Elizabeth and John talk about fantasy's power of world-making with Edinburgh professorAnna Vaninskaya, author ofWilliam Morris and the Idea of Community: Romance, History and Propaganda, 1880-1914( 2010) andFantasies of Time and Death: Dunsany, Eddison, Tolkien( 2020). Anna uncovers the melancholy sense of displacement and loss running through Tolkien, and links his notion of "subcreation" to an often concealed theological vision. Not allegory but "application" is praised as a way of reading fantasy. John asks about hopeful visions of the radical politics of fantasy (Le Guin, but alsoGraeber and Wengrow's recent work); Elizabeth stresses that fantasy's appeal is at once childish and childlike. E. Nesbit surfaces, as she tends to in RtB conversations. The question of film TV and other visual modes comes up: is textual fantasy on the way out? Mentioned in the Episode: David Graeber and David Wengrow,The Dawn of Everything. In "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie" Ursula Le Guin perhaps surprisingly praises the otherworldly prose style of Anna's beloved E. R. Eddison, best known forThe Worm Ouroboros(1922) J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories" E. NesbitThe Phoenix and the Carpet Lord Dunsany,King of Elfland's Daughter Ursula Le GuinThe Books of Earthsea Recallable Books: Sylvia Townsend Warner,Kingdoms of Elfin(and read this lovely Ivan Kreilkamp article on her earlier strange greatLolly Willowes) Lloyd AlexanderChronicles of Prydain N. K. Jemisin,The Fifth Season Read transcript here Elizabeth Ferryis Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University. Email:ferry@brandeis.edu.John Plotzis Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandeis University and co-founder of theBrandeis Educational Justice Initiative. Email:plotz@brandeis.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/fantasy