Urban Fantasy

Short impact summary

Urban Fantasy, published by Lever Press in 2024, offers a comprehensive exploration of the genre’s engagement with modernity and magic. Despite currently having zero citations, the book has garnered notable public visibility as reflected by 163 Wikipedia-based Event Data mentions. Hosted on Fulcrum with nearly 200 total downloads, it appeals to both literary scholars and enthusiasts, situating itself at the intersection of literature, philosophy, and art through its diverse conceptual framing.

Full narrative

Stefan Ekman’s Urban Fantasy: Exploring Modernity through Magic situates itself as a significant scholarly contribution within the humanities, examining the urban fantasy genre across literature, philosophy, and aesthetics. Although the book has yet to accumulate citations in OpenAlex, the presence of 163 events exclusively sourced from Wikipedia demonstrates meaningful public engagement. This unusual source concentration suggests that the book is influencing knowledge domains where accessible, collaboratively edited resources shape discourse. The thirteen key concepts linked to this work, including Modernity, Magic, and Literature, underscore the interdisciplinary approach that informs its analysis.

The book’s availability on Fulcrum, an academic platform, supports its distribution and access, evidenced by 197 total downloads recorded in the usage landscape. While this download count is modest, it indicates an early but tangible uptake among researchers and readers interested in urban fantasy studies. Notably, no OER listings or Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN) downloads are reported, limiting visibility in open educational resources, though its open access status confirmed by DOAB enhances accessibility. The absence of citation data and alternative academic attention metrics like scite claim signals invites cautious interpretation of its scholarly impact at this stage.

Conceptually, the book intertwines urban fantasy with themes derived from diverse realms such as epistemology, physics, and astronomy, highlighting the genre’s broader cultural and intellectual resonance. This rich conceptual framing positions the work to attract interdisciplinary audiences beyond literary studies, including philosophy and art scholars. The book’s detailed engagement with contemporary authors and its historic overview of urban fantasy contribute to critical conversations on how magical narratives address overlooked social spaces and the complexities of modern life.

The inferred roles identified for Urban Fantasy reflect a notable public visibility signal of 0.8, strongly supported by the Event Data count and the Wikipedia source exclusively driving this attention. In contrast, its usage-driven uptake score is lower at 0.35, aligning with the modest download numbers but signaling early adoption patterns among academic readers. This dual profile suggests that while the book is gaining recognition in broader public knowledge repositories, its embeddedness in scholarly discourse is still developing, a common trajectory for recently published monographs.

In summary, Urban Fantasy stands as a promising open access resource that situates the genre within a broad constellation of modern intellectual concerns, as evidenced by its detailed concept labels and usage data on Fulcrum. The lack of citations and alternative academic endorsements does not diminish its potential, given its immediate traction in public knowledge platforms like Wikipedia. Continued monitoring of citation patterns and academic uptake will clarify its evolving influence in literary and interdisciplinary humanities scholarship.