Fantastic Animals, Animals in the Fantastic

The sixth volume of "Fastitocalon" comprises contributions that investigate the role of animals (real or imaginary) in texts of the fantastic not only from a literary point of view but also via cultural and anthropological studies approaches. Thus contributions discuss the question whether animals function as exemplary representatives of a fantastic world or whether they remain rooted in the primary world and are merely adapted to their new literary environments. The authors further explore animal characteristics and features that go beyond the limits of human nature, look at the motivation for transgressing the human-animal divide (e.g. in form of transformations and metamorphoses) and the interplay between human culture in general and the use of animals in specific (con-)texts, such as myths and fables. Contributors are: Friedhelm Schneidewind (Talking Animals as Literary Protagonists), Anja Höing (Negotiating Anthropomorphism in Talking Animal Stories-An Ecocritical Approach to Fantastic Animals), Steve Gronert Ellerhoff (The Rabbit Who Saw It All Coming: Western Concepts of Shamanism in "Watership Down"), Jenn Grunigen ('Queering the Fox': A Reading of Four Works of Vulpine Mythpunk), Smadar Shiffman (Kafka's Fantastic Animals), Kristine Larsen ("Mutant, Monster, Freak": The Mythological World of Andrzej Sapkowski's "Witcher" Series), Amber J. Rose (ok ?ar er mér úlfsins ván, er ek eyrum sá. And I expect a wolf, when I see a wolf's ears), Lukasz Neubauer (The Eagle is not Coming: Some Remarks on the Absence of the News-Bearing Eagle in Peter Jackson's Adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings"), Victoria Holtz Wodzak (On Pilgrimage Among Beasts: Narnia, and the Beasts Who Teach), Fanfan Chen (The Animal Imaginary of Fantastic Time and Narrative in "Inuyasha"), Daniel Lau / Sarah Schlüter (Anz?-Mesopotamia's mythological thunderbird), Tziona Grossmark (I saw a frog the size of the Fort of Hagronia (BT Baba Batra 73b)-Or How Big is an Elephant?), Timo Lothmann (The ravaging and hoard-guarding antagonist: A cognitive approach to "dragon" conceptualisations in "Beowulf" and selected writings of J.R.R. Tolkien)