A new year, a new hope.
Yes, I decided to jump-start the blog again! Since I am vertiginously approaching a quarter-life crisis, this year I’ve decided to focus on my reading baggage. I’m starting with the 18th Bout of Books Read-a-thon, and following suit with a number of others. Having set my Goodreads reading challenge to 100, I will be required to read at least two books a week at least, but during read-a-thons I will try reading more. I will also do my best not to count the comic books I’m reading towards my challenge goal. At the moment I am enjoying my winter break from University so the January Read-a-thons should be easily doable. Do follow Twitter as I will post the book I am currently undertaking. I will only update the blog during read-a-thon challenges and starting or wrap-up sessions of said read-a-thons.
As this is barely the second day of the BoB Read-a-thon, I only managed to read Quidditch through the ages by Kennilworthy Whisp (J.K. Rowling). During these last few months I started a Master’s degree in the UK which lead to me joining the Uni’s Quidditch Team! Therefore it was high time for a reread of the beloved flying manual. For the rest of the Read-a-thon, I plan on finishing a number of books I started last year, finally getting around Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (did anyone else buy his Humble Bundle?) and reading a couple of other books I only have access to at home (since I’ll be going back to Uni soon.)
As I am a language lover, the books I’m reading will be a colourful mash-up of English, Romanian and French. I will try to indicate the English translation for most of them, but I fear some of them haven’t been translated unfortunately.
What is everyone else reading this January? The next book I’m tackling will be an academic journal by University of Cluj and its Center for Imagination Studies: Caietele Echinox #26/2014. You can find its Index and specifications in this article. I’ve listed them below.
Caietele Echinox nr.26/2014: „Fantasy & Science-Fiction”
Coordinators: Marius Conkan, Niculae Gheran
Editor: Phantasma. Centrul de Cercetare a Imaginarului
Publisher: Fundaţia Culturală Echinox, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
ISSN 1582-960X (România), ISBN 978-2-36424- (France)
This volume was backed by the research project CNCS – UEFISCDI PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0061 “Antiutopiile. A face si a desface realitatea – Testarea lumilor posibile”.
Imagination and Possible Worlds
Science-Fiction
Alberto Filipe Araújo & Armando Rui Guimarães, “The child is father of the man”. On the pedagogical teachings of the myth of Frankenstein
Radu Toderici, Les deux utopies de Louis-Sébastien Mercier
Niculae Gheran, Relating Romantic Monsters to Dystopian Robots. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Karel Čapek’s Rossum’s Universal Robots
Cristian Paşcalău, Universes Colliding. The Nature of Reality in Philip K. Dick’s Writings
Cosmin Perţa, Pursuing a Subtle Monster in Philip K. Dick’s Ubik
Andrei Simuţ, Elements of Science-Fiction and the Fascination with the Post-human Gaze in Kurt Vonnegut’s Galápagos
Ion Manolescu, Mind vs. Brain: The Cyberpunk Dissociation
Piroska Felkai, Les aspects neuroscientifiques du film Avatar
Călina Bora, L’artificialisation du corps dans la littérature science-fiction
Olga Ştefan , Created in Our Image. The Clone between Ethical Argumentation and Science-Fiction Trademark
Doru Pop, Cinematic Mixology, Some Critical Corroborations. Connections, Convergences, Combinations and Commutations in Contemporary Culture
Rodica-Gabriela Chira, About SF and Fantasy through Artificial Intelligence
Iudita Fazacaş, Diabolic Geometry. Cube-Rubik-Hypercube
Gelu Teampău, The Comic Books between Fantasy, Science-Fiction and Politics
Book Reviews
Gisèle Vanhese, Pour une rhétorique de l’imaginaire
Constantin Mihai, Entre phantasia et realia. Le visage de l’anthropologie de l’Imaginaire Adriana Carrijo, « Fantaisie » et fiction : Observations sur un cas clinique
Corin Braga, Mondes fictionnels : utopie, science-fiction, « fantasy »
Simina Raţiu, Utopia between Science-Fiction and Ideology
Fantasy Literature
Fanfan Chen, Tolkien’s Style of Fantasy: Hypotyposis, Metalepsis, Harmonism
Ruxandra Cesereanu, “The Fantasy Complex”. Close Reading: The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings
Crina-Magdalena Zărnescu, Les symboles du passage : la porte et l’escalier
Marius Conkan, On the Nature of Portals in Fantasy Literature
Danilo De Salazar, Réélaboration du mythe dans la prose initiatique de A.E. Baconsky, Echinoxul nebunilor şi alte povestiri
Călin Teutişan, Parabolic Narrative Mechanisms and Fictional Structures in Petru Cimpoeşu’s Novels
Monica Alina Toma, A Journey through Fantastica
Laurenţiu Malomfălean, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Oneiro-Fantastic in Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Horea Poenar, I’d Rather Be a Pig than a Fascist: How Ideology Works in Fantasy Films
Andrada Fătu Tutoveanu, From Cinema Myths to Science Fantasy: Contemporary Hybrid Cinema and Sci-Fi “Avatars”
Adriana Teodorescu, How a Fantastic Novel Constructs the Enemy Figure. The Untamed Other and the Role of Fantasy in Life of Pi
Ştefan Bolea, Once Upon Atrocity. Gothic Music Influences in the First Romanian (Neo)gothic Novel
Valentina Sirangelo, From Myth to Fantasy Role-Playing Game: Aspects of the Child God in The Elder Scrolls Lore
The book bingeing blog 