To protect their identity and values, Africans enslaved in America transformed various familiar character types to create folk heroes who offered models of behavior both recognizable to them as African people and adaptable to their situation in America.
It would be difficult to imagine what human life would be like without storiesfrom myths recited by Pueblo Indian healers in the kiva, ballads sung in Slovenian market squares, folktales and legends told by the fireside in Italy, to jokes told at a dinner table in Des Moinesfor it is chiefly through storytelling that people possess a past.
This collection of exemplary essays by internationally recognized scholars examines the fairy tale from historical, folkloristic, literary, and psychoanalytical points of view.
In the classic rags-to-riches fairy tale a penniless heroine (or hero), with some magic help, marries a royal prince (or princess) and rises to wealth.
A folklorist and ethnographer who has written about the Southern Appalachians, African American communities in the United States, and the West Indies, Roger D.
Written for everyone interested in women's and gender history, History Matters reaffirms the importance to feminist theory and activism of long-term historical perspectives.
With his rosy cheeks and matching red suit--and ever-present elf and reindeer companions--Santa Claus may be the most identifiable of fantastical characters.
During the later eighteenth century, changes in the meaning and status of literature left popular sentimental novels stranded on the margins of literary history.
Presenting a fresh examination of women writers and prewar ideology, this book breaks new ground in its investigation of love as a critical aspect of Japanese culture during the early to mid-twentieth century.
Men and the Making of Modern British Feminism calls fresh attention to the forgotten but foundational contributions of men to the creation of modern British feminism.
This Perversion Called Love positions one of Japan's most canonical and best translated 20th century authors at the center of contemporary debates in feminism.
"e;Laura Bier unpacks the complicated dynamics and legacy of an historical moment in which women were understood to be crucial to modern nation-building.
Insulated from the dust, noise, and crowds churning outside, China's luxury hotels are staging areas for the new economic and political landscape of the country.
Written for everyone interested in women's and gender history, History Matters reaffirms the importance to feminist theory and activism of long-term historical perspectives.
Long dismissed as ciphers, sycophants and "e;Stepford Wives,"e; women characters of primetime television during the 1950s through the 1980s are overdue for this careful reassessment.
Archetypal symbols in ancient myths as well as the folktales, nursery stories, and fairytales of the Middle Ages are the blueprints of modern fantasy literature.
The author has determined in an earlier McFarland book (The Historic King Arthur, 1996, paperback 2007) that there was not a historic King Arthur during the sixth century.
Examining how we interpret Welshness today, this volume brings together fourteen essays covering a full range of representations of Welsh mythology, folklore, and ritual in popular culture.
When the first Europeans arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778, the volcano goddess Pele was the central deity of a complex religion in the volcano districts of Hawai'i Island.
Hundreds of new Tarot decks have been produced in the late twentieth century, many of them based on the structure and images of Arthur Waite and artist Pamela Smith's Rider-Waite deck (1910).
With actress Pam Grier's breakthrough in Coffy and Foxy Brown, women entered action, science fiction, war, westerns and martial arts films--genres that had previously been considered the domain of male protagonists.
A first edition of The Halloween Encyclopedia was published by McFarland in 2003 (Booklist: "e;a worthy addition to public and school libraries as well as the reference shelves of journalists and leaders of community events"e;); it was the first encyclopedic reference book on the cultural phenomenon (which also deals with such related holidays as Britain's Guy Fawkes Day, Mexico's Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, and the Celtic celebration Samhain).
The Baganda people of Uganda enjoy an extraordinarily rich oral tradition, which serves as a window into their culture, history, and experiences as a people.
Contemporary myths, particularly science fiction and fantasy texts, can provide commentary on who we are as a culture, what we have created, and where we are going.
