1st Edition
Serialization and Literary Compulsion in Fantasy The Pleasure of Deferral
Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Serialization Chapter 3: Serialization and the Concept of the Dominant Chapter 4: Thematic Obsession: The Hero's Journey Revisited Chapter 5: Fantasy and Fan Fiction Chapter 6: Transcultural Perspectives Conclusion
Biography
Nardeen Dow is Associate Faculty at Tel-Hai University. She holds a PhD in English literature from Tel Aviv University (2023). Her research focuses on fantasy, serialization, fan studies, and contemporary Arabic speculative fiction. She has contributed to International Fantasy: A Reader (Palgrave, 2023) and Israeli Speculative Fiction: Beyond Is/real (Liverpool University Press, 2026).
Nardeen Dow’s Serialization and Literary Compulsion in Fantasy: The Pleasure of Deferral is a pioneering contribution to the field of fantasy studies. Fresh and compelling, this book addresses the most under-theorized and yet the most obvious feature of contemporary fantasy: its serial form. Why does every successful fantasy novel immediately grow into a franchise? Why do we keep returning to the Harry Potter and Game of Thrones universes again and again, through the accumulation of sequels, prequels, adaptations, fan fiction and the like? What happens when the Polish Witcher novel is translated into the American Netflix series? Dow’s profound, original, and informed answers to these questions open a new chapter in literary theory, while also contributing to genre studies, narratology and reader-response criticism.
Prof. Elana Gomel, author of Science Fiction, Alien Encounters, and the Ethics of Posthumanism and The Palgrave Handbook of Global Fantasy
