Fantasies are defined as byproducts of human imagination and mental activities to internalize unusual external objective stimulus. In the literature, utilization of fantasy in educational settings promoted intellectual and emotional improvements. However, the research implications from these fantasy research studies are mostly limited to traditional game design and classroom teaching. There are two research purposes in this study. The first is to examine how different types of fantasy and student fantasy proneness influence science learning, factual information acquisition, and game engagement in a 3D educational game environment called “Alien Rescue.” To accomplish this purpose, this research investigated the effects of fantasy type and fantasy proneness on science learning, factual information of alien characters, and game engagement. The second purpose of this study is to investigate student’s perception of the varying types of fantasy. To accomplish the second purpose of the study, this research inquired how student identified each type of fantasy and related his or her past experience to the embodied characteristics in alien characters. The participants of the study were 103 students who used Alien Rescue in four classes as their science curriculum for 10 days. The students in two classes were assigned to a treatment group using models with portrayal fantasy and the students in two classes were assigned to the other treatment group using models with creative fantasy. Employing mixed methods, this study analyzed both quantitative and qualitative data such as surveys and student interviews. The results in the quantitative part of the study showed that portrayal fantasy was effective for science learning, alien information acquisition, and game engagement. Specifically, the students who used portrayal fantasy models showed higher improvement of science knowledge and scored better on both alien information acquisition and game engagement. High fantasy proneness group also showed better game engagement. The finding with qualitative data showed that the students pointed out eight elements in identifying 3D fantasy objects, and those elements were relevant to the design elements that the researcher included in the 3D modeling procedure. The students also showed a perception pattern that they understood 3D game characters based upon previous experience regardless of fantasy type. The findings suggested that portrayal fantasy was effective in enhancing content learning, factual information acquisition, and engagement in educational games because the familiarity of the fantasy elements makes the identification of the fantasy characters easier and faster. However, too deep involvement in fantasy resulted in ineffective and inefficient learning outcomes. The findings also suggested that eight components of 3D models were essential elements in identifying fantasy game characters by learners as well as designing the 3D characters by game designers. / text

This study has examined the uses and gratifications, which fantasy sports users seek for their online participation. Several uses and gratifications were tested to demonstrate whether or not they were motivations for different groups of online fantasy users. A survey instrument was created and disseminated to online fantasy users through fantasy message boards on the Internet. Online fantasy users who are Beginners, have high levels of participation, and participate in monetary prize leagues were groups that were studied. The analyses identified seven motivations that are sought by online fantasy users of those three groups. Descriptive data indicates most of online fantasy users are full-time employees who spend time at work checking their fantasy leagues and teams. / Department of Journalism

This thesis demonstrates that Doctor Strange comics incorporate established tropes of the fantastic canon while also incorporating postmodern techniques that modernize the genre. Strange's debut series, Strange Tales, begins this development of stylistic changes, but it still relies heavily on standard uses of the fantastic. The 2015 series, Doctor Strange, builds on the evolution of the fantastic apparent in its predecessor while evidencing an even stronger presence of the postmodern. Such use of postmodern strategies disrupts the suspension of disbelief on which popular fantasy often relies. To show this disruption and its effects, this thesis examines Strange Tales and Doctor Strange (2015) as they relate to the fantastic cornerstones of Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and Rowling's Harry Potter series. It begins by defining the genre of fantasy and the tenets of postmodernism, then it combines these definitions to explain the new genre of postmodern fantasy, or post-fantasy, which Doctor Strange comics develop. To show how these comics evolve the fantasy genre through applications of postmodernism, this thesis examines their use of otherworldliness and supernaturalism, as well as their characterization and narrative strategies, examining how these facets subvert our expectations of fantasy texts. / Master of Arts / This thesis analyzes the ways in which Doctor Strange comics use common features of popular fantastic texts while also drawing attention to them in ways traditional fantasy does not. In doing so, these comics create an environment for the reader which entertains through the use of fantastic devices but disrupts the escapist tendencies frequently encouraged by fantastic texts. Specifically, this thesis examines Doctor Strange’s 1963 debut in Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s Strange Tales and the contemporary series Doctor Strange, begun in 2015, in comparison with Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. In doing so, this thesis aims to show what tropes Doctor Strange comics borrow from these popular texts and how they change such tropes to revitalize the fantastic genre. The first chapter defines important terms and genres used throughout the thesis, including postmodernism, fantasy, and post-fantasy. The following chapters explore the changed ways in which Doctor Strange comics present expected features of the fantastic genre, specifically otherworldliness, the supernatural, character tropes of the hero and the villain, and narrative conventions. Each chapter also the effects these changes have on the comics as a whole and how these effects ultimately develop the fantastic by disrupting our expectations of it.

<p>BI/Konst</p>

<p>Uppsatsen ingår i kursen Skapande svenska C, 30 hp,  inom ämnet Litteraturvetenskap vid Umeå universitet</p>

published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

No description available.

Fantasy films have been a part of cinema since the very beginnings of the medium. Although fantasy films can be found in every decade of the last century, the genre only became persistently successful from the late 1970s onwards. Perhaps the relatively recent prominence of fantasy goes some way to explain why the genre lacks the academic discourse that other film genres have encouraged. Another reason why fantasy has evaded considerable discussion as a genre could be because of the difficulty in defining it. Fantasy can encompass numerous types of films, and features an array of different thematic and visual styles. Previous studies examining fantasy either fail to consider the mode as a genre, or only consider a limited array of films. Using Tzvetan Todorov’s assessment of The Fantastic as a framework, this thesis examines fantasy films from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. I reassert fantasy’s position as a genre rather than a mode or impulse. Analysing a wide range of films from this period, this thesis outlines the preoccupations of the genre and identifies the various cycles and sub-genres encompassed by the term ‘fantasy’. These categories include those that concern the style of film and those that concern the intended audience. Deconstructing the fantasy genre in these sub-genres makes it more manageable to appraise the genre as a whole. Consistent patterns emerge in the examination of these films, ranging from archetypal characters to a fixation with subversion. The 1980s was a critical time for fantasy cinema as it was the first sustained period of frequent successful films. Fantasy was the most commercially successful genre of the decade; Hollywood’s output in this period still reverberates in today’s industry. Thus, the fantasy genre is most worthy of the critical discussion afforded to other genres.

Self-imagery plays a significant role in the development and maintenance of social anxiety (Hirsch, Clark and Mathews, 2006a). As a feared social event is anticipated, negative self- images become activated and this increases the experience of anxiety (Hirsch & Holmes, 2007). These continue to be present during the social event and become reinforced by negative interpretations of self-performance as well as by the responses of others (Hirsch, Clark, Mathews & Williams, 2003). Mental imagery is a key characteristic of fantasy proneness where the ability to generate vivid imagery forms part of imaginational ability (Sanchez-Bernados & Avia, 2004). This study investigated the relationship between fantasy proneness and social anxiety. As anticipation of a feared event plays a pivotal role in social anxiety; the establishment of a positive relationship between fantasy proneness (imaginational ability) and social anxiety may shed light on the role that imagination and fantasy play in how a socially anxious person imagines a feared event, which then contributes to the experience of social anxiety. The implications of a relationship between these constructs may indicate the role which imaginational ability (fantasy proneness) could play in underlying and maintaining social anxiety. Two self-report measures (the Creative Experiences Questionnaire and the self-report version of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale) were administered to a sample of 50 non-clinical participants; 38 females and 12 males, within the age range of 19 to 52 years old. Both scales have been found to have adequate psychometric properties internationally (Fresco, Coles, Heimberg, Liebowitz, Hami, Stein and Goetz, 2001; Merckelbach, Horselenberg & Muris, 2001). Whilst no psychometric information on the use of these scales in the South African context could be found, the results of this study will contribute to the use of these scales in South Africa. The results of these scales were statistically correlated revealing that, within the research design and methodology parameters of this study, a weak, but significant, positive, relationship was found between the constructs of fantasy proneness and social anxiety. The implication of this finding is that imagination, as a cognitive process, plays a role in social anxiety. Clinically this suggests that whilst imaginative processes play a role in underlying social anxiety, they can also be utilised adaptively in cognitively countering social anxiety in a treatment context.

This study addresses the state of scholarship regarding fantasy literature and questions the position of scholars who have dismissed it as panegyric. This study notes that no accepted definition of fantasy exists, sets forth its own, and questions the value of fantasy literature. Moving from definition, this study notes that fantasy literature limits artistic freedom by supplementing the reality principle of minimal distance in mimetic fiction with penemaximal distance. Penemaximal distance affords fantasy a great remove from the actual world but adds the generic megatext as a frame of reference that defines reality. This allows fantasy literature to create semantic and episodic memory of diegetic worlds no longer limited by actual world foreknowledge and perception. Engaging narrative and cognitive theory, this study argues that authors utilize semantic memory to work within established truths of the genre, and readers hold authors to those rules unless authorial justification merits revision of generic epistemology. By maintaining a link to semantic memory (truth), fantasy texts create belief in the diegesis through an acceptance of affective and cognitive significance. An examination of Charles Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao notes the control of the reader's semantic memory in the catalogue presented following the text that forces a reconsideration of the assumptions made by the reader. This leads to a discussion of the reader's necessity regarding diegetic creation. Brandon Sanderson's The Emperor's Soul is engaged as a metacomment on writing fantasy and links the protagonist, Shai, to the author through plot and position regarding world-building and the creation of episodic memory that alters the reader in the actual world. Lastly, Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen is positioned as fantasy that satirizes generic expectations and confronts reader assumptions in the diegesis, leading to episodic memory of a meritocratic world and actual world demystification. Gary Wolfe posits the idea of deeper belief, where experiences within the text become virtual analogues for actual world experiences, and this study argues this moment as the creation of episodic memory. This is one value of fantasy literature; the memory of experiencing worlds not limited by empirical perception. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection