I recently submitted a proposal to present a paper entitled “Fabricated Histories and Non-Nationalist Identities” to a conference being held here at the University of Florida next month. Just a few days ago I found out that my proposal had been accepted. So, on November 13th, 2009, I will be presenting my paper in front of a bunch of people, probably fellow graduate students and faculty. This, I’m sure, will be a terrifying experience when I am questioned by people far more learned than myself.
But, none of this seems relevant to any of you without context. This particular paper happens to spent quite a good deal of time analyzing The House of the Stag by Kage Baker, and fantastic fantasy novel from last year that I reviewed here; I also interviewed the author some time back. The paper also deals with an interesting book called In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh, which is not fantasy, but certainly worthy of your consideration. In any case, what I am most curious about in this paper are the relationships the characters in both novels have to history, particular that of fake or fabricated histories, and how their identities are formulated through their use of such things. It may sound dull, but the Baker text is particularly good at making this rather fascinating to a less academic crowd, since her use of a fabricated history is embodied by what you might call the “Dark Lord narrative.” I won’t go any further than that, since I have a presentation to work on, but I thought you all might find this fascinating indeed!
