Words Between Worlds: Portal Fantasy as Dialogic in Gaiman and Miéville Baker,D 2014, Words Between Worlds: Portal Fantasy as Dialogic in Gaiman and Miéville, in The refereed proceedings of the 19th conference of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs, 2014, Wellington NZ, AAWP,, pp. 1-18. Attached Files Name Description MIMEType Size Downloads baker-wordsbetweenworlds-2014.pdf Published version application/pdf 388.82KB 96 Title Words Between Worlds: Portal Fantasy as Dialogic in Gaiman and Miéville Author(s) Baker,D Conference name The Minding the gap: Writing across thresholds and fault lines papers Conference location Wellington, NZ Conference dates 2014/11/30 - 2014/12/2 Title of proceedings The refereed proceedings of the 19th conference of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs, 2014, Wellington NZ Editor(s) Pittaway,G Lodge,A Smithies,L Publication date 2014 Start page 1 End page 18 Total pages 18 Publisher AAWP Summary Step through the looking-glass and where do you go? Inherently, every text exposes the reader to other worlds. However, the fantastic, like no other mode, not only exposes, but explores, explains, and employs other worlds (and how we enter them) to question what is real and unreal, possible and impossible.Using Farah Mendelsohn’s (2008) examination of portal fantasy, this paper argues that when you step into another world you leave something behind and bring something back. This Bakhtinian dialogic will then frame an analysis of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (2001) and China Miéville’s The City and the City (2009) which explore notions of organic subjectivity, reader expectations, and if gaps actually exist between textual and extra-textual, real and unreal.These atypical, self- reflexive, satirical portal fantasies express how writers position readers (not unlike their protagonists) in alternative conceptual realms, disturbing the everyday, the commonplace realities we often take for granted. As such, both texts and the discursive strategies they use ask: what do we see, or, as may be the case, un-see? Significantly, this paper suggests that, via self-conscious world-building, portal fantasies allow reader and writer the opportunity to inhabit those spaces between textual, ideological, generic, metaphorical, irrational, fantastic worlds. ISBN 9780980757385 Field of Research 200599 Literary Studies not elsewhere classified Socio Economic Objective 970119 Expanding Knowledge through Studies of the Creative Arts and Writing HERDC Research category E1.1 Full written paper - refereed Copyright notice ©2014, AAWP Free to Read? Yes Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30071503 Document type: Conference Paper Collections: School of Communication and Creative Arts Open Access Collection Related Links Link Description Publisher URL Go to link with your DU access privileges     Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in DRO is owned by the author, with all rights reserved. Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that permission has been obtained for items included in DRO. If you believe that your rights have been infringed by this repository, please contact drosupport@deakin.edu.au. Versions Version Filter Type Wed, 18 Mar 2015, 14:05:47 EST Thu, 19 Mar 2015, 04:26:39 EST Thu, 18 Jun 2015, 15:51:59 EST Fri, 19 Jun 2015, 06:06:44 EST Fri, 19 Jun 2015, 11:57:30 EST Fri, 19 Jun 2015, 11:58:30 EST Fri, 19 Jun 2015, 11:59:31 EST Wed, 06 Dec 2017, 06:13:44 EST Fri, 07 Sep 2018, 17:27:21 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 0 times in TR Web of Science Cited 0 times in Scopus Search Google Scholar Access Statistics: 102 Abstract Views, 97 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Thu, 18 Jun 2015, 15:51:59 EST

Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that permission has been obtained for items included in DRO. If you believe that your rights have been infringed by this repository, please contact drosupport@deakin.edu.au.