Full Description
George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series is a worldwide phenomenon, and the world of Westeros has seen multiple adaptations, from HBO's acclaimed television series to graphic novels, console games and orchestral soundtracks. This collection of new essays investigates what makes this world so popular, and why the novels and television series are being taught in university classrooms as genre-defining works within the American fantasy tradition. This volume represents the first sustained scholarly treatment of George R.R. Martin's groundbreaking work, and includes writing by experts involved in the production of the HBO show. The contributors investigate a number of compelling areas, including the mystery of the shape-shifting wargs, the conflict between religions, the origins of the Dothraki language and the sex lives of knights. The significance of fan cultures and their adaptations is also discussed.
Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
A Note on Editions
Introduction: On Knowing Nothing (Susan Johnston and Jes Battis)
Language and Narration
The Languages of Ice and Fire (David J. Peterson)
"Sing for your little life": Story, Discourse and Character (Marc Napolitano)
What Maesters Knew: Narrating Knowing (Brian Cowlishaw)
Histories
"Just songs in the end": Historical Discourses in Shakespeare and Martin (Jessica Walker)
Dividing Lines: Frederick Jackson Turner's Western Frontier and George R.R. Martin's Northern Wall (Michail Zontos)
Philosophies
"All men must serve": Religion and Free Will from the Seven to the Faceless Men (Ryan Mitchell Wittingslow)
"Silk ribbons tied around a sword": Knighthood and the Chivalric Virtues in Westeros (Charles H. Hackney)
Bodies
Cursed Womb, Bulging Thighs and Bald Scalp: George R.R. Martin's Grotesque Queen (Karin Gresham)
"A thousand bloodstained hands": The Malleability of Flesh and Identity (Beth Kozinsky)
A Thousand Westerosi Plateaus: Wargs, Wolves and Ways of Being (T.A. Leederman)
Intimacies
Sex and the Citadel: Adapting Same Sex Desire from Martin's Westeros to HBO's Bedrooms (David C. Nel)
Beyond the Pale? Craster and the Pathological Reproduction of Houses in Westeros (D. Marcel DeCoste)
Adaptations
The Hand of the Artist: Fan Art in the Martinverse (Andrew Howe)
"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies": Transmedia Textuality and the Flows of Adaptation (Zoë Shacklock)
About the Contributors
Index
