This book examines the role of sidekicks in superhero narratives, offering insight into their contribution to the hero's journey and growth through the use of distinctly human qualities like compassion, empathy, or courage.
This book examines contemporary Cinderella fairy tale adaptations to argue that the traditionally passive princess has been updated for the 21st century. Using wokeness as a theoretical lens, it analyzes the Cinderella story's potentiality as a social gauge for how we construe gender, sex, agency, and power.
James Buchanan Elmore (1857-1942): Literary Ethnographer and Folk Poet details the life and work of Elmore as a "folk poet," emphasizing the importance in the cultural understanding of the ethnographic insights he gave as a farmer in the midwestern region of the United States that experienced dramatic social change after the Civil War. In song and ......
Perspectives on East and Southeast Asian Folktales is a multidisciplinary examination of folktales that are unfamiliar to Western audiences. Examining folktales from countries like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, China, Japan, and Korea, the contributors consider various aspects: including identity issues, morals, collectivism, violence, ......
Doughty examines contemporary children's and young adult (YA) literature featuring royal characters through a folkloric lens and shows different ways authors transform the traditional royal characters from folktales and Disney films. She shows how princes and princesses are more progressive than their predecessors through expanding gender roles. ......
Thirteen international scholars assess the profound impact of Soviet-era movements to study, apply, and perform folklore as a priority in socialist policy-formation and culture-building. Representing generations who lived through and after Soviet occupation, they reflect on the consequences of state-supported promotion of folk arts in a region ......
Around the world and across time, singers and their songs stand at the crossroads of differing politics and perspectives. Levi S. Gibbs edits a collection built around the idea of listening as a political act that produces meaning. Contributors explore a wide range of issues by examining artists like Romani icon Esma Redzepova, Indian legend Lata ......
Through a historical survey and analyses of oral traditions like fairy tales, proverbs, and ballads, among others, that are still in vigorous practice in China today, this informative and stimulating book proposes a theoretical framework for interpreting how and why traditions...
