Toward a New Literary Archives:
Recovering Marginalized Texts, Authors, and Cultures,
from Medieval Persian Poetry to the Expanded Star Wars Universe
Project TBD
Taking archival objects from a diverse set of typically marginalized literary genres, this series seeks to illuminate audiences and bring awareness to the rich vitality of Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Our first installment features J. R. R. Tolkien, focusing on a revival of reviews and news regarding his wealth of literary works and the various adaptations of his novels. The second installment is the niche scholarly journal Lovecraft Studies, edited by foremost Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi and distributed by the Lovecraft inspired Necronomicon Press. Our final installment indexes an attempt to censor comic books, through an acknowledgment of the adult themes they possess, with a focus on how these themes influence readers. What these three archival installments indicate is the unique perspective which an other-worldly fictional realm has to offer. Typically, literary critical discourse shies away from the fantastic, supernatural, or the sci-fi, deeming them unworthy of engaging in critical commentary on reality. However, our archival objects undermine that dominant narrative revealing the depth to which Sci-Fi and Fantasy partake in analyzing, critiquing, and/or commenting on sociopolitical, economic, or environmental issues in society, and how these alternative narratives resonate with scholars, academics, critics, and popular readership alike.