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Fantastic Cities: American Urban Spaces in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror

Online ISBN:
9781496836670
Print ISBN:
9781496836625
Publisher:
University Press of Mississippi
Book

Fantastic Cities: American Urban Spaces in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror

Stefan Rabitsch (ed.),
Stefan Rabitsch
(ed.)
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Michael Fuchs (ed.),
Michael Fuchs
(ed.)
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Stefan L. Brandt (ed.)
Stefan L. Brandt
(ed.)
University of Graz
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Published online:
22 September 2022
Published in print:
4 February 2022
Online ISBN:
9781496836670
Print ISBN:
9781496836625
Publisher:
University Press of Mississippi

Abstract

The American city, much like America itself, has always been a fantastic construct. More often than not, American cities are cities of illusion, as their representations tend to focus on images which connote order, power, and progress. These ideas gloss over the systemic realities of homelessness, unemployment, and social injustice characteristic of America’s urban centers. Fantastic Cities explores representations of American cities in science fiction, fantasy, and horror across a variety of media. These genres render the illusory character of American urban spaces explicit, as they realize that which usually remains veiled. In this volume, an international group of scholars investigates examples ranging from Samuel R. Delany’s science fiction classic Dhalgren and Jim Jarmusch’s urban vampire film Only Lovers Left Alive to the science fiction-western musical film serial The Phantom Empire and Kim Stanley Robinson’s fiction.

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