The Celebration of the Fantastic reaffirms the wide range and validity of the subject, treatment, and approach that the fantastic demands. Twenty-five essays, selected from among the more than 230 presented at the Tenth Anniversary Conference of the IAFA, consider writers as diverse as Stephen King, Doris Lessing, Rudyard Kipling, Loren Eiseley, Mary Stewart, Bernard Malamud, Orson Scott Card, Toni Morrison, Henry James, and Ray Bradbury as well as television personalities, film directors, and German and Hungarian visual artists. Also included are essays on science fiction writers Robert Silverberg, Joe Haldeman, and Greg Bear.Some of the more provocative work is on Feminist Fantasy and Open Structure, The Greatest Fantasy on Earth: The Superweapon in Fiction and Fact, Virtual Space and Its Boundaries in Science Fiction Film and Television, The Fantastic in German Democratic Republic Literature, Csontvary: The Painter of the Sun's Path, and The Shaman in Modern Fantasy. The essays illustrate the essential theme of the fantastic: the testing of the limits of civilization and the questioning of commonly accepted values and ideas as writers and artists explore the hidden and the repressed.

The 25 essays in this collection represent contributions to the Tenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Some of the writers considered are Stephen King, Doris Lessing, Rudyard Kipling, Loren Eiseley, Mary Stewart, Bernard Malamud, Orson Scott Card, Toni Morrison, Henry James, and Ray Bradbury. The book also critiques television personalities, film directors, and German and Hungarian visual artists.

PrefaceIntroduction--Celebrating the Fantastic: This "Enormous and Seductive Subject" by Donald E. MorseTheoryVictorian and Modern Fantasy: Some Contrasts by Colin Manlove (The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts Distinguished Scholar Address of 1989)The Greatest Fantasy on Earth: The Superweapon in Fiction and Fact by H. Bruce FranklinPagan Survival: Why the Shaman in Modern Fantasy? by Roger C. SchlobinSome Thoughts on Modernism and Science Fiction (Suggested by Robert Silverberg's DOWNWARD TO THE EARTH) by Robert LathamGodmaking in the Heartland: Cultural Texts in the Tales of Alvin Maker by Brian AtteberyMyth and Legend"What Dreams May Come?" Relativity of Perception in Doris Lessing's BRIEFING FOR A DESCENT INTO HELL by Peter MalekinKipling's Myth of Making: Creation and Contradiction in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL by Jack G. VollerMithraic Aspects of Merlin in Mary Stewart's THE CRYSTAL CAVE by Marilyn JurichDolorous Strokes, Or, Balin at the Bat: Malamud, Malory and Chretien by John KimseyAutobiography as Science Fiction: The Strange Case of Loren Eiseley by Gale E. ChristiansonThe SupernaturalTHE FIFTH CHILD: Lessing's Subversion of the Pastoral by Ellen PiferThe Ghost and the Self: The Supernatural Fiction of Henry James by Leonard HeldrethToni Morrison's BELOVED: Rememory, History, and the Fantastic by Gary W. DailyVisual Arts: Painting, Film, and TelevisionCsontVÁry: The Painter of the "Sun's Path" by Csilla BerthaEros and Thanatos: The Art of Alfred Kubin on the Edge of the Other Side by Barbara Alexander-SchaechtelinFantasy According to MISTER ROGER'S NEIGHBORHOOD and IN THE NIGHT KITCHEN by C.W. Sullivan IIIVirtual Space and Its Boundaries in Science Fiction Film and Television: TRON, MAX HEADROOM, and WARGAMES by Judith B. KermanGiving the Devil More than His Due: THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK as Fiction and Film by Kenneth JurkiewiczThe Monomyth in Time Travel Films by Donald PalumboScience FictionAstronauts, Angels, and Time Machines: The Fantastic in German Democratic Republic Literature by Barbara MabeeLegitimate Sequels: Character Structures and the Subject in Greg Bear's Sequel Novels by Len HatfieldJoe Haldeman: Cyberpunk Before Cyberpunk Was Cool? by Joan GordonFantasy and HorrorFeminist Fantasy and Open Structure in Monique Wittig's LES GUERILLERES by Laurence M. PorterArt Versus Madness in Stephen King's MISERY by Tony MagistraleRay Bradbury, Herman Melville, and Nineteenth-Century American Romance by Steven E. KagleBibliographyIndex