As Dark As Darkness : Using Star Maker and The Hobbit to Promote a Constructionist Understanding of Race in the ESL Classroom

Sammanfattning: Although the popular conception of fantasy has nothing to do with race, in fact, the genre frequently exhibits underlying concerns with racial dynamics. Conversely, science fiction, due to its speculative perspective on the universe and the potential existence of alien species is, by nature, more inherently preoccupied with the concept of race. However, fantasy, science fiction, and race are all discursive formations, shaped by social and cultural forces dependent on time and place. Educators must therefore address the political, economic, and ideological aspects of race that have resulted in societies maintaining essentialist perspectives of race. The Hobbit and Star Maker both perpetuate essentialist notions of race, but they simultaneously provide distance, which makes the process of addressing the issue of race easier in the classroom. Thus, this essay explores how a critical reading of these novels can help students acquire knowledge of how race is a social construct which is discursively generated and used to legitimize the subjection of people based on perceived racial differences.