[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-138045-105":59,"doc-detail-138045-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","darkening-the-dream-the-fantasy-of-history-and-reality-of-difference-in-libba-brays-the-diviners","Darkening the Dream - The Fantasy of History and Reality of Difference in Libba Bray’s The Diviners","","This essay examines how Libba Bray’s 2012 children’s and young adult historical fantasy novel The Diviners articulates an alternative account of U.S. history in the modernist period by linking “difference” to the material social contexts of American life. It argues that historical fantasy enables Bray to connect speculative imagination to critiques of exclusion. Through analysis of 1920s U.S. representations of diverse characters, the study shows how inter-war conditions shaped racial and ethnic paradigms defining twentieth-century America, with emphasis on the Harlem Renaissance, nativism, and immigration restriction.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/darkening-the-dream-the-fantasy-of-history-and-reality-of-difference-in-libba-brays-the-diviners/138045/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/darkening-the-dream-the-fantasy-of-history-and-reality-of-difference-in-libba-brays-the-diviners/138045.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Ezra","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-04","2026-08-23",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":44},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What central question does the essay explore about The Diviners?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It explores how The Diviners represents U.S. history in the modernist period by linking difference to the material contexts of American history and society.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does historical fantasy function in the novel, according to the essay?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Historical fantasy lets Bray connect speculative possibilities to a critique of exclusion across time and space, rather than relying on assimilationist narratives.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"Which themes does the essay highlight to interpret immigration and race?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It focuses especially on the novel’s engagement with the Harlem Renaissance, nativism, and immigration restriction in the 1920s.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},138045,1787473590,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":44,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":41,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":129,"read_time":143},1099514068035,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","Darkening the Dream: The Fantasy of History and Reality of Difference in Libba Bray’s The Diviners  \nJennifer A. Reimer  \nBilkent University  \nABSTRACT  \nThis essay addresses how Libba Bray’s 2012 children’s and young adult historical fantasy novel, The Diviners, represents an alternative literary articulation of US history in the modernist period that links difference to the material contexts of American history and society. I explore how historical fantasy allows Bray to connect the imaginative possibilities of the speculative genres toa critique of practices of exclusion in the US. Through an analysis of how Bray represents diverse characters in America in the 1920s, I argue that the novel reflects the ways in which the inter-war years shaped the racial and ethnic paradigms that would define a great deal of twentieth-century America. I focus in particular on the novel’s engagement with the Harlem Renaissance, nativism, and immigration restriction. In trespassing the borders and boundaries of genre, history, identity and reality, The Diviners harnesses the potential of the speculative genres to imagine alternatively.  \nKEYWORDS  \nYA Literature, The Jazz Age, Race & Ethnicity, Historical Fantasy, the Harlem Renaissance, American History, Contemporary American Literature, US Immigration  \nCopyright 2016 © (Reimer) . Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC by-nc-nd 4.0) .  \nReimer Darkening the Dream  \nIn a recent New York Times Book Review, the American award-winning children’s author Alexander Kwame identifies “a seismic shift of tolerance and understanding happening in our country in general, and in children’s literature in particular. Authors are calling on publishers to introduce more diverse books and writers into the marketplace, with themes and characters that truly reflect and represent the variegated world we live in”(NY Times, 26 Aug 2016) . Kwame’s comments address the historical lack of diverse authors and books with diverse characters in Children’s and Young Adult (YA) literature.1 Indeed, in 2013, the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) estimated that only ten percent of books published were by or about people of color (Fichtelberg xv) . Responses to the study, such as the \\#WeNeedDiverseBooks Twitter campaign and websites such as Diversity in YA have helped to raise awareness about books by or about non-white people in Children’s and YA literature.  \nLibba Bray is one of the YA authors to receive several nods from Diversity in YA (a digital organization dedicated to promoting diversity within YA literature), particularly for her most recent historical fantasy trilogy set in New York City in 1926.2 The trilogy’s first book, The Diviners (2012), features a diverse cast of characters negotiating the shifting social terrains of the Jazz Age in the US. The novel’s social-historical setting provides a rich context from which to revision US history while connecting past to present. From the liminal spaces ofYA literature, and working at the intersection of historical fiction and fantasy, Bray’s novel represents an alternative literary articulation of US history in the modernist period that links difference to the material contexts of history and society. The novel depicts the American inter-war period as racially, ethnically, and sexually diverse, when an awareness of social class and class-based struggles also shaped public and private discourse. With a nuanced understanding of the importance of difference during this historical moment, the novel reflects the ways in which the inter-war years shaped the racial and ethnic paradigms that would define a great deal of twentieth-century America. Indeed, fractious discussion over immigration, race, borders, segregation, population control, and social  \nReimer Darkening the Dream  \nclass stood at the forefront of political debates in this period, while gender and sexual norms experienced rapid changes. In lookin","cbCaijmDqlw3K1LE","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaijmDqlw3K1LE","pdf",451614,"English","# Abstract\n## Diversity in YA and historical context\n## Modernist difference, genre boundaries, and speculative critique\n## Inter-war racial, ethnic, and political paradigms","[{\"question\":\"What central question does the essay explore about The Diviners?\",\"answer\":\"It explores how The Diviners represents U.S. history in the modernist period by linking difference to the material contexts of American history and society.\"},{\"question\":\"How does historical fantasy function in the novel, according to the essay?\",\"answer\":\"Historical fantasy lets Bray connect speculative possibilities to a critique of exclusion across time and space, rather than relying on assimilationist narratives.\"},{\"question\":\"Which themes does the essay highlight to interpret immigration and race?\",\"answer\":\"It focuses especially on the novel’s engagement with the Harlem Renaissance, nativism, and immigration restriction in the 1920s.\"}]","Darkening the Dream - The Fantasy of History and Reality of Difference in Libba Bray’s The Diviners | PDF",76]