[ecrea] Fantasies of Contemporary Culture symposium (23 May, Cardiff, University)

Registration for the /Fantasies of Contemporary Culture/ symposium (23 
May, Cardiff University) will close on *Monday, 9 May*. Sign up now to 
participate: http://tinyurl.com/cultfantasies.

  From the record-breaking sales of J. K. Rowling’s /Harry Potter 
/series, both in print and on film, to the phenomenal success of various 
forms of hyperreal ‘reality television’, contemporary Western culture 
seems singularly obsessed by the spectacular and the fantastic. Rather 
than attempting to define fantasy, horror, weird, or science fiction as 
distinct genres, we wish to take up Katheryn Hume’s expansive definition 
of fantasy as anti-mimetic, or as ‘any departure from consensus reality’ 
(/Fantasy and Mimesis/, 1984, p. 21), in order to engage with the 
broader artistic motivation to question the limits of the real. This 
symposium, then, will explore the political and cultural functions of 
such fantasies. To what extent does the impulse to create fantasy art 
comment back upon this ‘consensus reality’, and to what extent does it 
represent a separate reality? How might the fantastical characters and 
environments that populate our contemporary cultural landscape be 
informed by the experience of twenty-first-century metropolitan life, 
and how do such texts (in)form that experience in return?

Keynote speakers will be Dr Mark Bould (UWE Bristol) and Dr Catherine 
Butler (Cardiff). Full programme attached.

*Day rates are just £10 for students and £20 for salaried individuals. 
*This includes access to the programme, lunch, coffee breaks, and an 
evening wine reception.

All interested parties, whether academic and non-academic, are very welcome.

Visit our website (http://culturalfantasies.wordpress.com 
<http://culturalfantasies.wordpress.com/>) for more information. You can 
also contact us by e-mail ((culturalfantasies /at/ cardiff.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(culturalfantasies /at/ cardiff.ac.uk)>), or on Twitter (@cultfantasies).

/[Note: if you are a member of ENCAP at Cardiff University, your 
attendance has been subsidised, but you *will still need to register* if 
you want to participate in the lunch, coffee breaks, or wine reception.]/
/

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