The Dark Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture

This session will explore the visual culture of fantasy in the long nineteenth century with particular emphasis on subjects interpreted the lenses of colonialism, imperialism, gender studies, ecocriticism, and other related discourses. “Fantasy” in this context encompasses magical or supernatural elements manifesting in folkloric, mythical, and legendary traditions. The “dark fantastic” derives conceptually from the work of Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, who uses the phrase to signify “the role that racial difference plays in our fantastically storied imaginations.” For the purposes of this panel, it will function in a broader capacity, referring to responses to post-Enlightenment industrial modernity as they emerge subtly and overtly in nineteenth-century fantasy.

Although fantasy genres began to be academically analyzed and codified in the second half of the twentieth century, existing scholarship remains largely within the purview of literary and cultural studies. The aim of this session is to advance art historical perspectives on the vast landscape of nineteenth-century fantasy visual and material culture, specifically addressing their ties to the urgent issues of the period and of academic discourse today. While this does not preclude discussion of medievalisms – one of the dominant threads in contemporary fantasy studies – papers that engage with the legacies of the Middle Ages should still situate the topic primarily within the nineteenth century.