Syddansk Universitet (Ekstern organisation)

Beskrivelse

Imagining the Impossible joins three Danish institutions with international partners in the US, the UK, and Australia, and is led by Associate Professor Rikke Schubart

Imagining the Impossible joins thirteen researchers working with media fictions (television, film, games, literature), human play (real and virtual), and production design in games and films. We join theories from the humanities with biocultural, evolutionary, and cognitive theories. We view fantastic fiction as offering imaginary play and cognitive meta-thinking. The network asks why the fantastic has exploded in contemporary entertainment, how and why we play with – create, design, use, engage with – the fantastic, and why the fantastic is adaptive and important for human existence. We use a broad definition of the fantastic as stories which have an ontological rupture, thus making possible the impossible and the counterfactual. We include all fantastic subgenres, such as supernatural horror, fairy tales, science fiction, fantasy, and superheroes.

Today, the fantastic reigns supreme in entertainment. But not long ago, fantastic fictions were scorned. However, film series Harry Potter (2001–2011) and The Hunger Games (2012–2016) prove the appeal to mainstream audiences, shows like The Walking Dead (2011–) and Game of Thrones (2011–) has made fantastic the new black, and films like The Shape of Water (2017), Wonder Woman (2017), and Black Panther (2017) did what the industry thought impossible: Winning Oscars and making women and African-Americans blockbuster material.

We aim to be an interdisciplinary task force which creates a shared theoretical platform for a study of the fantastic, a platform where we join forces in pursuit of answers. We produce an interdisciplinary theory of the fantastic and at the end of 2020 write a large collective project application.

Periode	1 jan. 2019 → 1 okt. 2020
Sted for afholdelse	Syddansk Universitet, Danmark
Grad af anerkendelse	International