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Location
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Document Type
Presentation
Event Website
https://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-53.htm
Start Date
3-8-2024 2:30 PM
End Date
3-8-2024 3:20 PM
Description
In 2018 and 2019, I interviewed young readers about their opinions of The Lord of the Rings (LotR) as a part of my Ph.D. thesis. Their ideas concerning the genre of the text destabilize Attebery’s use of it as a central point for the genre. Since these readers do not demonstrate a consensus that LotR is a work of fantasy, one is left to wonder if the idea of the fuzzy set proposed by Attebery is accurate when considering the lived experiences of readers. This leads to several questions about why these young readers have categorized the story the way they have, and questions about what this means for Attebery’s attempted ‘definition’ of the genre. Does it limit his definition, or does it expand I in new ways? This presentation is a lengthy consideration of these questions as well as a brief summary of my findings from my interviews with young readers about the genre of LotR.
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Included in
Questioning Attebery’s ‘Bullseye’: Interviews with Young Readers of Fantasy may Decenter The Lord of the Rings
Minneapolis, Minnesota
In 2018 and 2019, I interviewed young readers about their opinions of The Lord of the Rings (LotR) as a part of my Ph.D. thesis. Their ideas concerning the genre of the text destabilize Attebery’s use of it as a central point for the genre. Since these readers do not demonstrate a consensus that LotR is a work of fantasy, one is left to wonder if the idea of the fuzzy set proposed by Attebery is accurate when considering the lived experiences of readers. This leads to several questions about why these young readers have categorized the story the way they have, and questions about what this means for Attebery’s attempted ‘definition’ of the genre. Does it limit his definition, or does it expand I in new ways? This presentation is a lengthy consideration of these questions as well as a brief summary of my findings from my interviews with young readers about the genre of LotR.
https://dc.swosu.edu/mythcon/mc53/schedule/21
