The University of Glasgow is to become home to the world’s first research centre focusing purely on the fantasy genre, with students encouraged to explore everything from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien to Dungeons & Dragons and Game of Thrones.
The Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic is being officially launched on Wednesday, five years after the university pioneered the first ever masters in Fantasy Literature.
It promises to bring together the biggest concentration of academics in the field, who will study different expressions of the fantastic in literature, art, illustration, computer and board games as well as in film and television.
With its turrets, vaulted cloisters and ornate decorations, Scotland’s second oldest university seems a fitting place to study such themes. The gothic revival architecture of its Gilbert Scott building has often featured on screen, including in the time travelling TV series Outlander.
Based at the university’s College of Arts, the new centre will be led by Dr Dimitra Fimi, an expert on Tolkien, and Dr Rob Maslen, who created its masters in Fantasy Literature.
“Fantasy can be found everywhere in 21st century global culture – in films, TV shows, plays, games, comics, the visual arts, and literature, from picture books for the very young to multi-volume epics and one-off experimental forms,” Dr Maslen said.
“The new centre allows us to pay close attention to this extraordinary phenomenon, its past, its present, and its many possible futures.”
Fantasy PHDs
Students at the university are already researching fantasy in their PhDs, with one recent thesis exploring how Tolkien’s work is received much differently by younger readers.
Another ongoing PhD is looking at urban society in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, while a third is examining how fantasy novels are dramatised on stage.
Ellen Kushner, the award winning US author, said the fantasy tradition in art and literature was “far more deep and complex than many people realise”.
“As a fantasy writer, I stand on the shoulders of storytellers stretching back through time, everything from the post-war children’s book authors I grew up reading, to the folk telling tales by the fire they’d heard from their grandmothers in their turn,” she added.
“An entire centre making sure this knowledge is valued, perpetuated, and will exist to inform future generations fills me with joy.”
