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Literature Review #2

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 The Dragon: Fear & Power by Martin Arnold Arnold, Martin. The Dragon : Fear and Power . Reaktion Books Ltd, 2018. Summary: This sources brings in a plethora of information on dragons from all different sources. Arnold separates the information from dragons based on the culture and region that they were from. He categorizes the symbolism of dragons to be either culture or nature. Dragons in the terms of culture mean that they represent safety and control, whereas dragons in terms of nature are ferocious and violent. Arnold constantly relates the dragons he researching to side, either nature of culture. His book is more of an accumulation of all the mentions of dragons through various cultures and writings. Author: Martin Arnold is a writer and retired professor at University of Hull in the UK. He has written multiple books on other topics relating to culture, myths or the combination of both. Key Terms: The key terms nature and culture connect with Arnold's concept that I will ...

Literature Review #1

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The Necessity of Dragons and Fairies - James Hamby Hamby, James. “The Necessity of Dragons and Fairies.”  Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts , vol. 30,          no. 3, The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, 2019, pp. 412–77 Summary: This source describes the need for dragons and fairies, even though may people may not necessary believe that these creatures exist. Both creatures are used to explore the natures of humans, fairies as a powerful and better version of ourselves and dragons as the darker side of people. Dragons in particular have varying connotations through their vast reach in cultures. Hamby briefly discuses the 'nature vs culture' point that Martin makes in his book.  Author: James Hamby is a writer who has written many scholarly articles discussing and reviewing other people's work. He goes into a deep discussion between three books, making him relatively knowledgable on the topic of dragons and fairies.  Key...

Research Question and Scholarly Sources

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Possible research questions: What are the commonalities between different cultures in relation to mythical creatures? Why do dragons, fairies and other creatures serve such opposite messages in different cultures? What are the creatures that have a large and differing impact on different cultures, regions and religions and why do they have the effects that they do? Sources: Hamby, James. “The Necessity of Dragons and Fairies.”  Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts , vol. 30, no. 3, The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, 2019, pp. 412–77.      This source describes the need for dragons and fairies even though people may not necessary  still truly believe in it. These two creatures are used to explore different natures of humans, although exaggerated . Fairies are to represent a powerful better version of ourselves, whereas dragons represent the darker side of people.  Amy Carlson. “The Pleasures of Metamorphosis: Japanese and English Fa...

Scouting for Territory

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I am considering changing my topic to have to do with the possibility of mythical creatures. There are so many different types of creatures that show up in different cultures in varying geographical locations. Is there proof that these creatures existed, may continue to exist or was it all just a collective figment of people's imagination. I felt as though focusing on superstitions would become repetitive, with the main evidence I found is the concept synchronity. The topic of mythical creatures is wider and allows me more room to research different things like origins and purpose or significance to people. These creatures also spread from mythologies to present day sightings, so there would be a lot of information on this subject.  At first, using 'mythical creatures' as a google search lead me to mainly fictional creatures. Those that have origins or popularization from fiction writers, such as creatures specific to the Harry Potter universe. Specifying creatures from myt...