The Palgrave Handbook of Magical Realism in the Twenty-First Century

by Richard Perez (Editor), Victoria A. Chevalier (Editor)

Overview

The Palgrave Handbook of Magical Realism in the Twenty-First Century examines magical realism in literatures from around the globe. Featuring twenty-seven essays written by leading scholars, this anthology argues that literary expressions of magical realism proliferate globally in the twenty-first century due to travel and migrations, the shrinking of time and space, and the growing encroachment of human life on nature. In this global context, magical realism addresses twenty-first-century politics, aesthetics, identity, and social/national formations where contact between and within cultures has exponentially increased, altering how communities and nations imagine themselves. This text assembles a group of critics throughout the world—the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia—who employ multiple theoretical approaches to examine the different ways magical realism in literature has transitioned to a global practice; thus, signaling a new stage in the history and development of the genre.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030398378
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	05/01/2020
Edition description:	1st ed. 2020
Pages:	650
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Richard Perez is Associate Professor of English at John Jay College at the City University of New York, USA. He is the co-editor of two critical anthologies published by Palgrave Macmillan: Contemporary U.S. Latino/a Criticism (2007) and Moments of Magical Realism in U.S. Ethnic Literatures (2012).

Victoria A. Chevalier is Associate Professor of English at Medgar Evers College at The City University of New York, USA. She has published articles in Contemporary U.S. Latino/a Literary Criticism, John Oliver Killens Review, and Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas.

Table of Contents

Introduction:

1. Richard Perez, John Jay College, CUNY &

Victoria A. Chevalier, Medgar Evers College, CUNY

"Proliferations of Being: The Persistence of Magical Realism in Twenty-First Century Literature and Culture"

I. Global Migrations of Magical Realism

2. Mariano Siskind, Harvard University

“The Global Life of Genres and the Material Travels of Magical Realism”

3. Lydie Moudileno, University of Southern California

“Magical Realism, Afrofuturism, and (Afro)surrealism: The Entanglement of

Categories in African Fiction”

4. Roanne L. Kantor, Stanford University

“South Asian Magical Realism”

5. María del Pilar Blanco, University of Oxford

“Magical Realism and the Descriptive Turn”

II. Magic, Aesthetics, and Negativity

6. Richard Perez, John Jay College, CUNY

“Harboring Spirits: Deontological Time, Magic, and Race in Gods Go Begging by Alfredo Vea”

7. Nicholas F. Radel, Furman University

“1978, the Year of Magical Thinking: Magical Realism and the Paradoxes of White Gay Ontology in Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance and Edmund White’s Nocturnes for the King of Naples”

8. Maria Takolander, Deakin University

“Magical Realism and Indigenous Survivance in Australia: The Fiction of Alexis Wright”

9. Carine M. Mardorossian, University at Buffalo, SUNY and Angela Veronica Wong, University at Buffalo, SUNY

“Magical Terrestrealism in Edwidge Danticat’s Claire of the Sea Light”

III. Magical Conditions

10. Victoria A. Chevalier, Medgar Evers College, CUNY

“The Multiplicity of This World: Troubling Origins in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing”

11. Eugene Arva, Independent Scholar

“The Analogical Legacy of Magical Realism in Post-9/11 Literary and Filmic Trauma Narratives”

12. Claudine Raynaud, Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3

“The Uses of Enchantment: Magic Realism in Toni Morrison’s Later Writing”

13. Md Abu Shahid Abdullah, University of Asia Pacific

“Reconstructing Personal Identity and Creating an Alternative National History: Magical Realism and the Marginalised Female Voice in Gioconda Belli’s The Inhabited Woman”

14. Joshua Lam, Michigan State University

“Black Magic: Conjure, Syncretism, and Satire in Ishmael Reed”

IV. Racial and Ethnic Imaginaries

15. Caroline Rody, University of Virginia

“The Magical Book-Within-the Book: I.B. Singer, Bruno Schulz, and Contemporary Jewish Post-Holocaust Fiction”

16. Nicole Rizzuto, Georgetown University

“Magical Realism in the Fiction of Bessie Head”

17. Chad B. Infante, University of Maryland at College Park

“The Magical and Paradigmatic Intimacy of Blackness and Indianness in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”

18. Keming Liu, Medgar Evers College, CUNY

“Fiction on the Verge: Testing Taboos in The Republic of Wine”

19. Johanna X. K. Garvey, Fairfield University

“Magical Embodiment: Strategic Deontology in Toni Morrison’s Fiction”

V. (Trans)National Illusions

20. Lorna L. Perez, Buffalo State College, SUNY

“Out of Time: Resisting the Nation in One Hundred Years of Solitude”

21. Mai-Linh K. Hong, Bucknell University

“‘The Deep Root Snapped’: Reproductive Violence and Family Un/making in Quan Barry’s She Weeps Each Time You’re Born”

22. Marion Rohrleitner, University of Texas at El Paso

“Undocumented Magic: Magical Realism as ‘Aesthetic Turbulence’ in Salvador Plascencia’s The People of Paper”

23. Fadia F. Suyoufie, Yarmouk University

“Flying Over the Abyss: Magical Realism in Salim Barakat's The Captives of Sinjar"

VI. Magical Crossings: Pedagogy, Genres, and Fairy Tales

24. Kim Anderson Sasser, Wheaton College and Rachael Mariboho, University of Texas at Arlington

“Pedagogical Magic: Magical Realism’s Appeal for the Twenty-First Century Classroom”

25. Maggie Ann Bowers, University of Portsmouth

“Outrageous Humour: Satirical Magical Realism”

26. Lorna Robinson, Independent Scholar and Director of IRIS Project

“Winged Words and Gods as Birds: Magical Realism and Nature in the Homeric Epics”

27. Dana Del George, Santa Monica College

“Streaming from the Past: Magical Realism as Postmodern Fairy Tale”

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“There is lots to say about magical realism these days, it seems. This theoretically oriented volume, focusing on being, questions magical realism’s hierarchies—self and other, human and animal, human and nature, living and dead, and in so doing, interrogates and complexifies magical realism’s histories and categories, plumbing complex depths within an astonishing array of texts. Perhaps the collection’s greatest contribution is this global reach, finally taking us substantially beyond western perspectives, and illustrating how magical realism constitutes a major example of contemporary cultural globalization.” (Wendy B. Faris, author of Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of Narrative (2004))

Editorial Reviews

The Palgrave Handbook of Magical Realism in the Twenty- First Century, as an endeavor of monumental architectural complexity, offers a vast survey of the present state of the magical realist aesthetic on the global stage. … The Palgrave Handbook of Magical Realism in the Twenty- First Century will prove indispensable and benchmark instruments for the scholars who seek to assess the evolution of a literary aesthetic prompting us to continuously question our perception of what constitutes the real.” (Marc Maufort, Recherche littéraire - Literary Research, Vol. 37, 2021)

From the Publisher