ANTHROPOCENE

ENGL 4870/6870: NEIL GAIMAN: REPRESENTATIVE WORKS

DR. DARREN HARRIS-FAIN

Contemporary British writer Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) is one of the most popular and critically acclaimed authors in fantastic fiction, and he has appeared on television shows such as Arthur, The Simpsons, and The Big Bang Theory. He has received the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Shirley Jackson, and Bram Stoker awards for his work in fantasy and horror, the Newbery and Carnegie medals for his work in fiction for children and young adults, and the Harvey and Eisner awards for his work in comics and graphic novels His prolific oeuvre encompasses comics and graphic novels, picture books for younger children and chapter books for older ones, dozens of short stories and essays, novels, and teleplays and screenplays. This seminar will focus on representative works by Gaiman focusing on the fantastic and often intersecting with the mythic: a volume from The Sandman, the novel Anansi Boys, two short stories (online), the speeches collected in Art Matters, the children’s novel Odd and the Frost Giants, and the picture book Instructions.