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Strategic Silences: Voiceless Heroes In Fairy Tales, Jeana Jorgensen
Strategic Silences: Voiceless Heroes In Fairy Tales, Jeana Jorgensen
Jeana Jorgensen
In a number of international fairy tale types, such as ATU 451 ("The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers"), the female protagonist voluntarily stops speaking in order to attain the object of her quest. In ATU 451, found in the collected tales of the Grimms and Hans Christian Andersen as well as in oral tradition, the protagonist remains silent while weaving the shirts needed to disenchant her brothers from their birdlike forms. While this silence is undoubtedly disempowering in some ways as she cannot defend herself from persecution and accusations of wickedness, here I argue that the choice to remain silent …
Political And Theoretical Feminisms In American Folkloristics: Definition Debates, Publication Histories, And The Folklore Feminists Communication, Jeana Jorgensen
Political And Theoretical Feminisms In American Folkloristics: Definition Debates, Publication Histories, And The Folklore Feminists Communication, Jeana Jorgensen
Jeana Jorgensen
What role does feminist theory play in American folkloristics, and which versions of feminism have become mainstreamed in the nearly forty years since folklorists first became attuned to the promises and premises of feminism? By attending to these issues, I hope to at least partially answer the question Alan Dundes asked in his 2004 Invited Presidential Plenary Address to the American Folklore Society: "What precisely is the 'theory' in feminist theory?" (2005, 388). In lamenting the lack of grand theory in folkloristics, Dundes remarks, ''Despite the existence of books and articles with 'feminist theory' in their titles, one looks in …