Paper short abstract

Investigating the indigenously authored novels There There (2018) by Tommy Orange and Indian Horse (2012) by Richard Wagamese, this paper depicts the inherited dislocation of identity through the symbolic use of ghosts as mechanisms to access ancestral memory and portray cultural haunting.

Paper long abstract

Across cultures, ghosts have extensively figured as literary symbols, captivating readers with their often-romanticised suggestion of existence beyond death in the form of apparitions. Once traditional in native lore, the reappearance of ghosts in contemporary Indigenous literature is an effective and symbolic technique, supporting the ideology of imaginative recuperation. In postcolonial literary practice, ghosts became effective devices to explore and portray class, colour, and gender inequalities, bridging the past with the present, encouraging haunting to become a conduit through which to investigate changes in perspectives. Drawing on philosopher Derrida’s concept of ‘Hauntology’, revealing how postcolonial cultures reflect the genesis of oral storytelling to depict inherited dislocation of identity, this paper investigates indigenously authored novels There There (2018) by Tommy Orange, and Indian Horse (2012) by Richard Wagamese.

In these texts, content is torn from real-life experiences. As ghosts become mechanisms to access ancestral memory and depict cultural temporalities, both authors employ haunting as a means to revisit, reveal and recuperate from colonial atrocities. When viewed through the lens of ancestral trauma, Emily Dickinson’s notion that the ‘external ghost’ was less disturbing than any internal haunting becomes particularly applicable. Symbolic of a silent history, the manifestation of ghosts external and internal, serves to separate time, reality and history while representing a continuing loss of identity and cultural futurity.

Paper short abstract

Fantasy has long helped us perceive the world anew. In a time of Climate Emergency is the nature of Fantasy changing to reflect the challenges it presents? Can the blue-sky thinking of the Fantastic provide us with useful tools for addressing ‘the defining crisis of our time’ (UN)?

Paper long abstract

From Gilgamesh to Gawain and the Green Knight, the Brothers Grimm to

Grimdark, the natural world has provided the backdrop for Fantasy since

its earliest iterations. The playgrounds of childhood are often a writer’s

first Fantasy landscape and can develop into fully fledged storyworlds.

Do readers of Fantasy seek out the genre for a taste of this unsullied

environment? Is it nostalgia for the lost Edens of childhood, a way to

escape, or to find resilience and inspiration? And in a time of Climate

Emergency, is the nature of Fantasy changing to reflect the challenges it

presents? Can the blue-sky thinking of the Fantastic provide us with a

useful tool for addressing what the United Nations has called ‘the defining

crisis of our time’?

Paper short abstract

This presentation discusses the inter-connections of African beliefs in the supernatural world and the physical world, and how these beliefs are presented in indigenous folktale narratives and novels. The discussion would be done against the backdrop of Western and Eastern African folktale cultures.

Paper long abstract

In some African cultures, it is believed that the physical world is controlled by the spirit world or by supernatural forces. Onongha (2023) posits that the major components of the African cosmos are essentially spiritual in nature.” (Onongha, 2023, p.1) This presentation takes a look at the inter-connections of the physical and spiritual world through depictions of folktales and fiction across selected African cultures. As such, the presentation would focus on cause and effects in the spirit and physical world as well as how curses and agreements function in the physical as well as the supernatural. This discussion would employ the creative works of writers from the East and West of Africa as practical examples of the inter-connections of African spirituality to the mundane existence of everyday people. The traditional folktale cultures of West African communities would also be highlighted by discussing how elements of the supernatural in folktales connects and influences not only creative writers but daily human life and existence. Some of the writers and their works that would be referred to are Jennifer. N. Makumbi’s Kintu, Francesca Ekwuyasi’s Butter Honey Pig Bread, Cyprian Ekwensi’s An African Night Entertainment, among others.

Paper short abstract

Slovak writer E. J. Groch has introduced the concept of 'second naivety', in which human beings reduce their human selves in favour of spiritual and divine powers, most often represented by nature. In his work, he observes the process by which body diffuses and unifies with other natural creations.

Paper long abstract

In his work, Slovak writer Erik Jakub Groch (1957) presented the radical concept of 'Second Naivety' (2005), derived from religious practices of simplicity and minimalism as an alternative to the consumerism and materialism of the contemporary world. From the outset, the concept was closely associated with ecology as a moral quest and a display of compassion towards beings considered to be 'lower' than mankind. The concept has gradually undergone further development, and in Groch's later work Viety (2021), which translates as 'sentences brought by the wind', he begins to demonstrate self-observation of bodily diffusion and unification with other beings (trees, birds, insects, etc.). Through depoeticisation, he reaches the threshold between literature and mysticism. Reuniting with nature involves reduction and minimalism (in Groch's own words: 'It is essential to leave something out so that nature can describe itself'). Physically diminishing oneself allows one to transcend boundaries of body and move freely between the human narrator and other natural beings. Inner human emptiness is a prerequisite for acquiring new content from spiritual or natural realms. In the light of Latour's concept of agency, Groch challenges the human-centred, dominant perspective by pushing actants of nature to the most prominent position, which has a number of consequences, including showing a new order in which nature prevails in the world. The original paradox — analysing naivety is incompatible with being naive — is resolved in Groch's recent work by increasing emptiness (lack of syntax, sentences reduced to notes, etc.), allowing nature to describe itself.

Paper short abstract

Bernard Malamud’s novel The Natural (1952) bears striking similarities to Sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur), specifically to the Grettis saga. Like Grettir the Strong, Roy Hobbs is a larger-than-life heroic figure—strong, brave, and ‘natural’, but also flawed, leading to his ultimate downfall.

Paper long abstract

Bernard Malamud’s novel The Natural (1952) seems like a ‘natural’ subject for a conference that engages with ‘essentialist notions of the natural’. Although the novel itself is not a folk narrative strictly speaking, it very deliberately utilizes many elements of myth and legend. The path of the novel’s protagonist Roy Hobbs largely conforms to the archetypal patterns of folk heroes, as delineated by Otto Rank, Lord Raglan, Edward Tylor, Joseph Campbell, and others. Moreover—and perhaps more appropriate for the conference setting in Reykjavik—there are solid connections to the Sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur), specifically to the Grettis saga.

Like Grettir the Strong, Roy Hobbs is a larger-than-life heroic figure—strong, brave, and ‘natural’, but with deep flaws that lead to his ultimate downfall. Further similarities between the two narratives are the inevitability of fate, in which both heroes seem trapped in tragic cycles of betrayal and failure, as well as a literary tone that seems deliberately understated, restrained, and stoic amid the highly dramatic confrontations of the story lines.

This paper will explore these connections, particularly to better understand the physical and spiritual ‘notions of the natural’ that emerge fully in both Malamud’s novel and the Grettis saga. The paper will also consider the 1984 film version of The Natural starring Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs, which adheres closely to both the novel and saga until the end, when presumably Hollywood conventions must inevitably overcome the doom and gloom of traditional folk narrative.