The American Fantasy Tradition
Tuesday 25 February, Cloisters University of Chichester 5.15 – 6.30pm:
Prof Tom Shippey, leading expert on Tolkien and modern fantasy (The Road to Middle-earth, J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories)
Tolkien made fantasy mass-market in the 1960s. By doing so he consigned a pre-existing fantasy tradition in the USA, not to oblivion, but to the fringes. Fans know about its great authors – Leiber, de Camp, Anderson, Davidson, Vance – but the wider world of films and TV series has passed them by. This is our loss, for the American tradition was and is distinctive, imaginative, and above all funny. This talk will survey it, and make recommendations for unfamiliar but entertaining reading.