A fantasy world, that exists only in our minds, provides us a place where we can mentally escape from everyday reality. Escapism, such as indulging in daydreams, allows us to experience comfort and makes us feel safe, eliminating feelings of insecurity and vulnerability. This study aims to use playfulness and reverie as a tool to access and confront mental discomforts. Transforming disturbing situations into an experience of reverie; a correction of unsatisfying reality, by converting a solid component of the real world into a desirable infinite form will provide alternative viewpoints. Throughout my work, this method has been employed to address personal phobias, violent conflicts, political insecurity, and racial inequality. It is my hope to employ daydreaming as a form of serious play to provide a new way of perceiving unsatisfying reality.

Science Fiction/Fantasy and the Representation of Ethnic Futurity examines the influence of science fiction/fantasy (SFF) as applied to twentieth century and contemporary African American, Native American and Latina/o texts. Bringing together theories of racial identity, hybridity, and postcolonialism, this project demonstrates how twentieth century and contemporary ethnic American SFF authors are currently utilizing tropes of SFF to blur racial distinctions and challenge white/other or colonizer/colonized binaries. Ethnic American SFF authors are able to employ SFF landscapes that address narratives of victimization or colonization while still imagining worlds where alternate representations of racial and ethnic identity are possible. My multicultural approach pairs authors of different ethnicities in order to examine common themes that occur in ethnic American SFF texts. The first chapter examines SFF post-apocalyptic depictions of racial and ethnic identity in Samuel Delany's Dhalgren and Gerald Vizenor's Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles. Chapter two explores depictions of ethnic undead figures in Octavia Butler's Fledgling and Daniel José Older's "Phantom Overload." Chapter three addresses themes of indigenous and migrant colonization in Celu Amberstone's "Refugees" and Rosura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita's Lunar Braceros: 2125-2148.

This study analyzes the use of linguistic stereotypes in two fantasy role-playing games, Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt and Dragon Age: Origins with a focus on phonology. It investigates how accent stereotypes are used and why they are important for characters in video games, for example regarding prestige and attractiveness. It analyzes each character from a character type perspective: hero, villain, comic-relief, mentor and lover. The results show that there are accent stereotypes in fantasy role-playing games and that they are, most likely, deliberately placed as such. It also shows that standard variations of English are mainly used for characters that serves a purpose to the story while non-standard variations are used for characters that serves no purpose to the game other than working as tools to enrich the world with a sense of life.

This thesis proposes that the current popularity of heroic fantasy arises from the genre's capacity to reveal "meaning" to the alienated subject within late modernity. While consumerism potentially undermines the subject's sense of stability both as an individual and as a member of a coherent and unified social group, the hero's journey conveys a compelling model for attaining a purposive subjectivity by acting on behalf of the broader community. However, this "healing" message is in turn appropriated by multinational corporations and nation states for financial advantage. Heroic fantasy can thus be read at various points of its production and consumption as both legitimating and contesting dominant institutions and ideologies.With particular reference to the books and films of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, ontological security is discussed at both individual and collective levels across three horizons: commodification, gender, and nationalism. A combination of close textual analysis and the application of core concepts from cultural studies - particularly ethnographic study, hegemonic power relations and political economy - provides the methodological flexibility necessary to trace consumers' contradictory and ambivalent responses to the three themes: the anti-materialist message incorporated in the genre's moral economy is jeopardised by the rampant commodification of the texts; the normative masculinity and emphasised femininity common to the genre is contested by female readers; and the utopic visions of a secure and homogeneous community are exploited by the New Zealand government rebranding the country as Middle-earth. These arguments are oriented toward a New Zealand perspective; interviews with readers of Harry Potter and a discussion of the World Premiere of Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Return of the King in "Wellywood" contribute to this specific context.This thesis therefore asserts that once heroic fantasy is placed in the contexts of production and reception conflicting trends are revealed, suggesting that the social impacts of heroic fantasy are complex and equivocal. Although the genre is readily commodified by the very system that it retaliates against, analysis suggests that heroic fantasy resists reification into a single dominant discourse as appropriation is never absolute.

本研究針對消費幻想此議題，進行有別於傳統媒介上的研究。消費幻想是一種特殊消費動機，起源於因現實生活中的限制，無法達成追求的目的，使的內心產生不舒服的感受，為了消除這種負面感受，只好以間接的方式來達成目標，亦即以滿足幻想為出發點而產生的消費行為。此研究過去在實體媒介被探討，然而因為現階段的時空背景下，人們與網路的關係越發密切，因此本報告將把此議題放在虛擬媒介上作研究，意即以一線上社群交友網站會員-愛情公寓的住戶們為對象進行研究。 本報告運用質化研究扎根理論的取徑，以線上即時通的方式深度訪談了共七位的愛情公寓女性住戶們，其年齡層橫跨14至40歲。研究結果產生了四種典型故事，及六大要素所構成的個案架構圖。四種典型故事（設計的快樂、愛情的延續、尋求認同感、擴大交友圈）呈現了住戶們尋求三種不同的滿足（追求隨心所欲之境界的需求、愛情的需求及友誼的需求）；六大要素則描繪在愛情公寓平台上幻想滿足的過程及讓此過程順利進行的輔助因素。 此研究發現，除了平台的功能是帶給人們滿足幻想的因素外，網路的特性加強了幻想氛圍逼真的程度。此外，研究中也發現人們的需求或是慾求雖是普遍性的（如：每個人都有對愛情美好性的嚮往），但是這些需求/慾求的樣貌構成的元素卻因人而異。另外，沈浸幻想氛圍的結果除了一般所熟知的會因此產生相對應的消費行為外，在本研究中另發現了人們會對虛擬物品產生情感連結及使用者性格浮現的情形。而最後以幻想至消費的途徑過程來看，本研究瞭解到幻想其實是一個尋換不斷的過程，只要在現實生活中因某種限制而無法直接達到目的，使用者都將長時間的以這種間接方式來完成目標。 有鑑於本研究探討的媒介與往常的研究不同，因此發現了許多關於幻想的另一層面，研究結果可供後續的學術研究在虛擬媒介上作一步探討時提供基礎，並可供運用幻想消費為行銷手法的人員作執行上及思維上的參考依據。 / The study aims to investigate the theme- consumer fantasy, on a new channel. Consumer fantasy defines as a special consumption motivation, it originates from the limits that prevent people to achieve the goal and intern arises an uncomfortable feelings. In order to subside these negative feelings, people then achieve the goal in an indirect manner, which is the fantasy- driven consumer behavior. This was often been studies on a physical channel, however, due to the internet era, people have more close relation with internet than before, this study will have the theme- consumer fantasy, research on the virtual channel, using I-Part as the example. The research method of the study is grounded theory in qualitative research, interviewing 7 female inhabitants, age range from 14- 40 years old, via online instant messenger. The study results 4 typical stories and a model that constructs by 6 factors. The 4 typical stories( The happiness on design, the extension of love, looking for agreement and friends-hood enlargement) reveals 3 fulfillments(freedom, love, and friendship), and the 6 factors of the model depict the process of fantasy fulfillment, adding the complementary that is required. The study results that, besides the website functions that act as a significant part on fantasy fulfillment, website characteristics also play a weighty role. Secondly, people may have the share needs or desires, but the elements of the needs or desires of people may be different from each to another. Furthermore, this study found out that, people may have affection toward the virtual objects after using the website, as well as some of the inhabitant even show the second characteristic during playing the role. Finally, the study found out that the fantasy process may be continuous as long as the limit in the real world exists. Due to the different channel the theme is research on, the study discovers distinct facets of the topic. The results of the study may acted as the exploration for the academic research on consumer fantasy on the virtual channel, and hopefully, it could also provide some thoughts to marketing people.

<p>Jag har via min verksamhetsförlagda utbildning under lärarutbildningen kommit i kontakt med elever som har för avsikt att färgsatta sina slöjdföremål. I samband med detta har jag ställt mig frågorna. Vilka är elevernas inspirationskällor och vilka faktorer skulle kunna påverka elevernas färgsättningsval? Efter intervjuer med elever och genomförda litteraturstudier så har jag fått en inblick i vilka inspirationskällor elever kan använda sig av. I min undersökning visade det sig att elever ofta vill efterlikna sin färgsättning med något de sett tidigare. De faktorer som påverkade eleverna var många gånger inspirerat från miljöer utanför skolans miljö. Men de fanns också faktorer i slöjdsalen som gav eleverna inspiration till deras färgsättningsval.</p>

<p>This essay examines the love affair between the two main characters of Rut Hillarp’s novel Sindhia. It draws attention to the schism between the Surrealist version of love as an extatic-religious fusion of the sexes – that in a way marks the relationship – and the yet remarkable coolness between the two lovers.</p><p>With the theories of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, I will show how the man and the woman project their unrealistic individual fantasies on each other, thus rendering impossible the Surrealist Meeting, with its road to an absolute reality. The Surrealist "l’amour fou", I will argue, is trapped in the ritualized "l’amor interruptus"; a lacanian term for a certain kind of love that wishes to conceal the fact that desire will never find its object. It does so by pretending that the object would be found if only love had been consummated (thus the reason love is never consummated, since, as Lacan puts it, the object, or the Thing, is never to be found).</p><p>I will, in brief, argue that the love affair depicted in the novel in different ways tries to deal with the “lack-of-being” that marks the subject according to Lacan; the absolute distance to the desirable Thing.</p>

<p>Failed Feminism?: Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel Tehanu</p><p>The purpose of this essay is to show that Ursula K. LeGuin’s fantasy novel Tehanu instead of breaking away from traditional gender roles maintains them, despite the novel’s promises of change. I begin by showing the places where the possibilities of change are indicated, and then I use feminist criticism to show that there is no change in the gender roles.</p><p>I have examined the gender roles in Tehanu, by taking a closer look at the characters and the roles they have in the plot. Numerous critics claim that this novel is Le Guin’s attempt to revise her earlier, more traditional fantasy novels in the Earthsea trilogy, and that Tehanu works as a feminist reaction to the Earthsea trilogy. However, even though Le Guin makes the traditional patriarchal gender roles apparent to the unaware reader, the protagonists have internalised the patriarchal values of their society when the novel closes, which may be fairly disappointing to the reader who brings feminist awareness to the reading of novel. The women are depicted as caregivers, and the men are portrayed as the decision-makers. The gender roles are as traditional as they can be with Ged as the man who is capable to read the wizard’s books, with Tehanu who stays with her family and does not leave with the dragons, and with Tenar as the woman who takes care of the household.</p>

<p>Syftet med uppsatsen är att få en grundligare kunskap om berättande. I uppsatsen kan man läsa om vad författare anser om berättandets betydelse, medias påverkan på fantasin och vilka skyldigheter pedagoger har. Jag har även intervjuat tre pedagoger, från förskolan och skolans yngre år. Pedagogerna har givit en förståelse om hur berättande kan användas i praktiken och vilken betydelse de anser att berättande har för barnen. Jag har kommit fram till att berättande används i alla dess former ute i de verksamheter jag har besökt och är uppskattat från både lärare och barn. Jag kom också fram till att berättande hjälper barn att utveckla sitt språk, minne och fantasi. Men att viss media, d.v.s. dator och television, kan göra fantasin lat och hämma den språkliga utvecklingen.</p> / <p>The purpose of the essay is to get a thorough knowledge about narration. You can read about different authors’ opinions about narration, its significance, and the influence media has on the imagination and the duties educationists have. I’ve also interviewed three different educationists, from both pre-school and the early ages of school. They have provided insights about how to use narration in school, and the importance they think narration has for the children. The results show that narration is used in many forms an appreciated by both teachers and children. I’ve also discovered that narration helps children to develop their language skills, their memory and their imagination. But some media, like the computer and the television, could make the imagination lazy and obstruct the linguistic development.</p>

Fantasy sport participation is an online activity consuming the time, energy, and devotion of many sport followers. This activity provides participants a unique way to experience sport aside from simply viewing, listening, or following a sporting contest. Fantasy sport users present marketers and advertisers with a distinct type of sport fan, segmentation strategy, and target market. These users experience sport beyond wins, losses, and championships. They view statistics as fantasy points, individual players as products, and injury reports as team-altering news. These users see sport through a different lens. The purpose of this research is to gain familiarity with the fantasy sport user by developing an understanding of the motivations behind fantasy sport participation and examining factors associated with participation in fantasy sport; specifically involving media use, message board use, sport participation, overall satisfaction, and future intentions. Data was collected through the use of mixed methods consisting of qualitative online focus groups and quantitative questionnaires. The findings of the focus groups revealed four major themes associated with the participation and experience of fantasy sport. The themes were Competition, Socializing, Surveillance, and Ownership. These findings assisted in (1) validating past and current research, (2) developing and altering scale items for the quantitative questionnaire, and (3) providing deeper understanding of the fantasy sport experience. The major results of the quantitative questionnaire indicated top fantasy sport motivating factors as Fanship, Competition, and Social Sport with the lowest factors as Fan Expression, Ownership, and Escape. The factors with the highest significant relationship with overall satisfaction in the activity were Competition, Achievement, and Surveillance. The factors with the highest significant relationship with future intentions were Competition and Camaraderie. Other findings revealed no significant difference in motivations between different levels of sport participation and message board use. Message board use did, however, produce significant differences favoring higher overall satisfaction and future intentions for those using message boards. Other results examine (1) media use and fantasy sport participation and (2) Mavenism and Schwabism and its relationship to fantasy sport motivations, overall satisfaction, and future intentions.