DATE: Jan. 13, 20, 27 & Feb 3, 10, 17

LOCATION: New Life Church, 28 Tracey Lane, Collingwood

TIME: 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

COURSE FEE: $30.

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Imaginary Worlds: Forms of Fantasy from Ancient Myth to Modern Novel

Gary Draper

Jan 13: Deep Roots: Fantastic Elements in Myth and Folktale

The earliest forms of narrative in all cultures comfortably interweave the ordinary and the extraordinary.  We’ll look at some of these stories both inside and outside the Western tradition.

Jan 20: In the Nursery: Fantasy Works Written for Children

For most readers, the fantastic is part of the intellectual nourishment of their childhood, from Peter Pan and Alice to their contemporary heirs.

Jan 27: Heroes Wielding Swords: Classic Fantasy

Whether it’s the high fantasy of the Table Round or its modern counterpart in the never-ending sequences of sword-and-sorcery novels, the questing hero is likely to be with us for a long time yet.

Feb 3: The Dark Side: Ghost Stories and Other Horrors

Vampires, it seems, are all around us these days.  What ever happened to zombies and werewolves and, those eternal reflections of a troubled psyche, ghosts?  And why do we fear (and love) them so?

Feb 10: Future (Im)Perfect: Varieties of Science Fiction

Set a fantasy on another planet or in a distant (or near) future, and we call it by another name.  But many of the stories from outer space have a lot in common with the tales of Middle Earth.

Feb 17: Fantasy in the Mainstream: Words and Pictures

We’ll take a look at some of the great writers who have stepped outside the confines of our quotidian world.  We’ll also ask, If a picture is really worth a thousand words. What about a moving picture?

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Gary Draper, PhD, has been a librarian, a university professor, an editor, and a book-reviewer. He continues to love reading and discussing books, and has - both before and since his retirement - taught a variety of courses to third-age learning groups in southern Ontario, including two well-loved courses to GTLLI: Stories in Our Lives:  The Ways and Whys of Narrative(2009) and How We got Here from There: A Whirlwind Tour of Canadian Literature.(2007).