Urban Fantasy: A Literature of the Unseen

Author: Stefan Ekman
Date: Fall 2016
From: Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts(Vol. 27, Issue 3)
Publisher: The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts
Document Type: Article
Length: 8,046 words
Abstract :

This article analyzes the nature of urban fantasy by aggregating the claims, suggestions, and observations made by several different accounts of what urban fantasy is. These accounts comprise six scholarly sources and four sources written by people who are producers and purveyors of urban fantasy. An eleventh "account" is made up of the impressions conveyed by a vast number of book covers identified through Google Image Search. These eleven accounts are analyzed with regard to their views on worlds and settings, cities and urbanity, central characters, and the sources of fantastic elements. Finally, the article presents how three major threads in the accounts reveal that urban fantasy has a central, thematic concern with the Unseen. This Unseen is largely related to a social Other that portrays unpleasant aspects of urban life, such as criminality, homelessness, addiction, prostitution, and physical and sexual abuse.
Source Citation
Ekman, Stefan. "Urban Fantasy: A Literature of the Unseen." Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 27, no. 3, fall 2016, pp. 452+. link.gale.com/apps/doc/A531977752/AONE?u=gale&sid=bookmark-AONE. Accessed 17 Apr. 2026.
  

Gale Document Number: GALE|A531977752