Introduction Fantastically Real

Introduction Fantastically Real

Non-consensus reality has become ever-present in our quasi-schizophrenic minds, not as a mere theoretical question regarding textual virtuality, but as a challenge confronting us directly in our most mundane moments: the polarizing aftermath of recent American and British elections, competing partisan news channels, impenetrable echo chambers, claims of fake news and “alternative facts,” fiercely contested reports of genocide, divided opinions on refugees and other forms of immigration, resurgent white supremacy looming in the distance, and China's grotesque chimera of imperialist nationalism and nominal communism closer to home. These current events remind us how elusive consensus reality can be: the question of reality not only emerges when we critique particular literary texts but also surfaces in political speeches, family arguments, and social media posts. The dialectics between literary fantasies and consensus reality seems more relevant than ever. As the afterlife of the Taipei Tech English Department's eponymous international conference in 2018,1 this feature issue, “Literary Fantasy and Its Discontents,” aims to respond to the paranoid state of our contemporary world. The topic, apparently enough, alludes to Sigmund Freud, whose Civilization and Its Discontents attempts to anatomize the unease experienced by individuals within larger civilizations—an unease that underlies so many works of fiction in the fantastic mode.