Utilizing Franco Moretti’s concept of “distant reading,” this paper intends to look at the broad atlas of fantastic geographies to render geometric and geographic understanding of fantastic identities. In short, I mean to “map” specific units—e.g. the personality types and the classes of heroes and villains—in fantastic literature and overlay this map (more of a diagram, according to Moretti) on certain, parallel real world geography in order to afford fantastic abstraction. In other words, if we look at the starting locations—the homes—of fantastic heroes from Frodo to Batman to Skywalker to Potter, do patterns emerge? Do particular heroic traits align with particular homes? Is humility and affability a “country” trait? Do heroes from such loci tend to reinforce the status quo? Do villains, then, resist? Villains, unlike their heroic counterparts, are rarely the focus of quest narratives and are therefore more likely to be found in their fortresses and hideouts than their homes. Are their particular geographic synonyms in these sites? Ultimately the goal is to abstract enough to recognize patterns in the genre that can be studied through a Marxist lens.
About the presenterBrian Russell Lutz
Brian Lutz is the youngest person ever named Poet Laureate of Bucks County. A full-time faculty member at Delaware Valley University since 2006, Lutz, an associate professor of literature, has published widely in various local, national, and international journals. His scholarly focuses revolve around critical trends in contemporary literature, millennial poetics, and spatial studies—especially as it pertains to the fantastic.