TODAY at 7pm EST and 4pm PST: Profs And Pints Online Presents: "Fairy Tales of French Salons" (& A Note on the 2020 Revival of the Literary and Fairy Tale Salon)

Our apologies for not posting this well ahead of time!

But... I Will Miss/Have Missed the Live Lecture!

Don't fret! We know a lot of our readers won't see it until tomorrow morning after the live lecture has happened BUT, like all Profs and Pints lectures, this one will be recorded and available to view afterward for all current ticket holders, as well as for those who purchase access after the event (only $12). The Profs and Pints events are aimed at adults and college-level learning, so these lectures are one of the most affordable, yet high-quality self-education tools online today. While viewing the recording after the event means you won't be able to live chat with the other attendees or the lecturer and can't propose questions for the Q&A at the end, the entire chat and Q&A portion remain part of the recording so you can see the community involvement and responses as it was happening. Once you have purchased a ticket, the event is available to view at any time after the lecture, and as many times as you wish! 

Fairy's Banquet - John Anster Fitzgerald

The Rise of the Fairy Tale Salon, 2020 Style

Today's lecture is exceptionally timely. With the pandemic showing no signs of ending soon, people are starting to figure out ways to connect digitally and literary salons are once again on the rise. Though they can never be the same as the intimate gatherings fueling conversations, encouraging ideas, and getting feedback on everything from writing to art, it does make the events more accessible to people from different locations across countries and around the world, and is proving to be a new way to build communities of like-minded people and providing support during an isolating time. Fairy tale salons, especially, are beginning to pop up here and there around the world, all-digital, all experimental, and all eager to connect folks who love to study tales and reference them in their own writing and other works. 

It's a brave new world and, as will be discussed today, reflects the desire people had, and still have, to push against established ideas and systems and find new ways to move forward both in thinking and expression - something especially prevalent in 2020. Salons are primarily fun, of course, but at the heart of the movement is a desire to make the world a better place, and to do that with other like-minded people. The Fairy Tale Salons of France in the late C17th (and the lesser-known German Fairy Tale Salons during the Romantic movement in the C19th) were revolutionary in form and function and, in true subversive style, enabled conversations of resistance and the exploration of revolutionary ideas, all coded within the deceptively simple form of the fairy tale. These people, mainly women, are considered the Fairy Godmothers, or Fairy Godparents, of the Fairy Tale (the literary form of the oral folktale and wonder tale), and their stories have survived and remained popular to this day. 

Fairy Banquet - Arthur Rackham

Seeing Beyond the Magic While Still Reveling In The Wonder

What's lesser-known is that we can still see and access the rest of the work done in Salons, via the vehicle of those surviving stories, despite that it's usually hidden under the magical clothing of the contes des fées - a term coined by the French Salon, which is where we get the term "fairy tale". 

It's high time we saw beyond the sparkly exterior of these fanciful stories and take a look at the serious - and invigorating - work of the literary fairy tale. The revival of the fairy tale salon in 2020, albeit digital and online, is no coincidence!

That doesn't mean we can't continue to enjoy fairy tales or revel in (or escape into) their magical possibilities. If anything, this gives more reasons to embrace them in all their Once Upon A Times. Fairy tales aren't just for children; they are for everyone and understanding how literary versions of fairy tales came to be, helps explain why. It also gives us every reason to celebrate their wonder and to enjoy them. 

So come along with your notebook and extra glitter on your hands or just sneak in the back to listen - there's room for all here to play and to connect as we make the world a better, more wonder-full place.

The Fairy Girls Make the Carpet (Polish Fairy Tales)
by Cecile Walton

What's Being Talked About Today? (summary info from Profs and Pints Online below):

Profs and Pints Online presents: “Fairy Tales of French Salons,” with Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman, former instructors at Ohio State University and co-founders of the Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic.

[This talk will remain available in recorded form at the link used for tickets and access.]

It’s easy to think of fairy tales as light-hearted, simple, even frivolous tales for children. But that’s only a small part of the story.  Fairy tales can be serious business. They can be subtle messages that convey warnings under the noses of the powerful—or even poke fun at them--especially if written by women.

Modern Fairy Godmother Styling
by Camilla (Very pricey, as would have suited
the social station of the original Salonnieres!
Thankfully, the Salon revival isn't as dependent
on privilege; in fact, that's one of the
institutions it rebels against.
Vive la 2020 Revolution!)

Such was the case in the fairy-tale salons of seventeenth-century Paris, where ladies (and some men) gathered to tell each other stories that definitely were not for children. 

Designed to be a space where people could break free of strict aristocratic confines in the service of art, the salons let creators discuss anything so long as it was couched in the form of a fairy tale. The stories that resulted tackled everything from actual love in a marriage, to the importance of education, to the enormous social inequalities faced by the women of the age.

As the air gets crisp, fix yourself a warm drink and join Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman, two favorites of Profs and Pints audiences, for a look at the beautiful and bizarre fairy tales that emerged from the literary salons of France during his period.

We’ll swim with a great green wyrm, a terrifying sea serpent. You’ll travel with a woman who dresses as a man in order to save her family, and converse with a witty princess forced to wear the skin of a bear.

These fairy-tale salons were the first of many great literary groups, from the Bloomsbury circle in London to the meetings of the Beat writers of San Francisco.

This online discussion of them might end up feeling like a similar gathering of the curious and subversive. 

Artful Journeys: Oddly Modern Fairy Tale Series Program (6 Weekly Live Online Lectures & Discussions with Prof. Jack Zipes)

The Forgotten by Ray Ceasar

NOTE: This awesome program actually began last week, on November 3, and is continuing for six weeks. Our Editor, Gypsy Thornton, learned of it just as the first session was getting underway and quickly joined in mid-discussion, as she's a HUGE fan of the Oddly Modern Fairy Tales series. Having jumped in at the deep end of the first session she happily recommends this special program! If you're familiar with the fairy tale collection series published by Princeton University Press, that's a plus, but you will get a lot from it if you're not, and each week, PDFs of a selection of tales are sent to participants ahead of time so everyone can get up to speed without having to purchase the book and read it all that week.

The next session is TOMORROW, so sign up today so you don't miss out on hearing about Fairy tales written in the French Decadent tradition in the late 1800s, and being part of a stimulating discussion. (The original cover above remains our favorite - we love this collection of crazy, decadent tales!)

Artful Journeys is actually an Arts Education program set up to take people on a special art-based travel tour, to see amazing art, and to participate in artful experiences -in person- around the world. With the pandemic locking everyone down, and travel being put on hold, Director Joan Hill looked to continue the Arts Education programs in a different way by developing Armchair Journeys, that anyone can join online. She had been wanting to focus on a theme of fairy tales for some time, and with everyone stuck at home, she contacted highly respected fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes and asked if he might be interested. He immediately proposed a program based on the Oddly Modern Fairy Tales series of books for which he is the Series Editor and this unique lecture-with-discussion series was born. Opportunities like this are rarely accessible to people who aren't local to wherever the speaker will be, so this is a special opportunity to hear - and meet - Professor Zipes, along with other fairy tale enthusiasts.

From the promotional material:

Jack (Zipes), will take us on another Armchair Journey, not through castles and turrets, but on a more modern, recognizable path full of mean-spirited bullying; "saucy, angry and capricious" persons from late 19th century France; political tales for social equality; subversive German Dadaism; and Hungarian persona with transcendent powers. The series will end on a return to more familiar children's stories but retold to mesh into our reality. ​

Oddly Modern Fairy Tales is a series dedicated to publishing unusual literary fairy tales produced mainly during the first half of the twentieth century. International in scope, the series includes new translations, surprising and unexpected tales by well-known writers and artists, and uncanny stories by gifted yet neglected authors. Postmodern before their time, the tales in Oddly Modern Fairy Tales transformed the genre and still strike a chord. 

 

 

November 3–Smack-Bam, or The Art of Governing Men: Political Fairy Tales of Édouard Laboulaye (a recording of the session was made and access may be available on request. Please contact Joan Hill with this special request if you are interested.)

 

November 10–Fairy Tales for the Disillusioned: Enchanted Stories in the French Decadent Tradition

 

November 17–Lucky Hans and Other Merz Fairy Tales by Kurt Schwitters

 

November 24–The Castle of Truth and Other Revolutionary Tales by Hermynia zur Mühlen

 

December 1–The Cloak of Dreams: Chinese FairyTales by Béla Balázs

 

December 4, 11 am EST/8 am PST/4 pm UK–Old Tales Told Again by Walter de la Mare

 

*Schedule is subject to change.

Tuesdays, 11 am EST/8 am PST
November 3–December 4, 2020*

 

Registration Status: OPEN

​

Tour Cost: $10 per session, $50 for series

Ages: 15+

Double Baba Yaga News: Worldwide Popular Game Fortnite Adds A Baba Yaga Skin/ Prof & Pints Have Dr. Rappoprt Talking About Baba Yaga Live Online TONIGHT!

Baba Yaga and her chicken-legged hut, designed by Epic Games for Fortnite

It's "Halloweek" (week of Halloween) and this year we have a good reason to talk about our favorite witch! Though she wasn't originally a character to be pulled from folklore and fairy tales just for this season (any Slavic kid will tell you, she has the ability to scare you all year long!), Baba Yaga has slowly and steadily been entering Western pop culture during the spooky season for some time now and she - and her chicken-legged hut - are now familiar figures. This year, however, she's achieved another pop-culture milestone via the worldwide gaming community of Fortnite. There's enough interest in her now that experts are running live lectures online for special presentations about her... (Read on for details.)

1. Fortnite (one of the most popular video games in the world in 2020) Releases a Baba Yaga "Skin"

Do you hear the sound of chicken legs...?

Baba Yaga has been making appearances in video games for many years but they have tended to be more independent games for niche markets. Then came Baba Yaga in the Hellboy comics and last year the most recent Hellboy on the big screen had Baba Yaga and her walking hut as a very scary antagonist (rated R). She's been appearing more in pop culture references the past few years and has become a stock character in dark fantasy offerings in books and on screen, but this week, Fortnite, one of the most popular video games in the world, introduced her - and her hut - to over 350 million active players around the world. 

Epic Games' video game creation Fortnite is a powerhouse in the gaming industry. Their e-sport tournaments are intensely competitive and the world's top players vie for big money.  If you have a gamer in the house they either tend to love Fortnite and play a LOT, or they hate it with other allegiances but are still fully aware of just how big this game is. (It's a third-person shooter game with a few creative components and lots of emphasis on teams.) While they do have narrative arcs and themes (currently they are running a Marvel-superhero crossover) they still often dip into legends, myths, and even fairy tales for little bits of story and various special character "skins" that players can "wear" and play as, fully animated. Fortnite's Baba Yaga is clearly a folkloric witch, complete with sprouting mushrooms and forest vibes, sporting a red-eyed crow in a cage on her back (called a "back bling"). Along with her chicken-legged hut to function as a "glider", and a special broom with sprouting mushrooms and chopped off chicken feet hanging from its twigs to be used as a "pickaxe",  the Baba Yaga skin which any player can "wear" (by purchasing it with "v-bucks" ie., virtual dollars), is the first crone skin (read, senior female skin), and possibly the most ancient-looking skin to be added to the game (as far as we can verify - vampires not being counted as they're all timelessly youthful). She became available in Fortnite item shop on Sunday evening October 25th at the 5pm item shop change and remained in the item shop for the Monday 26th update too (usually skins change every day, although new ones often get a couple of days spotlight). The Baba Yaga skin has no special powers in the game - none of the skins do, so as not to disadvantage players who can't purchase them, but she can do everything others characters can, including all those infamous Fornite dances, and wield any weapon she finds in treasure chests, or takes from her kills, including seasonal pumpkin bazookas through to the classic Fortnite LMGs (light machine guns). While there's a good chance she will return later in the week for Halloween, chances are, after this week, we won't see her again in the item shop until Halloween 2021, so if you know a folkloric gamer, make sure they get her today. There's nothing quite like being run down by a Russian witch!

2. Prof and Pints Online Are Hosting A Special Baba Yaga focused lecture by Professor Philippa Rappoport Live TONIGHT 

Come join us as we tune in to hear a fascinating lecture by Slavic folklorist Dr. Philippa Rappoport, on Baba Yaga TONIGHT! All time-zones welcome!

Prof and Pints Online are dedicated to bringing faculty members into bars, cafes, offices (and now living rooms!) to share their knowledge, without the pricey cost of tuition, or the stress of quizzes or grades. Since moving all presentations online due to the pandemic, tickets cost just $12 for an approximately 90-minute lecture, complete with Q&A. Prof and Pints curate presenters (faculty members) on a very wide variety of topics, including politics, history, sociology, and, of course, folklore and fairy tales. (Our Carterhaugh Profs are frequent presenters!) We are HUGE Prof and Pints fans and have attended many lectures, by various experts over the past few months and remain impressed at the quality of educators invited to speak and how generous in sharing their knowledge and expertise they are. We highly recommend them.

Tickets to join live via Crowdcast (no app download needed) are available right up to a few minutes before it starts and anyone can join. (Please be advised, content is aimed at adults, so should be screened before being shared with anyone under 18.) Live chats are very active during the lectures and proposing questions for the end Q&A is open to anyone attending. Lectures are also recorded so are available to watch again later, or tickets can then be purchased to watch at leisure after the event.

TONIGHT at 4pm PST/7pm EST, Slavic folklorist Professor Philippa Rappoport, whose lectures are truly excellent, is talking about Baba Yaga, along with other "dark denizens". (She's also a good storyteller and wonderful to listen to.)

Description:

Profs and Pints Online presents: “Tales from Netherworlds,” an evening with Baba Yaga and other dark denizens of the imagination, with folklorist Philippa Rappoport of George Washington University.

[This talk will remain available in recorded form at the link for tickets and access given via this site. ]

The traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain—now known as Halloween—marked the opening of a door between our world and the world of deities and the dead. In honor of that day’s approach, Philippa Rappoport returns to the Profs and Pints Online stage to tell Slavic folktales about journeys to a strange netherworld beneath us.

Baba Yaga by Ivan Bilibin

The ticket to taking such a trip is being in possession of a magic doll. A mysterious element of folktales in Russia and other East Slavic nations, they’ll open doors in the earth for you. Beware, though. Although you might escape danger on one side, you’re likely to face it on the other.

Professor Rappoport will tell the tale of one heroine, Vasilisa the Beautiful, whose doll-aided plunge into a netherworld leads her to confront the witch Baba Yaga and a host of ooglie booglie spirits. She’ll take us on a journey of our own, exploring what such folktales tell us about beliefs about women, witches, fairy godmothers, and magical helpers. We’ll tour netherworlds as places where we can find both terror and refuge. You’ll be surprised by how relevant much of what you’ll encounter is to spiritual beliefs and practices all around us today.

Professor Rappoport has also wowed Profs and Pints audiences with talks about Russia’s house spirits treacherous mermaids. Her latest effort will change how you think about Halloween.

Hope to see you there!

Jack Zipes: "Speaking the Truth with Fairy Tales" FREE Seminar Tonight (May 24, 2018) at Goldsmiths University London!

"The faithful giant could think of nothing better to do than to set the carriage on his head."
Illustration from "Poucinet" (Finnish) from Last Fairy Tales by Édouard Laboulaye, Mary Louise Booth

Jack Zipes: Speaking the Truth with Fairy Tales

Introduced and chaired by Professor Michael Rosen

"Our fondness for fairy tales, their popularity in all social classes, stems from their profound truths that can be glimpsed from the diverse human conflicts depicted in the narratives and the insistence on social justice. They attract us because they contain what we lack: social justice and characters who struggle and demand to live in truth. In many ways, fairy tales with their metaphorical allusions are more truthful than so-called realistic stories because they are generally endowed with a sense of social justice that we do not find in our societies. The formation of the genre fairy tale is predicated on the collusion and cooperation of people from different social classes and backgrounds and the retelling, and rewriting of tales that are ageless and relevant to people’s lives.  

"In my own work, almost from the very beginning of my research, I developed a strong predisposition to discover and preserve the works of neglected writers and storytellers who have sought to pierce the spectacles and illusions created by the reigning forces of culture in their respective countries. To my mind, these writers and storytellers have offered alternative ways of thinking with fairy tales that have excited me and given me the courage to try to live and work in truth. Most recently I have encountered three nineteenth and early twentieth-century European authors whose works address present-day conflicts and demand that we rethink how to deal with tyranny that has raised its ugly head in too many places in today’s world. Their truths are at the center of my talk."

Details to attend the FREE event are HERE. 

DATE AND TIME

Thu 24 May 2018

5:30pm - 8:00pm BST

The time slot includes the talk, questions and a drinks reception

LOCATION

Goldsmiths, University of London

8 Lewisham Way (LG02 PSH)

London SE14 6NW

United Kingdom

Biography: 

Jack Zipes is Professor Emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. Some of his recent publications include: Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre (2006), Relentless Progress: The Reconfiguration of Children's Literature, Fairy Tales, and Storytelling (2008), The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films (2010), The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre (2012), The Golden Age of Folk and Fairy Tales: From the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang (2013), and Grimm Legacies: The Magic Power of Fairy Tales (2014). He has also translated the first 1812/15 edition of the Grimms' tales, The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (2014), and Giuseppe Pitrè’s, Caterina the Wise and Other Wondrous Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales (2017). Most recently he has published The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: An Anthology of Magical Tales, (2017) and Tales of Wonder: Retelling Fairy Tales through Picture Postcards (2017).

"Reimagining Beauty and the Beast: Social Stratification Through Human Animal Metamorphosis" Lunch Lecture Oct 18 2016 by IIAS

Polish Tales - Justyna Patecka - Dobrochoczy

You may wonder why we are highlighting this lecture when its purpose is primarily to better understand Asian social realities in a global context, but bear with us. The way this lecture presents and discusses animal descriptions of peoples (groups on the fringe of accepted society, for instance) to shed light on societal thinking, dovetails very well with fairy tale studies of tale types using transformed people, beast-people and even talking beasts. Try to have this in mind when you read the abstract.

Psoglav (Serbian: Псоглави, literally doghead)

Artist Unknown

First a little about the IIAS, as their knowledge sharing and collaboration is inspiring, and is similar to the philosophy held by fairy tale scholars and enthusiasts we greatly respect.

The International Institute for Asian Studies researches humanities and social sciences, encouraging global knowledge exchange with both academic and non-academic institutes, linking expertise around the globe. Almost all they do is collaborative in nature and inclusive. Based in the Netherlands, they hold international conferences, workshops, seminars, roundtables, and interactive think-tanks for a wide diversity of scholars and experts as well as public lectures. (Sounds great doesn't it?!)

This particular presentation is Lunch Lecture* by visiting scholar Dr Sayana Namsaraeva.

Below is the abstract. We have put in bold the aspects that piqued our interest:      

Reimagining Beauty and the Beast: social stratification through human - animal metamorphosis at the Sino-Russian border
In this lunch lecture, IIAS fellow Dr Sayana Namsaraeva (Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit, University of Cambridge) will discuss dehumanising narratives and new “bestiary” vocabularies at the Sino-Russian border.

Dr Sayana Namsaraeva

Following the ancient Greek and Roman traditions other accounts of imaginary beasts were added in medieval European bestiaries mostly to talk allegorically about immorality of the non-Christian Pagan world by depicting them as wild beasts, non-human or half-human creatures. On the contrary, China also has developed its own symbolic system  to depict their China-centered cosmology tianxia (all under Heaven) as being divided between those who lived according “Chinese ways” and those who didn’t follow “Chinese ways”  and live in beast-like condition in barbaric (藩部）peripheries of Chinese civilization. However, the myths of monstrous creatures inhabiting borderlands still persists, and the Sino-Russian border is a vivid example how  human-animal mythology produces new monsters at the borders of modern states.

Ve, Marian Murawski

Based on Georgio Agamben’s concept of “anthropological machine” (2004), my presentation analyses  dehumanising narratives and new “bestiary” vocabulary developed by Chinese and Russians, who are involved in border trade in a border city Manzhouli (满洲里）, to talk about race, ethnicity and their  social status in the local border society. Who are these “shaved pigs”, “old cats”, “old half-cats”, “camels” and “half-camels”, “devils”, “snakes”, “werewolves” and “dogs” the border society comprises of here?  And why border politics as an “anthropological machine” contrasts humanity and animality, and  divides border society into humans and less-humans ?  

In addition, my presentation discusses other narratives, such as shape shifting (from Ugly to Fairy) mostly widespread among Russian female traders, new Chinese beauty ideas expressed locally in the notion of the “Russian Beauty”.   

You can get more information and register for the lecture HERE.

Beauty and the Beast by Gabriel Pacheco

* About IIAS Lunch Lectures: Every month, an IIAS researcher or visiting scholar will present his or her work-in-progress in an informal setting to colleagues and other interested attendees. IIAS organises these lunch lectures to give the research community the opportunity to freely discuss ongoing research and exchange thoughts and ideas.

Multimedia Lecture: "Masters Reloaded: From 'Schneewittchen' to 'Sonne' The Brothers Grimm and Rammstein"

Some of you may remember the heavy metal song and video by German group Rammstein, telling a very different, provocative and dark retelling of Snow White from 2001. The song was titled 'Sonne' (meaning 'sun' in German).

I don't remember, however, any folklorist ever lecturing on it at length, other than to point out that the video existed. Well now we have a chance to hear a scholarly opinion on it, as well as other unusual places fairy tale motifs and plot lines have appeared in modern and pop culture, arts and music.

The event is summarized on Facebook HERE, and I found an article detailing a little of the impetus for this lecture as well.

From the Carroll County Times:

McDaniel College professor of German Mohamed Esa has made a career of examining the symbolism of German folklore and fairy tales and said he sometimes sees those symbols, such as gold and poisoned apples, popping up in unlikely places. Even places as unlikely as the music of German heavy metal band Rammstein. 

“I am not a fan, not a heavy metal guy, but some of the stuff that Rammstein does is very interesting,” Esa said. “They are very smart guys … some of their songs are based on famous poems by [German writer] Goethe or fairy tales by the brothers Grimm.” 

Esa will give a multi-media lecture on Rammstein’s use of fairy tale imagery at Hoover Library on the McDaniel College campus from 7 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 17. 

Entitled “The Masters Reloaded: The Brothers Grimm and Rammstein,” the free talk will explore how symbols and themes from various versions of the Snow White fairy tale have been remastered and reinterpreted by Rammstein in the music video for their song, “Sonne.” Esa will present his talk and then show the music video. 

“Snow White is really twisted in the video. She is not the sweet innocent girl that goes into the forest and who is kept safe by the seven dwarves,” Esa said. “She is mature, she is sexually active and she is addicted to gold cocaine. The miners, the five members of the band, they bring her the gold and she sniffs it like cocaine. The heroine is addicted to heroin, the divine drug. At the end, she literally gives herself a golden shot of death.” 

According to Esa, Rammstein’s use of a gold-snorting Snow White is particularly interesting given a lesser-known version of the original tale that dates to around 1845. 

“In that version, after Snow White is poisoned, the dwarves try to revive her using a tincture of gold in her nose,” he said. “Is it a coincidence that in the video Snow White is addicted to gold cocaine? For me when I read this, I said, ‘Whoa, there must be something there.’” 

Esa said he first became aware of Rammstein in the late ’90s, around the time they had some crossover commercial success on American radio.

You can read the rest of the article HERE.

For those who haven't seen it and would like to, I've embedded the video below. (If you can't handle heavy metal music I suggest just turning the sound down.):

If you'd like to attend the lecture, here are the details:

What: The Masters Reloaded: The Brothers Grimm and Rammstein
When: 7 p.m.-8:30 p.m., Feb. 17
Where: The Wahrhaftig Room of the Hoover Library at McDaniel College, 2 College Hill, Westminster
Cost: Free!