|
Author
|
Comment
|
cpe
Unregistered User
(12/28/02 10:31:29 pm)
|
The Nazification of an Academic Discipline: Folklore & F
Helen and others? Can you elaborate on this?
thanks in advance
cpe
|
Helen
Registered User
(1/2/03 8:43:17 am)
|
Sub-genre of fairy tale/political studies
Dear cpe:
I am so terribly sorry that it's taken me so long to respond! First the holidays, and then, overlapping, stomach flu (blergh). Apologies. I came across the title when I was speaking with the head of Penn's Folklore program (Dan Ben-Amos, one of the most brilliant and helpful people who I've been lucky enough to come across in the field). Originally, the topic had come up because one of my year-mates for the MA was considering an examination of how the Nazi's had used fairy tales for their own ends. She eventually abandoned the topic for lack of accessible research material, but this book was ideal for her purposes - the author examined the Nazi use of fairy tales as propaganda. They looked at how the Nazi regime had both chosen tales that already possessed anti-Semetic themes (i.e., "The Good Cloth") and rewritten tales to make them more clearly "purely German," and how they then used them to instill "proper" values. Another book written along similar lines is Frank Miller's work on Stalinist fairy tales - wonderfully written and beautifully researched. Hope this helps!
Happy New Year!
Helen
|
Judith
Berman
Registered User
(1/2/03 10:46:02 am)
|
Penn F&F
Helen, were you at Penn? Dan was on my dissertation committee, a great guy. I see him rarely these days.
Penn, formerly in possession of one of the four (as I recall) US graduate folklore and folklife programs, nuked their department and the faculty are dealt out to other fields, Dan I think to Mideast Studies.
Judith
|
Helen
Registered User
(1/2/03 8:26:10 pm)
|
Only fleetingly ...
Dear Judith:
Unfortunately, my time at Penn was very brief ... I applied for the Ph.D. in Folklore, and had a wonderful visit last January (missed Erzebet by *this* much, which I still regret - hi Erzebet! Happy New Year!). I was really discouraged by the department's derecognition as an undergraduate major, and, as you note, a "department." While I loved the faculty, the direction of the program, just about everything about it ... their status within the university seemed dishearteningly tennuous at that point (I could just *see* the Ph.D. falling by the wayside in solidarity with the undergraduate degree ... just as I was about to complete mine ...) so I opted for English at Columbia instead. The department here is equally wonderful, unsurprisingly in different ways, but I must admit that once in a while I find myself wistfully wondering ... what if? Ah, well: we'll always have conferences, right?
Helen,
Who is Already Looking Forward to ICFA and WisCon
|
cpe
Unregistered User
(1/2/03 11:30:49 pm)
|
thanks
thanks Helen, I really appreciate your reply, I was puzzled about your reference on this subject on another string and am glad to know more. I would like to read those books for there is great sensitivity and even fear in certain quarters of culture about how porous fairy tales can be, and as you know ongoing polemics from all sides about "purity" of tales.
I hope you feel better very soon, that is just hard to be ill over the holidays. A nice warm blanket and nice beverage of your choice for you...
Also, just my two cent's worth, but I recommend Union Institute and University for an interdisciplinary Ph.D. for those who are daring-- for two reasons; you can study with any teachers/profs anywhere in the world thereby brniging together a far-flung faculty in the old lyceum way of learning; secondly you are chairperson of your own committee, being able to transgress WAY beyond usual bounds and constrictions of having another person be chair of your dissertation and so on. I took my Ph.D. with them twenty-five years ago because, like a woman sometimes wants to coalesce two or more lovers together to make the "ideal" lover, I wanted to study with very disparate specialists and scholars who I felt were visionaries and artists and menschs. Also, today UIU has a fabulous MFA program with their recent merger with Vermont College with one of the finest fine arts faculty in writing and painting as well as the striking journal Hunger Mountain.
all best
cpe
But nobody could teach me to spell very well, no matter where I went to school (grin). Mea culpa, my fault alone.
|
|
