The Mythological Dimensions of Neil Gaiman

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The Mythological Dimensions of Neil Gaiman Page 35

by Burke, Jessica


  Jason Fisher is an independent and award-winning scholar specializing in J.R.R. Tolkien and the Inklings, fantasy literature, and linguistics. His most recent book is Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays (McFarland, 2011). Other publications include entries in the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment (Routledge, 2006); contributions to eight books (three forthcoming); essays in Tolkien Studies, Mythlore, The Year’s Work in Medievalism, Beyond Bree, North Wind, Renaissance; and many, many book reviews. Jason has spoken at academic conferences across the United States and will be a special guest at the Tolkien Society’s Return of the Ring conference at Loughborough University in Leicestershire in 2012. Jason is also the editor of Mythprint, the monthly publication of the Mythopoeic Society (http:// www.mythprint.org). You can contact Jason at his blog, Lingwë – Musings of a Fish (http://lingwe.blogspot.com/), where he has been discussing J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, and related topics since 2007.

  Camillo A. Formigatti took a degree in classical studies (main field Oriental and Linguistic Studies) in 2004 at the Università degli Studi di Milano. From October 2000 to July 2004 and from October 2004 till May 2008 he attended classes on Indological and Tibetological subjects at the Institute for Indological and Tibetological Studies of the PhilippsUniversität Marburg, Germany. He worked in the library of the same institute from November 2007 till May 2008. Since June 2008 he has been a member of the Research Group “Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa” at the University of Hamburg, Germany.

  Lynn Gelfand is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Advancing Technology and holds a Ph.D. in Folklore from Indiana University. Her research interests include folk narratives (myths, legends, and fairy tales), comparative media studies (orality, writing, print, film, and digital technologies), and the intersecting points between narratives and games.

  Melody Green received her Ph.D. in English Studies with a specialization in Children’s Literature in 2008 from Illinois State University. Currently she is adjuncting at two schools, Lewis University in Romeoville, IL, and DeVry Online. At Lewis she teaches composition classes, and for DeVry she teaches composition and Science Fiction. She has read papers on J. R. R. Tolkien, George MacDonald, and fantasy literature at several academic conferences, and is currently at work on several writing projects. Her other publications include “The Riddle of Strider: A Cognitive Linguistic Reading” published in The Ring Goes Ever On: Proceedings of the Tolkien 2005 Conference and “‘It Turned Out they Died For Nothing:’ Doctor Who and the Idea of Sacrificial Death” in The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who.

  Colin B. Harvey is a fantasy writer, journalist, and academic. His short story The Stinker won the inaugural SFX Pulp Idol award in 2006. He has authored BBC-licensed Doctor Who spinoff material for the British company Big Finish and is the writer of Love and Hate, the second episode in the Highlander audio series produced by Big Finish under license from MGM. Colin is the originator of the London Peculiar steampunk stories, as published in the magazine Steampunk Tales and the forthcoming anthology Clockwork Chaos (American Library of Science Fiction and Fantasy). He is the author of the academic volume Grand Theft Auto: Motion-Emotion (Ludologica 2005) and has written academic articles on Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who, the latter for the preceding volume in this series. Colin has authored and presented academic papers on Highlander, Tron, and Ghostbusters, and forthcoming publications will explore steampunk and the transmediality of Conan the Barbarian. As a journalist he has written for The Guardian, Edge, Retrogamer, Develop, Strange Horizons,and Vector, the journal of the British Science Fiction Association.

  Matthew Hills is a Reader in Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University, and the author of Triumph of a Time Lord (IB Tauris, 2010) as well as a contributor to Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who (Kitsune, 2010). His current research includes a follow-up book on Torchwood, a journal article on the use of sound in BBC Wales’ Who, and book chapters on topics such as scholar-fandom and cult movies.

  Tanya Carinae Pell Jones is 28 years old and lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband, Doug, and their two dogs, Arwyn and Lycan. She teaches high school English at Lincoln Charter School in Denver, NC. Her graduate thesis focuses on the Gothic in children’s literature and its use in the high school classroom. She is particularly fond of high heels, sushi, and random trivia.

  Tony Keen teaches Classical Studies and Film and Television History for the Open University. He is co-editor of The Unsilent Library: Essays on the Russell T. Davies Era of the New Doctor Who, published by the Science Fiction Foundation in February 2011, and is writing a chapter on “Science Fiction” for the Blackwell Companion to the Reception of Classical Myth.

  Chelsey Kendig is an MA student of Children’s Literature at Simmons College in Boston. The groundwork for this essay was done during a close study of The Chronicles of Narniaduring her time as a visiting student at Magdalen College, Oxford. “The Problem of Susan” is especially important to her, since it marked the first work that introduced her to the possibility of children’s literature studies.

  Kristine Larsen has inhabited the space-time of Connecticut since her birth in 1963. She has been an aficionado from an early age of equal parts world mythology and religions, science fiction and fantasy, and scientific literature. Her long career in astronomy education and outreach draws heavily upon her diverse intellectual interests, including numerous publications and presentations on the intersection between science and science fiction/fantasy. She is currently Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Central Connecticut State University.

  Lynnette Porter , Ph.D., is a professor of humanities and communication at Embry-Riddle University in Daytona Beach, Florida, and loves to write about television, film, and literature, especially science fiction and fantasy. Since 2011 she has been a contributing editor for PopMatters and writes a monthly column, Deep Focus. Her published works include The Hobbits (Tauris); Tarnished Heroes, Charming Villains, and Modern Monsters (McFarland); LOST’s Buried Treasures (Sourcebooks); and forthcoming books about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who. She frequently is a speaker at academic conferences as well as fan conventions throughout North America, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand.

  Harley J. Sims received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Toronto in 2009, and is presently an independent scholar living in Ottawa, Canada. Aside from scholarly publications on medieval literature, he has written popular articles on Batman, Beowulf, and the Twilightseries, as well as reviews of linguistic and medieval titles for the scholarly journal Mythlore; he has also presented academic papers at international conferences in both Canada and the United States. His research focuses primarily on the imaginative aspects of literature, particularly the interaction of language, reality, and imagination. His website is at www.harleyjsims.webs.com

  Matthew Dow Smith is a comic book artist and writer. He has drawn comics for every major American comic book publisher, including Sandman Mystery Theater—a spin-off of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series— for DC/Vertigo, and IDW Publishing’s Doctor Who. Like Gaiman, he owns several black leather jackets and has been photographed in a Fourth Doctor scarf. His first novel, Night Folk, has only a few gods in it, but he is currently working on a second novel, which features even more gods, but nowhere near as many as Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  PRINT MEDIA: BOOKS

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  Adams, Neal, Alex Toth, et al. Showcase Presents: The Witching Hour, New York: DC, 2011.

  Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Goddess-Worshippers, and Ot
her Pagans in America Today. New York: Penguin Arkana, 1986. Aeschylus. Oresteia. Translated by Christopher Collard. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

  Aeschylus. Persians and Other Plays. Translated by Christopher Collard. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

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  Bahktin, M. M. The Dialogic Imagination. Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981. Baker, Bill. Neil Gaiman on his work and career. New York: Rosen Publishing, 2008.

  Barthes, Roland. S/Z. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 1990.

  Belanger, Michelle. Sacred Hunger: The Vampire in Myth and Reality. Fort Wayne Indiana: Dark Moon Press, 2005. Bender, Hy. The Sandman Companion: A Dreamer’s Guide to the Awardwinning Comic Series. New York: DC Comics, 2000.

  Bildhauer, Bettina. “Bloodsuckers: The Construction of Female Sexuality in Medieval Science and Fiction.” Consuming Narratives: Gender and Monstrous Appetite in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Edited by Liz Herbert McAvoy and Teresa Walters, 104-115. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2002.

  Bishop, David. Thrill-Power Overload: 2000AD - The First Thirty Years. London: Rebellion, 2009. Bolintineanu, Alexandra. “‘On the Borders of Old Stories:’ Enacting the Past in Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader. Edited by Jane Chance. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. 263-73.

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  Bornstein, George and Williams, Ralph G. Palimpsest: Editorial Theory in the Humanities. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 1993. Borsellino, Mary. “Blue and Pink: Gender in Neil Gaiman’s Work.” The Neil Gaiman Reader. Edited by Darrell Schweitzer. 51-53 Maryland: Wildside Press, 2007.

  Bratman, David. “A Game of You–Yes, You.” The Sandman Papers: An Exploration of the Sandman Mythology, Edited by Joe Sanders, 41-53. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics, 2006.

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  Britton, Piers D. TARDISbound: Navigating the Universes of Doctor Who. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011. Broedel, Hans Peter. The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft: Theology and Popular Belief. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2003.

  Broekman, J. Structuralism: Moscow-Prague-Paris. Berlin: Springer, 1974. Brooker, Will. Batman Unmasked: Analyzing a Cultural Icon. London and New York: Continuum, 2000. _____. “The Best Batman Story: The Dark Knight Returns.” Beautiful Things in Popular Culture, Edited by Alan McKee, 33-48. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.

  Buckley, J. H. The Victorian Temper: A Study in Literary Culture. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1964. Calvin, David. “In Her Red-Hot Shoes: Re-telling “Snow White” from the Queen’s Point of View.” Anti-Tales: The Uses of Disenchantment, Edited by Catriona McAra and David Calvin, 231-245. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.

  Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York, MJF Books, 1997. Campbell, Lori. Portals of Power: Magical Agency and Transformation in Literary Fantasy (Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy). North Carolina, McFarland, 2010.

  Carpenter, Humphrey. Tolkien: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.

  Chesterton, G. K. “Introduction.” George MacDonald and his Wife. Edited by Greville MacDonald. Whitethorn, CA: Johannessen, 1924, 1998. Crichton, Michael. Eaters of the Dead: The Manuscript of Ibn Fadlan Relating His Experiences with the Northmen in A.D. 922. New York: Knopf, 1976.

  Clark Hall, J. R. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. Clements, Fiona. “ Sandman.” The Slings and Arrows Comic Guide: A Critical Assessment, Edited by Frank Plowright, 550-1. Marietta: Top Shelf Productions, 2003.

  Coats, Karen. “Between Horror, Humour, and Hope: Neil Gaiman and the Psychic Work of the Gothic.” The Gothic in Children’s Literature: Haunting the Borders, Edited by Anna Jackson. New York, Routledge, 2008.

  Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

  Conway, D.J. Maiden, Mother, Crone: The Myth and Reality of the Triple Goddess. St Paul, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, 1994.

  Coupe, Laurence. Myth. London: Routledge, 1997.

  _____. Myth: 2nd Edition. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Coats, Karen. “Between Horror, Humour, and Hope: Neil Gaiman and the Psychic Work of the Gothic.” The Gothic in Children’s Literature: Haunting the Borders, ed., Jackson, Anna. New York, Routledge, 2008.

  Damico, Helen. Beowulf ’s Wealhtheow and the Valkyrie Tradition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984. Darnton, Robert. “Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose.” The Classic Fairy Tales, Edited by Maria Tatar, 280-91. London: Norton, 1999.

  Davidson, Gustav. A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967.

  Delaney, Samuel. Introduction. The Sandman: A Game of You. By Neil Gaiman. New York: DC Comics, 1993.

  Derrida, J. Positions. Translated by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.

  Dixon-Kennedy, Mike. Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1998. Dowd, Chris. “An Autopsy of Storytelling: Metafiction and Neil Gaiman.” The Neil Gaiman Reader, Edited by, Edited by 114. Maryland: Wildside Press, 2007.

  Downing, David C. Into the Wardrobe: CS Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2008.

  Draaisma, Douwe. Metaphors of Memory: A History of Ideas About the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

  Dringenberg, Mike, interview by Joseph McCabe. Hanging Out with the Dream King (2004).

  Eco, Umberto. The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts. Oxford: John Wiley and Sons, 1984.

  Edgar, Andrew, and Peter Sedgwick. Cultural Theory: The Key Concepts. London: Taylor and Francis, 1997.

  Euripides. Electra and Other Plays. Translated by John Davie. London: Penguin, 1998, 2004. Fisher, Jason. “Horns of Dawn: The Tradition of Alliterative Verse in Rohan.” Middle-earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien. Edited by Bradford Lee Eden. North Carolina: McFarland, 2010.

  Franks, Frederick S. The First Gothics: A Critical Guide to the English Gothic Novel. New York: Garland Reference Library, 1987.

  Frazer, J.G. The Golden BoughThe Golden Bough 1915 (first edition 1890). Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny.” In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud vol. XVII, Edited by James Strachey, 219. London: Hogarth, 1953.

  Gaiman, Neil. American Gods. London: Headline, 2001 (pagination from 2002 paperback edition); New York: Harper Torch, 2002.

  _____. Anansi Boys. London: Headline Review, 2005; New York: Morrow HarperCollins, 2005; New York: Harper Torch, 2006. _____. Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? New York: DC Comics, 2010.

  _____. Blueberry Girl. London: Bloomsbury, 2009.

  _____. Books of Magic. New York: DC, 1993 (reprinting comics from 1990).

  _____. Brief Lives . New York: DC Comics, 1993.

  _____. “Brothers.” Swamp Thing Annual 5 (DC, 1985). (Collected in Neil Gaiman’s Midnight Days. New York: Vertigo, 1999: 17-58.) _____. Coraline. New York: Harper Trophy, 2002.

  _____. Day of the Dead: An Annotated Babylon 5 Script. Minneapolis: DreamHaven Books, 1998.

  _____. Death: The High Cost of Living. New York: Vertigo, 1993. _____. Don’t Panic: Douglas Adams and The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. London: Titan Books, 1993.

  _____. “Foreword: The Nature of the Infection.” The Eye of the Tyger. Edited by Paul McAuley, 7-10. Tolworth: Telos Publishing, 2003. _____. Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders. London: Headline Review, 2007; New York: Harper, 2010. _____ The Graveyard Book. New York: Harper Collins
, 2008. _____. Interview by Elder, Robert K. The Neil Gaiman Reader 2007.

  _____. Introduction to The Sandman: Endless Nights. London: Vertigo, 2004. _____. Marvel 1602. London: Marvel, 2006.

  _____. MirrorMask. New York: Harper Collins, 2005.

  _____. Mr. Punch: The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy. London: Bloomsbury, 2006. _____. Neil Gaiman’s Midnight Days. New York: Vertigo, 1999. _____. Neverwhere. London: BBC Books, 1996.

  _____. “Notes Towards a Vegetable Theology.” Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman, Edited by Hank Wagner, 187-91. London: St Martin’s Press, 2009.

  _____. Odd and the Frost Giants. New York: Harper, 2009.

  _____. Spawn #9. New York: Image Comics, 1993.

  _____. The Sandman. Issue #20, “Façade.” New York: DC Comics, 1991.

  _____. The Sandman. Issue #54, “The Golden Boy.” New York: DC Comics, 1993.

  _____. The Sandman I: Preludes and Nocturnes. New York: DC/Vertigo, 1991.

  _____. The Sandman II: The Doll’s House. New York: DC/Vertigo, 1995 (first edition 1990). _____. The Sandman III: Dream Country. New York: DC/Vertigo, 1991. _____. The Sandman IV: Season of Mists. New York: DC/Vertigo, 1992. _____. The Sandman V: A Game of You. New York: DC/Vertigo: 1993.

  _____. The Sandman VI: Fables and Reflections. New York: DC/Vertigo, 1993.

  _____. The Sandman VII: Brief Lives. New York: DC/Vertigo, 1999, 2009. _____. The Sandman VIII: World’s End. New York: DC/Vertigo, 1994. _____. The Sandman IX: The Kindly Ones. New York: DC/Vertigo, 1996. _____. The Sandman X: The Wake. New York: DC/Vertigo, 1997. _____. The Sandman: The Dream Hunters. New York: DC/Vertigo, 1999.

  _____. Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions. London: Headline Feature, 1999; London: Headline, 2000; New York: Avon Books, 2005. _____. Stardust: Being a Romance within the Realms of Faerie. New York: Vertigo, 1998; London: Headline, 1999 (pagination from 2005 Headline Review edition); New York. Harper Perennial, 2006.

 

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