Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian

225 Pages·2012·2.649 MB·English

by  Jonas Prida (editor)

Conan Meets the Academy
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Conan Meets the Academy
Multidisciplinary Essays on
the Enduring Barbarian
Edited by JONAS PRIDA
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
Conan, Conan the Barbarian and Hyboria are registered trade-
marks of Conan Properties International. Robert E. Howard is
a registered trademark of Robert E. Howard Properties.
ISBN 978-0-7864-6152-3
softcover : acid free paper
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
© 2013 Jonas Prida. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, i ncluding photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without p ermission in writing from the p ublisher.
Cover design by Mark Durr; images © 2013 Shutterstock
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
To the shades of
Robert E. Howard and Gary Gygax
for keeping me out of trouble
and in the library
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Introduction 5
Part One: The Literary Conan
Hyborian Age Archaeology: Unearthing Historical and
Anthropological Foundations JEFFREY SHANKS 13
Barbarism Ascendant: The Poetic and Epistolary Origins of
the Character and His World FRANK COFFMAN 35
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Women: Gender Dynamics in
the Hyborian World WINTER ELLIOTT 51
Robert E. Howard’s Barbarian and the Western: A Study of Conan
Through the West and the Western Hero DANIEL WEISS 70
Canaan Lies Beyond the Black River: Howard’s Dark Rhetoric
of the Contact Zone PAUL SHOVLIN 91
Statistics in the Hyborian Age: An Introduction to Stylometry
DANIEL M. LOOK 103
Part Two: The Cultural Conan
Arnold at the Gates: Subverting Star Persona in Conan
the Barbarian NICKY FALKOF 123
“Hot Avatars” in “Gay Gear”: The Virtual Male Body as Site
of Conflicting Desires in Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
JAMES KELLEY 144
Fandom and the Nostalgia of Masculinity STEPHEN WALL 174
“Barbarian Heroing” and Its Parody: New Perspectives on
Masculinity IMOLA BULGOZDI 193
About the Contributors 213
Index 215
vii
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Preface
Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Bar-
bariangrew out of the need to apply more modern critical methodologies to
Robert Howard’s creation, Conan the Cimmerian. There have been several
critical biographies of Howard (Glenn Lord’s seminal The Last CeltandMark
Finn’s Blood and Thunderbeing the most insightful) and an academic journal
dedicated to his writing, but there are few explorations of Conan not funda-
mentally based in traditional literary analysis. While these literary examina-
tions are important and useful, the changing face of academic discussion has
opened up figures such as Conan to a wider range of approaches.
This project is a multi-disciplinary investigation, drawing from stylom-
etry, archaeology, cultural studies, folklore studies, and literary history. By
incorporating multiple perspectives and disciplines, the variety of approaches
displays the range and depth of scholarly interest in Conan. Some of the arti-
cles employ close readings of the original Howard texts, while others look at
the figure of Conan in popular culture. Regardless of the approach used, the
focus remains on Conan in any of his forms: movies, online RPG, pastiches,
or Howard’s Weird Tales barbarian. There is an intentional editorial effort on
my part to make sure that the explorations engaged as little as possible
Howard’s other creations. With the exception of Frank Coffman’s article on
the evolution of Conan, the characters King Kull, Bran Mak Morn, or
Solomon Kane are seldom mentioned. This omission is not to slight or under-
value these characters. However, this collection is about the many faces of
Conan, not the various creations of Robert Howard. Scholars interested in
Howard’s other figures will have little problem finding sources to help guide
or inform their thinking.
An obvious question to ask is why critical essays on a figure that seems
as obvious and artistically unsophisticated as Conan? With the exception of
Burroughs’s Tarzan, muscle men wearing loincloths are not the usual topic
for serious academic investigation. However, in the case of Conan, several
components are at play marking the Cimmerian as a worthwhile subject. The
first is the length of time the character has circulated in popular culture.
Conan’s first appearance is in the December 1932 issue of the pulp magazine
Weird Tales; the most recent Conan movie was released in August 2011. The
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