Fantastic fiction is traditionally understood as Western genre literature such as fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Expanding on this understanding, these essays explore how the fantastic has been used in Western societies as a tool for organising and materializing abstractions in order to make sense of the present social order.

Table of Contents Preface Anna Höglund and Cecilia Trenter Introduction Anna Höglund and Cecilia Trenter The Use of the Fantastic in a Historical Perspective Dragons and Kingdoms: Political Authority and Fantasy in the Histories of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Saxo Grammaticus Hans Hägerdal Egyptian Mummies, Medicine and the Supernatural in Eighteenth-Century Sweden Joachim Östlund A Double-Edged Sword: Promises and Dangers of Hypnotism in Sweden, 1880–1915 Cecilia Riving The Use of the Fantastic and Fantastika in Contemporary Culture A Friend and Foe: The Portrayal of Otherness and Disease in Vampire Fiction Anna Höglund Priestesses of Avalon: Fantasy Fiction and Contemporary Goddess Worship Åsa Trulsson Dwarfs Are Not Religious, Sir! Gradually Reclining Dwarven Irreligion in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Universe Jonas Svensson Bringing Dragons Back into the World: Dismantling the Anthropocene in Robin Hobb’s The Realm of the Elderlings Mariah Larsson Our World Is Dew: Tor Åge Bringsværd’s Fable Prose as a Chthulucenic Exploration Marit Ruge Bjærke and Kyrre Kverndokk The Use of the Fantastic and Fantastika in Memory Culture “And this is how I tried to fathom the Lindenborg Pool”: William Morris, Medievalism and Modernity Per Klingberg Fairy Tales Transformed: Analyzing a New Wave of Feminist Retellings of Fairy Tales Maria Nilson Remediation of Cultural Memory in the Dragon Age Videogame Series Cecilia Trenter Fallout, Memory and Values: The Uses of History and Time in a Fantasy-Driven Videogame Derek Fewster About the Contributors Index

“Offers numerous insightful, informative and original contributions to a wide variety of topics circulating around the fantastic’s multiple interconnections with cultural histories….The book will be a valuable resource for scholars/students of the fantastic...”—Sean Moreland, University of Ottawa