specific means of transport.
Threshold spaces display a variety of forms: think of the white rabbit hole into which Alice falls before discovering Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland, the book that allows Bastien to dive into the Fantastic Land of The Neverending Story, or the Hogwarts Express that takes Harry and his friends into the Wizarding World in J. K. Rowling’s work. They are located at the border between several worlds, at a crossroads, and are of fundamental importance. Through them, the characters enter an unchartered territory, a place of all possibilities. For readers, books themselves allow the passage from a primary space (our reality – the primary world) to a secondary space (a fictional universe – or secondary world)[2]. In this respect, books can be seen as a threshold and offer different strategies that smooth the crossing, especially through their appendices.
Some objects are particularly suitable for crossing, and some of them are used repeatedly to symbolise the passage. Think of conventional means of transport (train, car, etc.) whose use can be magically diverted, of objects that reflect or mime our reality (mirror, painting), but also of those that have an opening (door, window, cupboard, chest, etc.). However, thresholds can also take place in immaterial and intimate spaces. Thus Ewilan travels through a mental dimension, the Imagination, in Pierre Bottero’s La Quête d'Ewilan, Myri wanders in spirit through the world of dreams in Estelle Faye’s L’Arpenteuse de rêves, while Aléa goes to Djar’s world in Henri Lœvenbruck’s La Moïra. Storms, which generate considerable movement, also allow crossings, as in Fuyumi Ono’s The Twelve Kingdoms or L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz. The different ways of travelling – through the mind, a climatic event or an object – are sometimes significant and reveal a character’s powers. Some of them are thus able to open doors to different worlds, like the mage Loren Silvercloak in Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Tapestry of Fionavar.
Because they are often located between different worlds, we might wonder whether threshold places take on the characteristics of the environments between which they create a bridge. The geography of thresholds, like the configuration of these places in relation to other spaces, requires careful examination. How can they be represented, what forms do they take?
As spaces of the in-between, thresholds imply movement. They often serve as stages, as intermediate places for getting from one place to another. However, are they fundamentally dedicated to crossings? Can they be inhabited and occupied in a permanent way by characters? Diana Wynne Jones’s moving castle (Howl’s Moving Castle) or Erik L’Homme’s Land of Ys (Le Livre des étoiles) invite us to think so. By settling in these other places, do the characters then become marginal figures, outside the norm?
This new issue of Fantasy Art and Studies aims to question the thresholds and places of passage in Fantasy fiction, from the most common to the most singular, and possibly to identify a typology.
Papers may explore (but not be restricted to) the following areas:
- the representation of threshold spaces and their relations to other spaces in a fictional universe, objects and means of locomotion that allow crossing, Fantasy Maps,
- the role of thresholds in the narration,
- the symbolism of the thresholds and their relationship to the character,
- the recurrence of certain thresholds in Fantasy fiction and their literary heritage,
- new thresholds: the unusual character of the passages or their humorous diversion.
Submission guidelines
Paper proposals of approximately 2.000 signs, written in English or French, will be accompanied by a short biography and sent in .doc or .docx format
by 12 June 2023
to: fantasyartandstudies@outlook.com
The complete papers will not exceed 30.000 signs (space and footnotes included). They will be written in English or French, and sent in .doc format, Times New Roman 12pts, single-line spacing, by 4 September 2023.
Please read our submission guidelines before forwarding your paper.
Scientific Committee
- Viviane Bergue, PhD in Comparative Literature, Publication director, editor and head of the review Têtes Imaginaires
- Justine Breton, associate professor of French literature Université de Reims-Champagne Ardenne (Teachers College of Troyes), treasurer at Têtes Imaginaires
- Florie Maurin, PhD in French Literature, freelance speaker and instructor https://apagesegales.fr/, scientific coordinator of n°15
- Sabrina Lusuriello, PhD in Comparative Literature, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3
Informative bibliography
- Cantrell, Sarah K., « When Worlds Collide: Heterotopias in Fantasy Fiction for Young Adult Readers in France and Britain », Thèse de doctorat, Université de Caroline du Nord, 2010.
- Deschênes-Pradet, Maude, Duret, Christophe (dir.), Habiter les espaces autres de la fiction contemporaine : Utopies, dystopies, hétérotopies, Sherbrooke, Éditions de l’Inframince, 2022.
- Foucault, Michel, « Des espaces autres ». Conférence au Cercle d’études architecturales, 14 mars 1967, Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité, n° 5, 1984, p. 46-49.
- Jourde, Pierre, Géographies imaginaires, Paris, José Corti, 1991.
- Tally, Robert T., Geocritical Explorations. Space, Place, and Mapping in the Literary and Cultural Studies, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Notes
[1] Low Fantasy is heavily featured in children’s literature, where plots take place wholly or partly in our everyday world.
[2] See J. R. R. Tolkien, « On Fairy Stories », in Tree and Leaf, London, HaperCollinsPublishers, 2001 (1964, 1975, 1988)
Subjects
- Language (Main subject)
- Mind and language > Language > Literature
- Mind and language > Representation > Visual studies
Date(s)
- Monday, June 12, 2023
Keywords
- fantasy, littérature, imaginaire, espaces, seuil
Reference Urls
Information source
- Florie Maurin
courriel : fantasyartandstudies [at] outlook [dot] com
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Thresholds and crossing points », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, May 09, 2023, https://calenda.org/1069315
