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The prospects for creating a materialist understanding of fantasy literature are contemplated; specific attention is dedicated to the differences between science fiction & fantasy literature's differing treatments of the good/evil binary & of technological devices. An analysis of contemporary scholarship's discussion of the generic differences between science fiction & fantasy is performed, illustrating that the former is frequently perceived as addressing the topics of history & historical development. After suggesting that not all science fiction is materialistic in nature, problems with traditional materialist assessments of fantasy are identified. Informed by Ludwig Feuerbach's understanding of religion as a form of projection, it is asserted that the magical within fantasy literature is indicative of humankind's creative capacity & freedom & that such literature essentially counterbalances science fiction's concern with history & historical change. The benefits of developing a materialist understanding of fantasy literature are also considered. 6 References. J. W. Parker

Der Artikel beschäftigt sich mit kartografischen Darstellungen als kommunikativer Vermittlungsstrategie des Imaginären am Beispiel von Karten in Fantasy-Rollenspielen. Im Rückgriff auf SCHÜTZsche Überlegungen zur Intersubjektivität und Kommunikation verstehen wir Karten als eine der Strategien im Umgang mit der "mittleren Transzendenz" in der Kommunikation mit Anderen. Die "sozialwissenschaftliche Hermeneutik" (SOEFFNER) wird als eine methodische Herangehensweise an Karten und die Interaktionen, in denen sie Verwendung finden, vorgestellt. In unseren Analysen der in Rollenspielen genutzten Karten zeigen wir, dass Karten nicht nur dazu dienen, sich zu verorten, sondern auch ein Mittel sind, einen Ort zu erzeugen, zu dem wir in sinnhafter Beziehung stehen. Karten helfen so dabei, uns das Gefühl zu geben, zu einem (imaginären) – nur mittelbar gegebenen – Territorium hinzugehören.

"NESARA/GESARA" pops up easily when one searches for the financial element in conspiratorial, millennialist fantasies today. The acronym, NESARA, stood initially for National Economic Stabilization and Recovery Act: a rather fringe policy proposal ideated in the 1990s by Harvey F. Barnard, a consultant and founder of a NESARA Institute established in Greenwell Springs, Louisiana. The initiative, which took the form of a proposed bill but was never introduced before the US Congress, consisted in a systematic monetary and fiscal reform aiming at "general prosperity" (against the "contrived scheme" put in place by "power brokers in Washington, DC") and included things such as the restoration of gold as constitutional currency, the end of the Federal Reserve System, the elimination of national debt, the abolition of compound interest on loans, and of income tax. The 2000s saw the acronym evolve, now standing for National Economic Security and Reformation Act and referring to a rather esoteric version of the plan, soon acquiring a planetary dimension, in the form of a Global Economic Security and Reformation Act, GESARA. Shaini Goodwin - a spirituality and investment consultant known as the "Dove of Oneness" in New Age internet circles - spearheaded this new conspiratorial interpretation. The "global currency reset" and the general "revaluation" the reform called for were considered to be in fact underway, although in a secret, occulted fashion, with an adverse league of political and financial elites conspiring against the changes. NESARA/GESARA also started to carry a distinctive spiritual, prophetic element, with the restoration of the fair, original, real value of persons and things being connected to the equilibrium of energies - at once planetary, cosmic, mystical, psychic, extra-terrestrial, interdimensional, divine, and economic.

Gitlin reviews Russ Rymer's 'American Beach: How Progress Robbed a Black Town--and Nation--of History, Wealth, and Power.'.

Numerous and diverse points of view come together in this work, demonstrating the multiple aspects that sexuality can present. If nothing is more natural than sexual desire, it is nothing less than the forms by which this desire is expressed and found to satisfy. This book invites you on a special journey, into the universe of emotion, of pleasure and desire.

Abstract
Many scholars have drawn attention to the affective power that aspects of discourse and practice exert in our social and political life. Fantasy is a concept that, like structures of feeling, rhetoric, myth, metaphor, and utopia, has generated illuminating explanatory and interpretive insights with which to better understand the operation of this power. In this piece I argue that there are distinctive virtues in affirming the value of the category of fantasy, from a theoretical point of view. Importantly, however, I also argue that the qualification 'critical' in Critical Fantasy Studies captures something about how such studies can draw out the normative, ideological, and politico-strategic implications of psychoanalytic insights and observations, and thus become part of a broader enterprise in critical theoretical and empirical research.