The Intensity of an Illusion:

My heart beats to the rhythm of a thousand different stories, all rooted in worlds outside of my own grasp, and yet, they remain entirely tangible in my realm of reality. Perhaps it is for this sort of love and dedication that I find myself frustrated by the lack of fantasy fiction within academic circles; perhaps some of it stems from a wish to change the minds of individuals who share the same mindset I’ve pushed back against all my life. My career in academia has been marked by moments of challenge, whether those have revolved around how we define literature (and why), what makes texts literary or worthy of study, or why rhetorical theory seems to only be applied to nonfiction works. So, it seems only fair that the culmination of my undergraduate studies in writing and literature be bolstered by challenging the canon. For the past four years, I have been asking variants of the same core questions. Why has there been a broader academic dismissal of fantasy fiction, particularly within the literary and rhetorical fields, and why is it not granted the same critical legitimacy as other genres? How would elevating the genre’s standing in academia actually serve to bolster these fields and offer study of more diverse perspectives, as well as allow for broader understandings of our histories and realities and the relationships formed through the text? 

This project served as my BA English Capstone, but it is so much more than that to me; it is a narrative we must explore.