Danica Stojanovic M.A.

Project Overview: Aesthetics of Fantasy Theatre - “A magic of its own”?

“Just swish and flick the stage lights and solemnly swear you’re up for a great show!”
Fantasy is one of the most beloved genres of fiction that has evaded academic research for decades,
before entering academia in all its magical glory. Still, in spite of its prevalence in popular culture and
media, fantasy on the stage is not commonly addressed from a scholarly perspective. This project aims
to rectify that by comprehensively tackling the process of adapting various fantasy sources for the stage.
Through the forward-looking lens of adaptation studies, the dissertation will theorise the genre of
fantasy and its (dis)contents in creating magical worlds on the stage. The project will focus on
contemporary fantasy adaptations including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Wicked and the Ocean at
the End of the Lane, with a view to carving a new, prolific research niche in fantasy studies.

 

 

Research focus: fantasy studies, adaptation studies, theatre and drama, creating magical worlds on
stage, emotional and rational impacts of fantasy theatre

 

 

Teaching

 

  • WiSe 2020/21: Narrative Analysis (Übung)
  • SoSe 2021: Experimental and Interactive Storytelling, Group B (Übung)
  • WiSe 2021/22: Contemporary Children’s Literature (Proseminar)
  • WiSe 2021/22: Narrative Analysis (Übung)
  • SoSe 2022: Literature from the Margins (Proseminar)
  • SoSe 2022: Narrative Analysis: Postcolonial Short Fiction (Übung)
  • WiSe 2022/23: Postmodernism (Proseminar)
  • WiSe 2022/23: Adaptation in Theory and Practice (Übung)
  • SoSe 2023: Cultural Analysis - Musicals: Broadway Under Spyglass (Übung)
  • WiSe 2023/24: Magical Realism (Proseminar)
  • WiSe 2023/24: Latinx Visions of the US (Übung)
  • SoSe 2024: (Re-)Reading the Empire (Proseminar)
  • SoSe 2024: Metafiction (Übung)
 
 

Publications and Presentations

 

“The Changing Face of Fantasy Theatre.” Language, Literature, and Media: International Conference Proceedings, Univerzitet Alfa BK, Belgrade, Serbia, 2024, pp. 328-341.

“Theatrical (Hyper)Reality: The Effects of Breaking Formal Boundaries in Every Brilliant Thing.” Over The Horizon, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature, London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, London, 2020, pp. 81‑100.

“Postmodernism and the Populist Other.” Journal of the International Symposium of Students of English, Croatian and Italian Studies, Studentski Zbor Sveucilista u Splitu, Split, 2018, pp. 154‑171.

“Eleven Days.” My English Book Anthology, The English Book, Belgrade 2013.

 

Forthcoming:

“Subversive Dragons in Terry Pratchett’s Works.” Vernon Press, 2024.

“The Mythic Everydayness of My Neighbour Totoro.” International Federation for Theatre Research, Selected publication, edited by Lynn Kendrick and Yaron Shyldkrot, 2025/26.
 
“Tolkien’s Legacy in Fantasy Theatre.” Selected publication, edited by Marion Gymnich and Klaus Scheunemann, 2024.
 
““The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Fantasy Theatre in Transmedia Dialogues.” BELLS Journal, University of Belgrade, 2024.
 
“When We Make It – Nuyorican Constriction and Dreams of Freedom.” Narratives of Confinement in American Literature and Popular Culture, De Gruyter, 2024/25.
 
 “The Streets as Sites of Empowerment: Revising the Perspectives on Female Flaneurs in Eightenth-Century Classics by Women Novelists.” New Perspectives on Walking Women in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, edited by Sandra Dinter, 2025/26.

Presentation: “Theatrical Hyperreality in Duncan Macmillan’s Every Brilliant Thing” Over the Horizon Conference, London Centre for Interdisciplinary research, London 2019 

 

Presentations:

 

“Exclusive Feminism – Double Marginalisation of Women of Colour and Its Consequences” 10th European Feminist Research Conference, Göttingen 2018

“Postmodernism and the Populist Other” Second International Symposium of Students of English,
Croatian and Italian Studies, Split 2017

Lecture: Alexander Genis’s book Reading Classes, Dom Kulture Studentski Grad, Belgrade 2016

With Ashumi Shah: Organising committee of the NELK Annual Student Conference: Experimental and Interactive Storytelling, 2021

With Corvin Bittner and Nadine Ellinger: Conference co-organiser for Postgraduate Forum Postcolonial Narrations under the title “The Ruins of Empire: Postcolonial Hauntings” at the University of Augsburg in cooperation with GAPS - Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies, 2024

 

Contact Danica Stojanovic M.A.

E-mail: stojanovic.danica994@gmail.com / danica.stojanovic-schaffrath@uni-graz.at

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