American Fantastic

Myths of Violence and Redemption

Derek J. Thiess

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9780299355104
• eBook ISBN: 9780299355135
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Social Sciences

American Fantastic challenges readers to recognize an organizing myth in America's perception of its imperialist past, "the myth of redemptive violence." Derek J. Thiess persuasively argues that this myth serves to obscure the deep thread of Christian supremacy that underwrites America's colonial and imperial impulses, from the early colonial period to westward expansion to the contemporary global order. This American imaginary, which enmeshes religion with violence, is constructed in multiple contentious and productive contact zones: between genres, between cultures, and between past and present.

Thiess's interdisciplinary study examines America's past and present imperial projects, from the Hawaiian Islands to the Eastern Seaboard, as they proliferate in popular story forms. By interrogating American myths, legends, and fantastic narratives across an impressive array of genres, including folk narratives, science fiction, movies, and more, Thiess exposes how the "myth of redemptive violence" manifests in contemporary constructions of America's fantastic imaginaries.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Violence and Redemption at the Edge: SF Sport and Mo‘olelo Nalu
• 2. Closer to Center: The Franklin Expedition, Myth, and the Embodied Horrors of History
• 3. Myth and Violence on the Homefront: The John Henry Legend
• 4. “Only the Devil and I”: Pirates, Missionaries, and the Blackbeard Legend
• 5. Bootstraps and Pederasts: Child Protectionism and the Horatio Alger Myth
• 6. From Defecation to Deification: Religion and Empire in Torture Porn
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index