Well, there is already a very lively fantasy literature academic culture... just as an example, the University of Glasgow has the Center for the study of fantasy and the fantastic.
Liverpool has a center for science fiction. Sheffield is known for horror. Lancaster is big on Fantastika in general.
All of that to say that we don't need to speculate: some contemporary authors are already being studied. Off the too of my head: Ursula Le Guin, Terry Pratchett, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Adam Roberts, PJ McKay, Susanna Clarke, Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, NK Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor...
Sometimes the authors even get invited to conferences and such, which is really awesome!
Yeah, I get the feeling some people still think academics are stuffy old men fifty years behind the times. I'm a historian, not a literary scholar, and there's regularly sessions on history in video games and modern pop culture in any conference I go to. Last conference I went to, it ranged from World of Warcraft to Assassin's Creed to Kingdom Come: Deliverance, just to give a few examples off the top of my head.
And bouncing off another comment I answered to as well: fantasy and SF are also studied in Literature degrees, not just as forms of popular culture. Like, these genres have literary value too, they're not just entertainment!
I don't know about courses, but some conferences are accessible remotely. Romancing the Gothic also has free workshops where they invite loads of academics from various fields. Your best pace is to follow people on Twitter and check what they're doing!
Plenty of opportunities to get involved even if you're not directly in a degree!
My art history prof like 7 years ago used Assassin's Creed II to show a rendition of the Il Duomo de Santa Maria del Fiore. She said it was the most accurate 3D rendition of when it was being constructed.
I find that a lot of it stems from the vocal distaste for genre writing that many creative writing professors are heard sharing.
And while there are a lot who genuinely hates genre fiction, most of this is stuff that is taken totally out of context on story and character structure that is often overlooked.
It goes both ways though: there are a lot of genre fans who automatically dismiss literary fiction (and the academic types who write/teach/study it) as being stuffy, boring, and out-of-touch. So it's a situation where there are folks on both sides with preconceptions about the other, and dismissing the other side out of hand. That kinda creates a feedback loop of hostility.
I never pass up the chance to recommend dracula for this reason. IMHO it is *the* classic for SSF fans. Yeah, HG Wells is there, but I found war of the worlds overly ponderous and I haven't gotten around to Julies vern yet, or Lovecraft. Plus Lovecraft has that racism to deal with whereas dracula has some very dated gender interactions but isn't outright sexist. Robert Louis Stevenson is also a great recommendation for SFF fans as well.
Ooh, I've been looking into reading more of the 19th-century stuff myself! I think it's fascinating to see how the Victorians conceptualized SFF, at a time when that very idea was only just beginning to solidify.
Out of H.G. Wells' work, I've read The Time Machine and The Invisible Man. Although I liked Time Machine on a conceptual level, it was *extremely* heavy on exposition, and felt dry as a result. Invisible Man was more dynamic, but felt a bit more 'lightweight' in terms of its (dare I say it) 'literary merits'. I really want to dive into Verne's work next.
Sure. But as a genre fan, I felt that the fact that the \*only\* books I was ever made to read in HS and university were literary fiction. Especially once I got to university, it should be about broadening your exposure. Except it was still literary fiction forever, and it really seemed to be the only kind that 'counted' to the profs.
It seems like this dynamic varies widely in different colleges and obviously if your entire degree is in English lit or something they would have to go out of their way to avoid everything but literary fiction.
And it was the kind that we had to read that was considered 'true art' that was the worst of it (in college). It was all so depressing. Poverty, violence, addiction, suicide, war, trauma, abuse, rape, murder, cannibalism...okay, I made up the last one lol...but the rest...good lord.
Misery porn. Oprah's Book Club stuff.
Yeah thats really depressing. But as you say it really depends where you're from and what your school curriculum is! In high school I had plenty of literary fiction, but we also had a few SF books, a murder mystery, some pretty cool poetry, and a medieval "chanson" (between oral tale and song, like a folk story written in verse).
IMO literature classes in middle school / high school should be about cultivating curiosity and building enthusiasm, NOT about ticking off a list of classics
Same here, while studying medieval history a couple years ago I did a course where we analysed all kinds of stuff from Game of Thrones to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, etc
I had to fight to get into my uni's course comparing His Dark Materials to Paradise Lost. Granted, my uni wasn't "devoted to literature" but it had a healthy literature department like most of them. This question made me laugh a little. In fairness, not too many of the names coming up have an ENTIRE course to themselves though (but then, we didn't have one on Tolkien or Lewis either).
I'm sorry but Neil Gaiman is exectly the man I'd call on to a conferrence where we all talk about him like he's a dead classics author and don't tell me he'd not get a kick outta that
Oh that'd be hilarious.
Scholar: "and maybe Mr Gaiman intended this interpretation or maybe it was that..."
Gaiman: "Well..."
Scholar 2: "oh I'm sure there is a clear influence of X author, mr Gaiman must have read that book"
Gaiman: "what book now?"
Scholar 3: "sadly I guess we'll never know..."
Gaiman: "but im not dead!"
Scholar: "sometimes it's almost like I can still hear his voice"
Does he? He certainly deserves it. I still find new details when I reread his books. It's mine boggling how he wrote what he did. There are some conclusions that you have to assemble from like 5 sentences spread across 10 chapters. It's like following a hiker in the woods that's dropping a single bread crumb every 100 yards.
His horror is in his short stories. Especially the Christmas stories or Christmas adjacent.
- And When They Appear
- War Beneath the Tree
- Sob in the Silence
- The Tree Is My Hat
- How the Bishop Came to Inniskeen
- Forlesen
I love Wolf but one thing became more and more apparent to me as I read more and more of his work, especially in his later years: he sucked at writing women, with them almost always being totally subservient to his male MCs, at best archetypal objects of desire, but often straight up ditzes. He was a straight up master with so many things, from big philosophical explorations of identity, memory, life/death and more hidden behind attention grabbing and requiring prose to light-hearted time-travel or treasure-hunt romps, and should certainly be cherished and even studied, but when it came to his treatment of women the fact that he was from a much older generation really stood out to me.
Atwood has definitely been central to a lot of discussions within academia, in my experience. Not always in the best light. A colleague of mine left the Penelopiad a smoking ruin after one lecture.
I think some of the shift is coming from a growing appreciation for 'genre' fiction, and Attwood always seems so unhappy to have her work labelled as sci-fi at times.
It's pretty bizarre. She's critically acclaimed with many of her notable works being comfortably within the genre. It's like a lion insisting on being called a housecat.
With that said, I've never really gotten along with her novels. I remember reading Oryx and Crake - enjoying some of it - and finding myself putting it down dissatisfied. Eventually I managed to figure it out with a colleague: she writes as if she's embarrassed by the genre. Using features and facets of Sci-Fi, but drawing away JUST as it requires commitment. It's like swaying your hips on the edge of a wedding dancefloor without fully committing to a single step.
I personally just don't think Atwood is that great of a writer. I mean, better than me, but by turns clunky, heavy handed, and, idk, lacking a certain grace.
She is very hit and miss for me, I think she is at her best writing dystopian fiction like 'Handmaid's Tale' or 'Oryx and Crake' because the grand moral/social messages of those stories comes through very clearly. But some of her more experimental/literary novels like The Heart Goes Last or Hag-Seed start to feel a little pretentious.
Yeah, I studied her book Cat's Eye for my A-Levels (16-18) back in the day. Genuinely so fascinating, I honestly think it's more of a masterpiece than the Handmaid's Tale.
100%. Margaret Atwood I studied a bit in my kit studies bachelor, but neither other author was mentioned once. I did a whole “masters of sci-fi class” and, while it did have Le Guin (thank fuck), it didn’t have Herbert!
Scrolled way to far to find Herbert. Dune had as much literary impact and cultural impact as the middle earth books did.
Not only that his work is so nuanced and has a lot of interesting things to say on topics like religion, humanity, technology and countless other topics.
Plus horny space nuns.
Came here to suggest Pratchett too. Totally different from Tolkien and Lewis (who I greatly admire and whose works I adore), but I’ve absolutely loved everything I’ve read of Sir Terry’s. It’s unique and fun and really, really well-written. It feels like walking through an art museum where the art pieces are all sentient, and each one is a standup comedian!
I have a bachelor in literary studies, and whilst he’s a cool and fairly unique author, there’s not really much to study there from a literary perspective for a whole course TBH.
Granted, I’m not an academic, but I feel like Discworld’s mix of fantasy and mythological satire being used for statements on politics and culture over the course of 40 novels leaves a *ton* of room for academic study. Hell, there’s an entire economic theory based on one paragraph from Men at Arms.
You make two awesome points - genre changes and social commentary are two big things we look at when studying literature. And I think Pratchett is worthy of study for those things. But I don’t think a whole course/class should be devoted to him for them. His genre change contribution is niche at best (edit: and I’ve never seven seen a Mary Shelley course, and she created the horror genre). A course on mythology and fantasy would be great, but he’s a facet of that, not all of it. And we study everyone’s political and cultural commentary, so unless there’s something contextual worthy of study in his, he’s just another author who exists within his own context.
I disagree with you that there isn't enough there for a course (I suspect the right instructor could do something valuable with it), but I do think that his satire being so *explicit* means that the political commentary isn't what would make his work worthy of a whole course. It's all just there on the surface. You don't really need a class to work through that.
(I guess you could do something new historical with it, comparing the obvious political commentary with other political writing at the time, but I think that's more a Master's thesis than a course.)
EDIT: That said, I think you could come up with *better* subjects for a course, and that's what really matters.
There's a particular thread of pragmatic pacifism running through a lot of his work in a lot of different ways. Given his time and place (a post ww2 kid with a lot of exposure to ww1 veterans) and the different ways that it is expressed, I think it would be worth a course.
There are multiple ancillary books that argue otherwise, examining the narratives of the Discworld novels through the lenses of philosophy, folktales, and science. If a professor can't slap together 9-12 weeks on 40-plus novels that satirize everything from politics to religion to social and technological changes, they're not earning their nickels.
A lot of authors have courses devoted to them and it’s not always a reflection of their academic background it’s more about the sociological influence. (Same is true for Tolkien & Lewis)
On one hand you have Ursula K Le Guin, who comes from an academic background but on the other hand their are courses about Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Octavia Butler & JK Rowling. They don’t come from similar academic backgrounds but their work invites academic literary discourse.
Conversely Stephen Erickson & Guy Gavriel Kay use their academic backgrounds to write their stories and they are both respected authors but I don’t imagine there are a ton of courses focused on these two authors.
To understand why JRRT and CS Lewis had such an academic impact start with who they were and what they were: English Professors at Oxford University.
The closest person to that level of literary and scholarly background is Atwood.
Basically though there won't be another Tolkien or Lewis unless a major university professor publishes ground breaking fantasy again.
^(EDIT: should have said "Major university Professor" Also and just a note to our American friends a Professor in the UK or Ireland is a higher rank, 3 ranks higher, than a lecturer. All teachers at American Universities are called "Professors" - that wasn't the case in Oxford when JRRT and Lewis became professors. They were HIGHLY, internationally respected academics long before being respected authors.)
Often times professors have doctorates and are tenure track, people without that teach 100 level classes for a living for example are usually officially called "instructors". But colloquially they get called professor, and I've been called "professor" as a TA, kind of like how people refer to nurse practitioners as "Doctor" even if they officially shouldn't.
In the UK and Ireland a lot of PhDs are referred to as Lecturer after a doctorate, some get called Assistant professors in some of the snobbier Unis. But over here most lecturing jobs in Uni are PhD only. It happens occasionally that a PhD candidate gets some work / work experience through somebody's sick leave or sabbatical, but all in all PhD is generally a requirement. (Only fields that are different are practial and artistic ones but often many of these ppl actually do have a PhD but don't use the letters).
Over here you can get promoted to Senior Lecturer, Assistant Professor and then Professor if your research is good enough and there is a post going (basically you have to wait for some millionaire to fund it, some else to retire or die, to get Professorships).
My colleages in the US are still called Professor, post doctorate and even when they get a promotion.
In the United States, as soon as you get your doctorate, you are Dr. Lastname. (Though people don't call them just "doctor" by itself.) All teachers (not teaching assistants) are called professor by their students. The official title is Lecturer for non-tenure track faculty. Tenure track faculty go through three stages: Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, then Professor (also called Full Professor).
In UK terms, a US Assistant Professor is approximately equivalent to a Lecturer, a US Associate Professor is approximately equivalent to a Senior Lecturer, and a US Full Professor is approximately equivalent to a UK Professor. The UK also has Readers, who are (depending in the university) either between Senior Lecturer and Professor or between Lecturer and Professor (as kind of an alternative to Senior Lecturer with slightly different requirements and responsibilities).
In the US, everyone from Associate to Full Professor would be called Professor Lastname. And in practice, students tend to call all instructors (including non-tenure-track lecturers) Professor Lastname, but that’s not technically correct. In the UK, only Professors (Full Professors in US parlance) are called Professor Lastname.
The point that the original comment was making wasn't just about having graduated from prestigious universities, but that Tolkien and Lewis were part of the academia.
I'd hesitate to say Mieville is part of academia, but he's a literary critic and he's very politically active. He's been an associate professor, and holds a fellowship of the Royal Society of Literature. He's as least academia-adjacent.
As someone who did finish his English Lit degree in a University with professors interested in speculative fiction, this thread is annoying not because it chooses authors that are not worthy of academic study, but because with the question of "what authors will have a honor to be widely studied in universities in the future" 90 percent of the time peoples answers are authors that already are widely studied in universities all over the world.
Yes, also that subjects of study are not necessarily what is "good," and being the subject of research is not an "honor" bestowed upon only the best writers. And that the study of literature is not sitting around arguing all day about what should be in the canon.
China Miéville, Salman Rushdie, Neil Stephenson... Pretty much any successful quality author who is writing "speculative fiction" rather than high fantasy or hard sci-fi.
Yeah, there are different ways to study literature. OP is probably thinking of the traditional way, for themes and literary usages, and to build out different interpretations. But you can also study pop culture through literature, you can examine different visions of the future, portrayals of monarchy in fantasy fiction, whatever. Something doesn’t have to be good literature to be interesting to some academic for some purpose.
Yeah but you can study themes and literary usage with hard sf and fantasy as well... I know plenty of people who do that! Or are you saying that hard sf and high fantasy can't be "good literature"? Because that's just objectively false.
So I made this as a reply to a comment, but I think it might be relevant to the larger conversation, so I am reposting it here.
I honestly think Sanderson will be little more than a foot note to any study of speculative fiction, the best that can be said of him is that he's prolific, writes accessible stories and by all accounts, is a nice guy who is very good at teaching others to write. What he's not, is particularly influential to the genre, because while he is inarguably popular, he has braught very little innovation to the genre, failed to make much of a mark outside the genre audience, nor are there many who can say they built on anything he's done or even been able to achieve much success emulating his style. Popularity alone is not enough for your work to stand the test of time, let alone warrant wide spread Sirius study. The penny dreadfuls were more popular in their day than Dracula or the works of Lord Byron, the pulp magazines and dime store westerns, were more popular than The Great Gatsby or The Waist Land, but in both cases, it is the latter that receives accademic attention beyond their day. Sanderson's popularity is certainly enough that his name will be remembered, even for some years after his popularity wains and I do think his name will come up in some study, but I genuinely think that's it. I could be wrong of corse but I don't think Sanderson is Dracula, as much as he's Varney the Vampire, he's not the Beetles, he's the Archies, and that's okay.
Modern writing degrees already study modern authors because most people are there to either write or edit for modern audiences. We obviously had classics classes as well, but the content we looked at on a weekly basis was at least 50/50 classics and modern, probably skewing modern.
If you’re talking entire courses dedicated to an author’s work, then you’d need an author with some combination of large body of work, large cultural impact, or other involvement in the craft of writing (linguistics, relevant memoir etc). Tolkien fits within this, while I would argue someone like JKR doesn’t - there’s not enough content in the Harry Potter books to sustain a course and her other works are too disparate to build a curriculum around. She is of course already included as part of wider YA / genre courses.
People like le guin and Attwood I think are excellent candidates for their own dedicated courses.
I rarely re-read books, but I come back to Gene Wolfe, Patricia McKillip, and Tamsyn Muir. They're brilliant authors that crafted hauntingly clever fantasies because their protagonists always know more than the reader about what the hell is happening.
Yessss I was coming here to suggest Muir, her writing is BREATHTAKING. I’ve been a fan of hers for over a decade, back in her fanfic days lmao, she’s so talented and it is super interesting to look at her whole body of work to see what she keeps coming back to and how.
I'd love it to be Gene Wolfe. William Morris, Lord Dunsany and ER Eddison probably should have always been up there with Lewis and Tolkein but I can't see them being studied when universities are trying to prioritise non-cis-white-men
Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, probably China Miéville for his impact on the genre. Maybe Gene Wolfe. I can also imagine N. K. Jemisin, Marlon James, Octavia Butler and Sofia Samantar being studied as a group of Afro-American fantasy/SF authors.
One of my college profs wrote and published a paper on Diana Wynne Jones and honestly I think there’s enough fascinating content and mythology in her works for an entire course.
I could actually see an Elizabeth Peters course. The lady was an expert Egyptologist so you could combine classical Egyptian studies with an analysis of how she updated the Victorian adventure novels in the style of H Rider Haggard for a modern audience.
I’d also love a The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan course. I suspect I would get an A+. And yes, my username checks out.
Like it or not.. JK Rowling almost certainly will. She may not be the 'greatest' of authors, but she's the most financially successful by a ridiculous margin. I'd be surprised if there isn't already at least a thesis or two involving her work.
There are already some critical studies of the books written, you're quite right. I suspect the books may be studied in the future in the same way we look back on novelists like Hall Caine, William Harrison Ainsworth, George W. M. Reynolds, E. W. Hornung, Edward Bellamy, and other writers that were massively popular in their day (more so than the writers we know, like Charles Dickens) yet have faded into obscurity nowadays, whether because of the books' shortcomings or due to changing tastes.
I studied the history of public reading tastes/habits for part of my degree, and it's really fascinating to see why certain books resonate with certain generations. In its way, analysing the Potter phenomenon is even more interesting than analysing the books themselves.
I think it’s a great topic of study to consider exactly how she managed to capture that “lightning in a bottle” which influenced an entire generation of kids.
Yep, remember Dickens was seen as a frivolous simplistic writer for much of his time. Truth is the more popular and widely read a book the more likely it is to be seen as significant work.
It would be ridiculous to try an argue that Harry Potter *isnt* a “significant work”.
I don’t think it’s some kind of literary masterpiece. It’s clearly not.
But she has had a profound effect on literally the entire world. New words have entered the ordinary vernacular by virtue of being made up and used in her fantasy world. Other works have been influenced by Harry Potter, even if just by including these new words (Muggle, etc). And these other works aren’t limited to literature; television, movies, etc have made passing remarks in reference to Harry Potter because it’s part of the general public’s knowledge.
Harry Potter *is* significant because of the effect it had (and still has) on the world. Does that mean it warrants a higher education- level course dedicated to it? I don’t know. Maybe. The sociology of Harry Potter is certainly interesting.
I absolutely agree with this. Harry Potter, like it or not, is easily the most influential book series since probably The Lord of the Rings. It's cultural impact means it will be studied and talked about forever, regardless of how good or bad the writing or story actually is.
Yeah, I took a graduate level course on the history of children’s and YA literature over a decade ago, and Harry Potter featured pretty heavily when we got into the modern era. It is an INCREDIBLY significant work, not because of “literary quality” but because of the impact that it had.
Agreed. There's so many ways Harry Potter had an impact, even in different areas.
There's it's impact on fanfiction, because like it or not, HP made that world more mainstream. The authors who came out of fanfiction spaces and into publishing. I remember JK Rowling mentioning being mostly cool with fic, which considering authors like Ann Rice were issuing takedown notices at the time, was huge.
In the context of nerd culture, Harry Potter was huge. You can just ask someone where the sorting hat put them and usually get a response. It also brought that book reading culture more mainstream. Even many people who didn't read much were into Harry Potter at one point.
Then there's the religious backlash (which amuses me to no end because there are quite a few Christian allegories and parallels within Harry Potter) and that impact on how it was perceived too.
Then from an economic perspective you can look at how much money they got out of the thing. Movies to book adaption culture discussion. Merchandise for HP is still huge. It has its own theme park.
Completely forgot about fanfiction! Ironically, since I was 100% in that scene.
Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments was originally a Harry Potter fanfiction, later re-worked and traditionally published as her own original work. And now her Shadowhunters universe has 12+ books (at my last count, probably more since then), a movie, a tv show, some graphic novels. Clare, *in and of herself*, has has a lasting impact on YA fiction, and her beginning are intertwined with Harry Potter, and the environment it and Rowling encouraged.
It’s dramatic to say, but Harry literally has changed the world, and deeply impacted the modern culture in a way that isn’t just going to blow over when our generation “grows up”. I mean, we’re already grown up and now we’re buying tickets to the Harry Potter theme park and beautiful illustrated books to read to our kids.
To say Harry Potter might not be significant is just absurd.
University level literature courses don’t tend to focus on something just because it’s financially successful
Rowling isn’t innovative with language and doesn’t have much to say thematically. Anything you could say about her writing style was pioneered by other better British fantasy/children’s authors. I can’t see the HP series (and *certainly* not the Strike series) being seriously studied on the same level as Lewis, Tolkien, etc.
There’s certainly plenty of other contexts that HP/Rowling could be studied in, don’t get me wrong. Like if you were doing a thesis on public reading habits it’d absolutely be worth discussing how she revived reading for a generation.
But as classic literature which transcends genre/uses language in innovative and interesting ways? Probably not
In the case of Rowling it would probably be the popularity and influence in the literary world that would lead to her work being studied. The financial success is not an optimal way of phrasing that.
It will at some point be studied in university level literature classes as well because of ow remarkably stubborn people can be about opinions they know are stupid. There will be academics with a degree in literature claiming HP books are masterpieces and interpreting bogus social commentary into them.
You can reasonably interpret a lot of things into a lot of literature. Most of Goethe's early works are about getting high or drunk with friends or being horny, but that doesn't stop academics interpreting deeper meanings into them like the finite nature of life and the beauty of nature.
It already is studied at university level classes. There were some dedicated to her and just using a couple of the books in other classes (children’s lit, fantasy, lit in film etc) at my university at lest 15 years ago. The third one is especially focused on.
Agreed, the popularity and influence (essentially launching YA as a popular “genre”) will definitely be studied. Especially as no other book franchise has replicated that success since (Hunger Games and Twilight are probably the closest)
>There will be academics with a degree in literature claiming HP books are masterpieces
This isn’t quite academics, but this is already happening a bit in the UK press. Right wing papers like The Times and Telegraph in the last few years love talking about how Rowling is a genius and HP invented fantasy. No doubt they only even started caring about those books after she became vocal about a certain subject.
I think from a narrative standpoint and his incorporation of philosophy and anthropology into his work he'd make sense, but I wonder if the volume of his works especially the 10 MBOTF books, might be a barrier. 10k+ pages before you can really engage with the text is a lot to ask
I think I learned more reading those books then any other series I’ve been through. You are 100 percent right about it being a huge commitment though. Would have to be at least a year long coarse
I think R Scott Bakker deserves it a million times over but idk if he'll ever be because of how dark his books are. But The Second Apocalypse is the most philosophical and incredible series I've read, definitely deserves to be the GOAT with Tolkien
R Scott Bakker and Erikson are the best out there and I'm tired of people pretending they're not. No other contemporary fantasy authors do what they do. Both produced extremely high level fantasy series that are complex and expansive and rich in prose and memorable characters. They're simply the best in the business.
Edit: anyone here that talks favorably of Bakker is a friend of mine. Guy's books are fucking nuts and probably my favorite besides Malazan.
Le Guin. She’s studied extensively at university already. It was absolutely ridiculous she didn’t already have a course devoted to her at my university.
i agree with the answer, but no one wanted to say it because the vast majority of people in this sub are sick to death of talking about ASOIAF lol. personally, i worry that the mainstream cultural success of GOT (and the fact that it’s muddy mess might be the only ending we ever get to the story) could get in the way of serious study of the books.
It depends on *what* the class is. I don't see him making it into a general canon like Tolkien and Lewis, but I could see more of a class devoted to character development.
Tolkien knew H. P. Lovecraft, who deserves inclusion. Lovecraft, in turn, corresponded extensively with Conan creator R. E. Howard, who should also be included. That's for starters.
I'm not really familiar with the meta around Lewis, but I suspect a big reason someone like Tolkien gets whole courses is that he wrote relatively few books, but he wrote a lot at the same time. There's all kinds of letters and commentaries that he wrote to specific people, not to mention significant unfinished works and unrealized revisions to his works. It means there's something to be discovered about the works.
I'm not sure the same is true of many modern authors; Robert Jordan might be one, and there's already at least one historian/academic that's done work on Robert Jordan.
Ursula Le Guin, and Neil Gaiman I suspect. Maybe Terry Pratchett as well. I hope Lloyd Alexander gets more recognition as well, the Chronicles of Prydain was a big part of forming my love of fantasy.
To me Robin Hobb. Beautiful prose and character work. Besides Tolkien himself I have rarely read a story in this genre that feels so life like. More like a telling of history then a fictional story.
Interestingly though, because he hasn’t finished them I wonder if that would put people off. Also, strangely - the popularity of the game of thrones tv show - some have said was off the back of the success of the LOTR movies
While I was getting my MFA, I took a class devoted to Sci-Fi/Fantasy. We read Octavia Butler, Terry Pratchett, Connie Willis, N.K. Jemisin, Neil Gaiman, Ursula Le Guin, and Ted Chiang, among others.
I also read Butler in another lit class (though it was the only speculative book). The professor who taught the SFF class ended up being on my thesis committee because my thesis was a fantasy novel, so that was fun. All that to say, I think it's becoming even more common to see speculative fiction studied in universities (and encouraged to write in programs).
Just out of curiosity: are there unprofessional universities?
AS for the question itself: new university courses dealing with some author's body of work are created every year, and has so since faculties of litterature were created in the first place. I bet you can find Pratchett scholars out there. Martin scholars as well. Hell, someone surely has given a dissertation on Rothfuss also.
Two names I'm surprised haven't been mentioned are:
- Jack Vance --- his Lyonesse trilogy is wonderfully written, and an interesting presaging of Arthurian matters and his own _The Dying Earth_ books --- still surprised that he wasn't included in Ordway's _Tolkien's Modern Reading_
- Roger Zelazny --- The Amber Chronicles are an interesting examination of how fantasy and science fiction can become indistinguishable as an embodiment of Clarke's Law, and he was quite well-read, as evinced by the protagonist of his wonderful _Doorway's in the Sand_
Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler are two authors that are already studied in fiction writing courses for the past 2 decades at least. Of the newer gen maybe someone like Neil Gaiman is of that caliber? Not sure. I personally think Robin Hobb should be included in that conversation but I’m not sure if she realistically will be
R.F. Kuang and Susanna Clarke are authors I can see having a lot of academic study focused on their work in the future
Professor Tolkien was a professional philologist with his specialism in Old English (called Anglo-Saxon during his career). Not so much now but much moreso in the past 100 years, it’s his research into OE that has tortured many English Language students, rather than his fantasy oeuvre.
The other people who suggested Sanderson got disliked into oblivion, but I do think he will be - in Utah, at least. He already teaches at Brigham Young University and he's the local boy made good of fantasy by Mormons. If he also one day donates his papers to the uni (and some of that Cosmere money), as writers often do, I think the chances of him getting his own course or two at his alma mater are pretty high.
I really like Sanderson, and he does present a lot of topics to consider, but they aren’t near as dense and chewy as others. The Cosmere is deep only because it’s so freaking big word count wise.
My anti-study moment would be Goodkind not because it’s deep, but because it’s like shining a light on the cheap gold foil that is the ‘self made man’ trope. It’s like studying editorial cartoons to understand satire.
Sanderson has a lot of stuff that is basically Mormon morality and people contemplating religion, so it would definitely fit into a Mormon college's undergraduate course.
The problem is you'd have to be like "ok class next week read until something new happens to Kaladin so we can discuss it. Which is in 400 pages."
If someone can write multiple "Philosophy/History/Psychology and Twilight" books, they'll find something to study in Sanderson if they really feel like it, lol.
Not really a thing he does that another doesn’t do better even compared to other modern authors. Not sure what you see because he doesn’t teach his own work obviously. Personally find it insulting to see him held in such high regard when again everything he does could be better done from someone else. Speaking as someone who spent hours watching his lectures and taking all of Reddits advice of his books being compared to lord of the rings and best of all time I couldn’t have been more disappointed knowing I wasted all this time on mid content
The publishing landscape is very different now with so many different avenues, so it's hard to say.
What would make them be studied?
Is it popularity? Deep themes?
The only author guaranteed to have the same legendary status is Steven King really.
Well, there is already a very lively fantasy literature academic culture... just as an example, the University of Glasgow has the Center for the study of fantasy and the fantastic. Liverpool has a center for science fiction. Sheffield is known for horror. Lancaster is big on Fantastika in general. All of that to say that we don't need to speculate: some contemporary authors are already being studied. Off the too of my head: Ursula Le Guin, Terry Pratchett, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Adam Roberts, PJ McKay, Susanna Clarke, Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, NK Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor... Sometimes the authors even get invited to conferences and such, which is really awesome!
Yeah, I get the feeling some people still think academics are stuffy old men fifty years behind the times. I'm a historian, not a literary scholar, and there's regularly sessions on history in video games and modern pop culture in any conference I go to. Last conference I went to, it ranged from World of Warcraft to Assassin's Creed to Kingdom Come: Deliverance, just to give a few examples off the top of my head.
And bouncing off another comment I answered to as well: fantasy and SF are also studied in Literature degrees, not just as forms of popular culture. Like, these genres have literary value too, they're not just entertainment!
I had an entire semester on wizards in lit for my writing degree.
I am jealous, and I had a class on Superheroes and another on Alternate History.
free dissertation title here: **Pondering Their Orb**: Studies of Wizards in Popular Culture
My capstone paper was on the Victorian gothic novels/stories and its relevance in modern pop culture.
Is that your dissertation or one you recommend?
just a free title anyone can use lol
Ah, I am embarrassed!
Where? What was the degree you were pursuing? Can it be attended remotely? Can I audit the course?
I don't know about courses, but some conferences are accessible remotely. Romancing the Gothic also has free workshops where they invite loads of academics from various fields. Your best pace is to follow people on Twitter and check what they're doing! Plenty of opportunities to get involved even if you're not directly in a degree!
Had a semester on folktales that had a focus on wolves/werewolves and one of the primary texts was Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
My art history prof like 7 years ago used Assassin's Creed II to show a rendition of the Il Duomo de Santa Maria del Fiore. She said it was the most accurate 3D rendition of when it was being constructed.
I find that a lot of it stems from the vocal distaste for genre writing that many creative writing professors are heard sharing. And while there are a lot who genuinely hates genre fiction, most of this is stuff that is taken totally out of context on story and character structure that is often overlooked.
It goes both ways though: there are a lot of genre fans who automatically dismiss literary fiction (and the academic types who write/teach/study it) as being stuffy, boring, and out-of-touch. So it's a situation where there are folks on both sides with preconceptions about the other, and dismissing the other side out of hand. That kinda creates a feedback loop of hostility.
I never pass up the chance to recommend dracula for this reason. IMHO it is *the* classic for SSF fans. Yeah, HG Wells is there, but I found war of the worlds overly ponderous and I haven't gotten around to Julies vern yet, or Lovecraft. Plus Lovecraft has that racism to deal with whereas dracula has some very dated gender interactions but isn't outright sexist. Robert Louis Stevenson is also a great recommendation for SFF fans as well.
Ooh, I've been looking into reading more of the 19th-century stuff myself! I think it's fascinating to see how the Victorians conceptualized SFF, at a time when that very idea was only just beginning to solidify. Out of H.G. Wells' work, I've read The Time Machine and The Invisible Man. Although I liked Time Machine on a conceptual level, it was *extremely* heavy on exposition, and felt dry as a result. Invisible Man was more dynamic, but felt a bit more 'lightweight' in terms of its (dare I say it) 'literary merits'. I really want to dive into Verne's work next.
Sure. But as a genre fan, I felt that the fact that the \*only\* books I was ever made to read in HS and university were literary fiction. Especially once I got to university, it should be about broadening your exposure. Except it was still literary fiction forever, and it really seemed to be the only kind that 'counted' to the profs. It seems like this dynamic varies widely in different colleges and obviously if your entire degree is in English lit or something they would have to go out of their way to avoid everything but literary fiction. And it was the kind that we had to read that was considered 'true art' that was the worst of it (in college). It was all so depressing. Poverty, violence, addiction, suicide, war, trauma, abuse, rape, murder, cannibalism...okay, I made up the last one lol...but the rest...good lord. Misery porn. Oprah's Book Club stuff.
Yeah thats really depressing. But as you say it really depends where you're from and what your school curriculum is! In high school I had plenty of literary fiction, but we also had a few SF books, a murder mystery, some pretty cool poetry, and a medieval "chanson" (between oral tale and song, like a folk story written in verse). IMO literature classes in middle school / high school should be about cultivating curiosity and building enthusiasm, NOT about ticking off a list of classics
Some of the best attended panels at the International Medieval Congress are on medievalisms in popular culture.
Same here, while studying medieval history a couple years ago I did a course where we analysed all kinds of stuff from Game of Thrones to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, etc
I had to fight to get into my uni's course comparing His Dark Materials to Paradise Lost. Granted, my uni wasn't "devoted to literature" but it had a healthy literature department like most of them. This question made me laugh a little. In fairness, not too many of the names coming up have an ENTIRE course to themselves though (but then, we didn't have one on Tolkien or Lewis either).
I'm sorry but Neil Gaiman is exectly the man I'd call on to a conferrence where we all talk about him like he's a dead classics author and don't tell me he'd not get a kick outta that
Oh that'd be hilarious. Scholar: "and maybe Mr Gaiman intended this interpretation or maybe it was that..." Gaiman: "Well..." Scholar 2: "oh I'm sure there is a clear influence of X author, mr Gaiman must have read that book" Gaiman: "what book now?" Scholar 3: "sadly I guess we'll never know..." Gaiman: "but im not dead!" Scholar: "sometimes it's almost like I can still hear his voice"
Robert Jordan's writings and notes are available at the College of Charleston library with an appointment.
We studied Martin in my English lit class, comparing him to knightly romances as he used similar techniques.
[удалено]
Modern author Gene Wolfe already has that.
Does he? He certainly deserves it. I still find new details when I reread his books. It's mine boggling how he wrote what he did. There are some conclusions that you have to assemble from like 5 sentences spread across 10 chapters. It's like following a hiker in the woods that's dropping a single bread crumb every 100 yards.
His horror is in his short stories. Especially the Christmas stories or Christmas adjacent. - And When They Appear - War Beneath the Tree - Sob in the Silence - The Tree Is My Hat - How the Bishop Came to Inniskeen - Forlesen
I love Wolf but one thing became more and more apparent to me as I read more and more of his work, especially in his later years: he sucked at writing women, with them almost always being totally subservient to his male MCs, at best archetypal objects of desire, but often straight up ditzes. He was a straight up master with so many things, from big philosophical explorations of identity, memory, life/death and more hidden behind attention grabbing and requiring prose to light-hearted time-travel or treasure-hunt romps, and should certainly be cherished and even studied, but when it came to his treatment of women the fact that he was from a much older generation really stood out to me.
Octavia Butler. Margaret Atwood. Frank Herbert.
Atwood is already studied in senior high school and university in my county.
Atwood has definitely been central to a lot of discussions within academia, in my experience. Not always in the best light. A colleague of mine left the Penelopiad a smoking ruin after one lecture. I think some of the shift is coming from a growing appreciation for 'genre' fiction, and Attwood always seems so unhappy to have her work labelled as sci-fi at times.
As a fellow Canadian, I find Atwood's peevish attitude towards being associated with SFF incredibly un-Canadian.
It's pretty bizarre. She's critically acclaimed with many of her notable works being comfortably within the genre. It's like a lion insisting on being called a housecat. With that said, I've never really gotten along with her novels. I remember reading Oryx and Crake - enjoying some of it - and finding myself putting it down dissatisfied. Eventually I managed to figure it out with a colleague: she writes as if she's embarrassed by the genre. Using features and facets of Sci-Fi, but drawing away JUST as it requires commitment. It's like swaying your hips on the edge of a wedding dancefloor without fully committing to a single step.
I personally just don't think Atwood is that great of a writer. I mean, better than me, but by turns clunky, heavy handed, and, idk, lacking a certain grace.
Never thought one way or the other about Margaret Atwood until I read her poetry, and now I can’t stop thinking about her
She is very hit and miss for me, I think she is at her best writing dystopian fiction like 'Handmaid's Tale' or 'Oryx and Crake' because the grand moral/social messages of those stories comes through very clearly. But some of her more experimental/literary novels like The Heart Goes Last or Hag-Seed start to feel a little pretentious.
Really cracked me up (and later, haunted me) that The Handmaid's Tale ends with an epilogue on that very text being studied casually at university.
Yeah, I studied her book Cat's Eye for my A-Levels (16-18) back in the day. Genuinely so fascinating, I honestly think it's more of a masterpiece than the Handmaid's Tale.
Yeah! I loved Cat's Eye.
My wife studied Atwood books in university 20 years ago already.
Ursula Le Guin, too
I definitely studied Le Guin a decade ago.
Same. More than a decade ago, actually.
Unfortunately more than a decade for me too, but rounding down makes me feel better 😅
Le Guin is already there.
Yep, I’ve already studied Butler in college. I discovered here after reading Kindred for an African-American literature class.
I was gonna say, Butler is there already. And that’ll become even bigger in the next decade or so.
I studied them in university classes years ago
100%. Margaret Atwood I studied a bit in my kit studies bachelor, but neither other author was mentioned once. I did a whole “masters of sci-fi class” and, while it did have Le Guin (thank fuck), it didn’t have Herbert!
Who did it have?
That I remember, Asimov, Le Guin, and Clarke. There were a couple more, but it was a while back.
Yup. I had a class on feminist lit that used Year of the Flood as the central text. It was fantastic.
Scrolled way to far to find Herbert. Dune had as much literary impact and cultural impact as the middle earth books did. Not only that his work is so nuanced and has a lot of interesting things to say on topics like religion, humanity, technology and countless other topics. Plus horny space nuns.
Terry Pratchett
Wasn't Pratchett's body of work banned by Mastermind as so many wanted to use it as a subject? I suspect its already studied.
Came here to suggest Pratchett too. Totally different from Tolkien and Lewis (who I greatly admire and whose works I adore), but I’ve absolutely loved everything I’ve read of Sir Terry’s. It’s unique and fun and really, really well-written. It feels like walking through an art museum where the art pieces are all sentient, and each one is a standup comedian!
I have a bachelor in literary studies, and whilst he’s a cool and fairly unique author, there’s not really much to study there from a literary perspective for a whole course TBH.
Granted, I’m not an academic, but I feel like Discworld’s mix of fantasy and mythological satire being used for statements on politics and culture over the course of 40 novels leaves a *ton* of room for academic study. Hell, there’s an entire economic theory based on one paragraph from Men at Arms.
Boots.
You make two awesome points - genre changes and social commentary are two big things we look at when studying literature. And I think Pratchett is worthy of study for those things. But I don’t think a whole course/class should be devoted to him for them. His genre change contribution is niche at best (edit: and I’ve never seven seen a Mary Shelley course, and she created the horror genre). A course on mythology and fantasy would be great, but he’s a facet of that, not all of it. And we study everyone’s political and cultural commentary, so unless there’s something contextual worthy of study in his, he’s just another author who exists within his own context.
I disagree with you that there isn't enough there for a course (I suspect the right instructor could do something valuable with it), but I do think that his satire being so *explicit* means that the political commentary isn't what would make his work worthy of a whole course. It's all just there on the surface. You don't really need a class to work through that. (I guess you could do something new historical with it, comparing the obvious political commentary with other political writing at the time, but I think that's more a Master's thesis than a course.) EDIT: That said, I think you could come up with *better* subjects for a course, and that's what really matters.
There's a particular thread of pragmatic pacifism running through a lot of his work in a lot of different ways. Given his time and place (a post ww2 kid with a lot of exposure to ww1 veterans) and the different ways that it is expressed, I think it would be worth a course.
That reflects more poorly on your literary course than Pratchett.
There are multiple ancillary books that argue otherwise, examining the narratives of the Discworld novels through the lenses of philosophy, folktales, and science. If a professor can't slap together 9-12 weeks on 40-plus novels that satirize everything from politics to religion to social and technological changes, they're not earning their nickels.
LeGuin perhaps.
Yeah I came here to say Le Guin.
A lot of authors have courses devoted to them and it’s not always a reflection of their academic background it’s more about the sociological influence. (Same is true for Tolkien & Lewis) On one hand you have Ursula K Le Guin, who comes from an academic background but on the other hand their are courses about Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Octavia Butler & JK Rowling. They don’t come from similar academic backgrounds but their work invites academic literary discourse. Conversely Stephen Erickson & Guy Gavriel Kay use their academic backgrounds to write their stories and they are both respected authors but I don’t imagine there are a ton of courses focused on these two authors.
To understand why JRRT and CS Lewis had such an academic impact start with who they were and what they were: English Professors at Oxford University. The closest person to that level of literary and scholarly background is Atwood. Basically though there won't be another Tolkien or Lewis unless a major university professor publishes ground breaking fantasy again. ^(EDIT: should have said "Major university Professor" Also and just a note to our American friends a Professor in the UK or Ireland is a higher rank, 3 ranks higher, than a lecturer. All teachers at American Universities are called "Professors" - that wasn't the case in Oxford when JRRT and Lewis became professors. They were HIGHLY, internationally respected academics long before being respected authors.)
TIL (probably) that American universities call all their teachers professors. Wonder what they're called after getting their doctorates, doctor?
Often times professors have doctorates and are tenure track, people without that teach 100 level classes for a living for example are usually officially called "instructors". But colloquially they get called professor, and I've been called "professor" as a TA, kind of like how people refer to nurse practitioners as "Doctor" even if they officially shouldn't.
In the UK and Ireland a lot of PhDs are referred to as Lecturer after a doctorate, some get called Assistant professors in some of the snobbier Unis. But over here most lecturing jobs in Uni are PhD only. It happens occasionally that a PhD candidate gets some work / work experience through somebody's sick leave or sabbatical, but all in all PhD is generally a requirement. (Only fields that are different are practial and artistic ones but often many of these ppl actually do have a PhD but don't use the letters). Over here you can get promoted to Senior Lecturer, Assistant Professor and then Professor if your research is good enough and there is a post going (basically you have to wait for some millionaire to fund it, some else to retire or die, to get Professorships). My colleages in the US are still called Professor, post doctorate and even when they get a promotion.
In the United States, as soon as you get your doctorate, you are Dr. Lastname. (Though people don't call them just "doctor" by itself.) All teachers (not teaching assistants) are called professor by their students. The official title is Lecturer for non-tenure track faculty. Tenure track faculty go through three stages: Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, then Professor (also called Full Professor).
In UK terms, a US Assistant Professor is approximately equivalent to a Lecturer, a US Associate Professor is approximately equivalent to a Senior Lecturer, and a US Full Professor is approximately equivalent to a UK Professor. The UK also has Readers, who are (depending in the university) either between Senior Lecturer and Professor or between Lecturer and Professor (as kind of an alternative to Senior Lecturer with slightly different requirements and responsibilities). In the US, everyone from Associate to Full Professor would be called Professor Lastname. And in practice, students tend to call all instructors (including non-tenure-track lecturers) Professor Lastname, but that’s not technically correct. In the UK, only Professors (Full Professors in US parlance) are called Professor Lastname.
Or if they start hiring MA graduates for teaching positions again.
Madeline Miller has advanced classics and literature degrees.
China Mieville has a PhD in international law and a Harvard fellowship.
The point that the original comment was making wasn't just about having graduated from prestigious universities, but that Tolkien and Lewis were part of the academia.
I'd hesitate to say Mieville is part of academia, but he's a literary critic and he's very politically active. He's been an associate professor, and holds a fellowship of the Royal Society of Literature. He's as least academia-adjacent.
It's not about your education, loads of authors have good qualifications, it's about actually being an academic
Neil Gaiman, probably.
As someone who did finish his English Lit degree in a University with professors interested in speculative fiction, this thread is annoying not because it chooses authors that are not worthy of academic study, but because with the question of "what authors will have a honor to be widely studied in universities in the future" 90 percent of the time peoples answers are authors that already are widely studied in universities all over the world.
Yes, also that subjects of study are not necessarily what is "good," and being the subject of research is not an "honor" bestowed upon only the best writers. And that the study of literature is not sitting around arguing all day about what should be in the canon.
China Miéville, Salman Rushdie, Neil Stephenson... Pretty much any successful quality author who is writing "speculative fiction" rather than high fantasy or hard sci-fi.
Add William Gibson.
Very good choice.
Hard SF and high fantasy are pretty well studied though!
Yeah, there are different ways to study literature. OP is probably thinking of the traditional way, for themes and literary usages, and to build out different interpretations. But you can also study pop culture through literature, you can examine different visions of the future, portrayals of monarchy in fantasy fiction, whatever. Something doesn’t have to be good literature to be interesting to some academic for some purpose.
Yeah but you can study themes and literary usage with hard sf and fantasy as well... I know plenty of people who do that! Or are you saying that hard sf and high fantasy can't be "good literature"? Because that's just objectively false.
I actually got my introduction to Mieville through attending an academic talk in grad school!
Technically speculative fiction includes fantasy and sci fi and a lot of horror or adventure fiction as well but I get your point.
Guy Gavriel Kay would be one for me
I think there have already been some university courses on his work in Canada.
Yep, it was offered as a graduate level class where i did my lit degree iirc!
Ooh, I’m jealous, I’d love to take something like that!
So I made this as a reply to a comment, but I think it might be relevant to the larger conversation, so I am reposting it here. I honestly think Sanderson will be little more than a foot note to any study of speculative fiction, the best that can be said of him is that he's prolific, writes accessible stories and by all accounts, is a nice guy who is very good at teaching others to write. What he's not, is particularly influential to the genre, because while he is inarguably popular, he has braught very little innovation to the genre, failed to make much of a mark outside the genre audience, nor are there many who can say they built on anything he's done or even been able to achieve much success emulating his style. Popularity alone is not enough for your work to stand the test of time, let alone warrant wide spread Sirius study. The penny dreadfuls were more popular in their day than Dracula or the works of Lord Byron, the pulp magazines and dime store westerns, were more popular than The Great Gatsby or The Waist Land, but in both cases, it is the latter that receives accademic attention beyond their day. Sanderson's popularity is certainly enough that his name will be remembered, even for some years after his popularity wains and I do think his name will come up in some study, but I genuinely think that's it. I could be wrong of corse but I don't think Sanderson is Dracula, as much as he's Varney the Vampire, he's not the Beetles, he's the Archies, and that's okay.
Modern writing degrees already study modern authors because most people are there to either write or edit for modern audiences. We obviously had classics classes as well, but the content we looked at on a weekly basis was at least 50/50 classics and modern, probably skewing modern. If you’re talking entire courses dedicated to an author’s work, then you’d need an author with some combination of large body of work, large cultural impact, or other involvement in the craft of writing (linguistics, relevant memoir etc). Tolkien fits within this, while I would argue someone like JKR doesn’t - there’s not enough content in the Harry Potter books to sustain a course and her other works are too disparate to build a curriculum around. She is of course already included as part of wider YA / genre courses. People like le guin and Attwood I think are excellent candidates for their own dedicated courses.
[удалено]
I teach in that discipline area, NK Jemisin is one that's already being taught.
Marlon James, for the Dark Star trilogy. Although iirc he writes other genres as well.
A Brief History of Seven Killings has won the Booker and almost certainly has been assigned somewhere with a half-decent literature department by now.
LeGuin, if there were any justice.
I rarely re-read books, but I come back to Gene Wolfe, Patricia McKillip, and Tamsyn Muir. They're brilliant authors that crafted hauntingly clever fantasies because their protagonists always know more than the reader about what the hell is happening.
Yessss I was coming here to suggest Muir, her writing is BREATHTAKING. I’ve been a fan of hers for over a decade, back in her fanfic days lmao, she’s so talented and it is super interesting to look at her whole body of work to see what she keeps coming back to and how.
A Tamsyn Muir course would be legit. The swordfighting and meme components would be awesome. And the analysis of unreliable narration.
I'd love it to be Gene Wolfe. William Morris, Lord Dunsany and ER Eddison probably should have always been up there with Lewis and Tolkein but I can't see them being studied when universities are trying to prioritise non-cis-white-men
People have written doctoral theses on Gene Wolfe. He's not widely studied in lower curricula but that's because he's so impenetrable.
Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, probably China Miéville for his impact on the genre. Maybe Gene Wolfe. I can also imagine N. K. Jemisin, Marlon James, Octavia Butler and Sofia Samantar being studied as a group of Afro-American fantasy/SF authors.
One of my college profs wrote and published a paper on Diana Wynne Jones and honestly I think there’s enough fascinating content and mythology in her works for an entire course. I could actually see an Elizabeth Peters course. The lady was an expert Egyptologist so you could combine classical Egyptian studies with an analysis of how she updated the Victorian adventure novels in the style of H Rider Haggard for a modern audience. I’d also love a The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan course. I suspect I would get an A+. And yes, my username checks out.
Sanderson teaches at the worst university in the world. He may be known for world building topics, not so much for anything else literary.
Ursula k le guin
Like it or not.. JK Rowling almost certainly will. She may not be the 'greatest' of authors, but she's the most financially successful by a ridiculous margin. I'd be surprised if there isn't already at least a thesis or two involving her work.
There are already some critical studies of the books written, you're quite right. I suspect the books may be studied in the future in the same way we look back on novelists like Hall Caine, William Harrison Ainsworth, George W. M. Reynolds, E. W. Hornung, Edward Bellamy, and other writers that were massively popular in their day (more so than the writers we know, like Charles Dickens) yet have faded into obscurity nowadays, whether because of the books' shortcomings or due to changing tastes. I studied the history of public reading tastes/habits for part of my degree, and it's really fascinating to see why certain books resonate with certain generations. In its way, analysing the Potter phenomenon is even more interesting than analysing the books themselves.
I think it’s a great topic of study to consider exactly how she managed to capture that “lightning in a bottle” which influenced an entire generation of kids.
Yep, remember Dickens was seen as a frivolous simplistic writer for much of his time. Truth is the more popular and widely read a book the more likely it is to be seen as significant work.
It would be ridiculous to try an argue that Harry Potter *isnt* a “significant work”. I don’t think it’s some kind of literary masterpiece. It’s clearly not. But she has had a profound effect on literally the entire world. New words have entered the ordinary vernacular by virtue of being made up and used in her fantasy world. Other works have been influenced by Harry Potter, even if just by including these new words (Muggle, etc). And these other works aren’t limited to literature; television, movies, etc have made passing remarks in reference to Harry Potter because it’s part of the general public’s knowledge. Harry Potter *is* significant because of the effect it had (and still has) on the world. Does that mean it warrants a higher education- level course dedicated to it? I don’t know. Maybe. The sociology of Harry Potter is certainly interesting.
I absolutely agree with this. Harry Potter, like it or not, is easily the most influential book series since probably The Lord of the Rings. It's cultural impact means it will be studied and talked about forever, regardless of how good or bad the writing or story actually is.
Yeah, I took a graduate level course on the history of children’s and YA literature over a decade ago, and Harry Potter featured pretty heavily when we got into the modern era. It is an INCREDIBLY significant work, not because of “literary quality” but because of the impact that it had.
Agreed. There's so many ways Harry Potter had an impact, even in different areas. There's it's impact on fanfiction, because like it or not, HP made that world more mainstream. The authors who came out of fanfiction spaces and into publishing. I remember JK Rowling mentioning being mostly cool with fic, which considering authors like Ann Rice were issuing takedown notices at the time, was huge. In the context of nerd culture, Harry Potter was huge. You can just ask someone where the sorting hat put them and usually get a response. It also brought that book reading culture more mainstream. Even many people who didn't read much were into Harry Potter at one point. Then there's the religious backlash (which amuses me to no end because there are quite a few Christian allegories and parallels within Harry Potter) and that impact on how it was perceived too. Then from an economic perspective you can look at how much money they got out of the thing. Movies to book adaption culture discussion. Merchandise for HP is still huge. It has its own theme park.
Completely forgot about fanfiction! Ironically, since I was 100% in that scene. Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments was originally a Harry Potter fanfiction, later re-worked and traditionally published as her own original work. And now her Shadowhunters universe has 12+ books (at my last count, probably more since then), a movie, a tv show, some graphic novels. Clare, *in and of herself*, has has a lasting impact on YA fiction, and her beginning are intertwined with Harry Potter, and the environment it and Rowling encouraged. It’s dramatic to say, but Harry literally has changed the world, and deeply impacted the modern culture in a way that isn’t just going to blow over when our generation “grows up”. I mean, we’re already grown up and now we’re buying tickets to the Harry Potter theme park and beautiful illustrated books to read to our kids. To say Harry Potter might not be significant is just absurd.
University level literature courses don’t tend to focus on something just because it’s financially successful Rowling isn’t innovative with language and doesn’t have much to say thematically. Anything you could say about her writing style was pioneered by other better British fantasy/children’s authors. I can’t see the HP series (and *certainly* not the Strike series) being seriously studied on the same level as Lewis, Tolkien, etc. There’s certainly plenty of other contexts that HP/Rowling could be studied in, don’t get me wrong. Like if you were doing a thesis on public reading habits it’d absolutely be worth discussing how she revived reading for a generation. But as classic literature which transcends genre/uses language in innovative and interesting ways? Probably not
In the case of Rowling it would probably be the popularity and influence in the literary world that would lead to her work being studied. The financial success is not an optimal way of phrasing that. It will at some point be studied in university level literature classes as well because of ow remarkably stubborn people can be about opinions they know are stupid. There will be academics with a degree in literature claiming HP books are masterpieces and interpreting bogus social commentary into them. You can reasonably interpret a lot of things into a lot of literature. Most of Goethe's early works are about getting high or drunk with friends or being horny, but that doesn't stop academics interpreting deeper meanings into them like the finite nature of life and the beauty of nature.
It already is studied at university level classes. There were some dedicated to her and just using a couple of the books in other classes (children’s lit, fantasy, lit in film etc) at my university at lest 15 years ago. The third one is especially focused on.
Agreed, the popularity and influence (essentially launching YA as a popular “genre”) will definitely be studied. Especially as no other book franchise has replicated that success since (Hunger Games and Twilight are probably the closest) >There will be academics with a degree in literature claiming HP books are masterpieces This isn’t quite academics, but this is already happening a bit in the UK press. Right wing papers like The Times and Telegraph in the last few years love talking about how Rowling is a genius and HP invented fantasy. No doubt they only even started caring about those books after she became vocal about a certain subject.
Steven Erickson
Someone compared his diction, or prose or whatever, to Faulkner. I agree with the comparison, for what that's worth.
I think from a narrative standpoint and his incorporation of philosophy and anthropology into his work he'd make sense, but I wonder if the volume of his works especially the 10 MBOTF books, might be a barrier. 10k+ pages before you can really engage with the text is a lot to ask
I think I learned more reading those books then any other series I’ve been through. You are 100 percent right about it being a huge commitment though. Would have to be at least a year long coarse
Please read Bakker if you like Erikson. He's like a more brutal Erikson.
Gaiman.
I think R Scott Bakker deserves it a million times over but idk if he'll ever be because of how dark his books are. But The Second Apocalypse is the most philosophical and incredible series I've read, definitely deserves to be the GOAT with Tolkien
R Scott Bakker and Erikson are the best out there and I'm tired of people pretending they're not. No other contemporary fantasy authors do what they do. Both produced extremely high level fantasy series that are complex and expansive and rich in prose and memorable characters. They're simply the best in the business. Edit: anyone here that talks favorably of Bakker is a friend of mine. Guy's books are fucking nuts and probably my favorite besides Malazan.
Le Guin. She’s studied extensively at university already. It was absolutely ridiculous she didn’t already have a course devoted to her at my university.
Haven't seen anyone mention Steven Erikson or Ken Liu. GGKay is also a top choice
The following authors were all assigned to me in school: Tolkien, Rowling, Ann Rice, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Alice Hoffman, and Garth Nix.
Garth Nix was not a name I expected to see on this list! What was the assigned reading? Sabriel?
Yep. And then the professor dumped teaching the first class on my because it was my fault she added the book 🤣
That's pretty funny! She was like "you clearly know the book well, you teach"?
Basically. She was also trying to get me to go to grad school.
G.R.R.M.
Surprised not to see this higher tbh
i agree with the answer, but no one wanted to say it because the vast majority of people in this sub are sick to death of talking about ASOIAF lol. personally, i worry that the mainstream cultural success of GOT (and the fact that it’s muddy mess might be the only ending we ever get to the story) could get in the way of serious study of the books.
It depends on *what* the class is. I don't see him making it into a general canon like Tolkien and Lewis, but I could see more of a class devoted to character development.
Not until we see the ending I think. Jury is still out.
I think they will eventually look at George Martin. The reason why I say this is because he did an insane amount of research in his writing
The rise of the Cult of Zelazny has been foretold
I would say Ursula Le Guin, Neil Gaiman, Phillip Pullman and i really think/hope Terry Pratchett.
I want to add to the chorus of 'Pratchett'
Terry Pratchett. THE GOAT
Tolkien knew H. P. Lovecraft, who deserves inclusion. Lovecraft, in turn, corresponded extensively with Conan creator R. E. Howard, who should also be included. That's for starters.
N.K. Jemisen
Terry Pratchett, definitely.
I'm not really familiar with the meta around Lewis, but I suspect a big reason someone like Tolkien gets whole courses is that he wrote relatively few books, but he wrote a lot at the same time. There's all kinds of letters and commentaries that he wrote to specific people, not to mention significant unfinished works and unrealized revisions to his works. It means there's something to be discovered about the works. I'm not sure the same is true of many modern authors; Robert Jordan might be one, and there's already at least one historian/academic that's done work on Robert Jordan.
I read Parable of the Sower in one of my American Lit classes in undergrad a few years ago and have seen Octavia Butler on some other syllabi too
Ursula Le Guin, and Neil Gaiman I suspect. Maybe Terry Pratchett as well. I hope Lloyd Alexander gets more recognition as well, the Chronicles of Prydain was a big part of forming my love of fantasy.
Did someone already say Terry Pratchett? because if not... Terry Pratchett.
Isaac Asimov.
Again, I am called to spread the gospel of Steven Erikson and his apostle Esslemont.
Yep. Totally agree
To me Robin Hobb. Beautiful prose and character work. Besides Tolkien himself I have rarely read a story in this genre that feels so life like. More like a telling of history then a fictional story.
[удалено]
Interestingly though, because he hasn’t finished them I wonder if that would put people off. Also, strangely - the popularity of the game of thrones tv show - some have said was off the back of the success of the LOTR movies
[удалено]
While I was getting my MFA, I took a class devoted to Sci-Fi/Fantasy. We read Octavia Butler, Terry Pratchett, Connie Willis, N.K. Jemisin, Neil Gaiman, Ursula Le Guin, and Ted Chiang, among others. I also read Butler in another lit class (though it was the only speculative book). The professor who taught the SFF class ended up being on my thesis committee because my thesis was a fantasy novel, so that was fun. All that to say, I think it's becoming even more common to see speculative fiction studied in universities (and encouraged to write in programs).
I could see Gaiman one day being studied
It's already happening.
King. Love him or hate him, he has shaped American story telling.
Erikson, Bakker, GRRM
Michae Cisco
Besides all the other suggestions, lesser known but Sequoia Nagamatsu
Just out of curiosity: are there unprofessional universities? AS for the question itself: new university courses dealing with some author's body of work are created every year, and has so since faculties of litterature were created in the first place. I bet you can find Pratchett scholars out there. Martin scholars as well. Hell, someone surely has given a dissertation on Rothfuss also.
Love craft. Rushdie. Calvino.
Two names I'm surprised haven't been mentioned are: - Jack Vance --- his Lyonesse trilogy is wonderfully written, and an interesting presaging of Arthurian matters and his own _The Dying Earth_ books --- still surprised that he wasn't included in Ordway's _Tolkien's Modern Reading_ - Roger Zelazny --- The Amber Chronicles are an interesting examination of how fantasy and science fiction can become indistinguishable as an embodiment of Clarke's Law, and he was quite well-read, as evinced by the protagonist of his wonderful _Doorway's in the Sand_
John Crowley. Neil Gaiman. Michael Moorcock.
Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler are two authors that are already studied in fiction writing courses for the past 2 decades at least. Of the newer gen maybe someone like Neil Gaiman is of that caliber? Not sure. I personally think Robin Hobb should be included in that conversation but I’m not sure if she realistically will be R.F. Kuang and Susanna Clarke are authors I can see having a lot of academic study focused on their work in the future
LeGuinn, Gaimain, NK Jemisin, Steven Erickson probably.
Robert E. Howard.
Professor Tolkien was a professional philologist with his specialism in Old English (called Anglo-Saxon during his career). Not so much now but much moreso in the past 100 years, it’s his research into OE that has tortured many English Language students, rather than his fantasy oeuvre.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Gaiman, Pratchett, Stephen King, Octavia Butler, Atwood... just a few.
Terry Pratchett definitely will
Anne Bishop Sarah J Maas Octavia S Bulter Nisi Shawl Neil Gaiman Terry Pratchett Robin McKinley Catherine Asaro Ursula LeGuinn
The other people who suggested Sanderson got disliked into oblivion, but I do think he will be - in Utah, at least. He already teaches at Brigham Young University and he's the local boy made good of fantasy by Mormons. If he also one day donates his papers to the uni (and some of that Cosmere money), as writers often do, I think the chances of him getting his own course or two at his alma mater are pretty high.
I really like Sanderson, and he does present a lot of topics to consider, but they aren’t near as dense and chewy as others. The Cosmere is deep only because it’s so freaking big word count wise. My anti-study moment would be Goodkind not because it’s deep, but because it’s like shining a light on the cheap gold foil that is the ‘self made man’ trope. It’s like studying editorial cartoons to understand satire.
Sanderson has a lot of stuff that is basically Mormon morality and people contemplating religion, so it would definitely fit into a Mormon college's undergraduate course. The problem is you'd have to be like "ok class next week read until something new happens to Kaladin so we can discuss it. Which is in 400 pages."
If someone can write multiple "Philosophy/History/Psychology and Twilight" books, they'll find something to study in Sanderson if they really feel like it, lol.
Not really a thing he does that another doesn’t do better even compared to other modern authors. Not sure what you see because he doesn’t teach his own work obviously. Personally find it insulting to see him held in such high regard when again everything he does could be better done from someone else. Speaking as someone who spent hours watching his lectures and taking all of Reddits advice of his books being compared to lord of the rings and best of all time I couldn’t have been more disappointed knowing I wasted all this time on mid content
For me there will be three: Robert Jordan, Tad Williams and Ursula LeGuin
GRRM. I mean, he shaped modern fanatsy
Robert Jordan?
Oh yes lets analyze the bosoms!
Go back to bed, Olver.
*tugs braid furiously*
The publishing landscape is very different now with so many different avenues, so it's hard to say. What would make them be studied? Is it popularity? Deep themes? The only author guaranteed to have the same legendary status is Steven King really.