Footnote #9 - Sword and Sorcery

The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!

The history and application of sword and sorcery - a term initially used to describe a wave of pre-Tolkien fantasy writing - is the latest subject for Chris and Alex in Footnote #9, which plots the relationship between this kind of ‘rough’ historical fiction and questions of world-building, magic, and myth. Topics include sword and sorcery’s origin story in the 1930s and links to the paperback revolution of short stories and cheap pulp fiction; its cinematic adaptations during the 1970s and 1980s from Conan the Barbarian to The Beastmaster; and the response to this sub-genre by Hollywood’s elite and what this meant for fantasy’s broader critical and cultural prestige.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Suggested Readings

  • Clute, John, and John Grant, eds. 1999. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.

  • Sergeant, Alexander. 2021. Encountering the Impossible: The Fantastic in Hollywood Fantasy Cinema. New York: State University of New York Press.

FOOTNOTE PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantFANTASY, SWORD, SORCERY, MAGIC, HISTORYComment