Sussex Centr e for Folk lor e, Fairy tales a nd Fa ntasy Newsletter Oct/Nov 2012
Inside this Issue
Issue 2 of Gramarye due out .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 After Grimm Conference Success.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 5 Philip Pullman’s Grimms Tales for Young and Old.. .. .. .. .. .. . 10 Unsettling Wonder call for submissions.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 11 Coming soon: Videos of previous lectures.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Fairy Tale Illustrations Exhibition .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Sussex Centre PhD research online.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Miracle Enough: Papers on the Work of Mervyn Peake.. .. .. .12 artSouth collaboration.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Issue 2 of Gr amarye due out in mid-November
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ssue 2 of Gramarye is now in production and will be available to purchase from mid-November. This issue’s contents include: • ‘To tell or not to tell: are fairy tales suitable for children?’, Nicholas Tucker and Jacqueline Simpson continue their BBC Radio 4 debate; • ‘A review of Brian Froud’s work’, Anne Anderson, curator of Froud/Lee exhibit ‘The Truth About Faeries’; • An interview with Brian Froud and a preview of his latest work, Trolls (image below); • ‘Gwyn ap Nudd: Transfigurations of a Character on the way from Medieval Literature to Neo-Pagan Beliefs’, Angelika H. Rüdiger; • ‘Count Stoneheart and the First Christmas Tree’, a retelling of a traditional tale by bestselling fantasy author Kate Forsyth; • ‘My Favourite Story when I was young’, Martine Hennard Dutheil de la Rochère;
Is su e 2 Available from mid-November
• ‘Herne’, Steve O’Brien; • A review of Tim Killick (ed.) and Alan Cunningham’s Traditional Tales, Sophia Kingshill; • A review of Jan Susina’s The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children’s Literature, Colin Manlove; • A review of Giselle Liza Anatol’s Bringing Light to Twilight: Perspectives on the Pop Culture Phenomenon, Malini Roy; • A review of Stephen Asma’s On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears, Miles Leeson. • A review of Maggie Tonkin’s Angela Carter and Decadence. Critical Fictions/Fictional Critiques, Martine Hennard Dutheil de la Rochère.
Not to mention illustrations by Brian Froud, Alan Lee, Mel Grant, Arthur Rackham, Adelaide Claxton, Margaret Jones, Edmund Dulac and many more.
After Grimm Conference a success
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he Sussex Centre was delighted to have cohosted this conference to mark the bicentenary of Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen. While there have been Grimms’ conferences all over the world in this bicentenary year, our conference was the biggest in the UK. Falling as it did in the year of the London Olympics, it seems somehow appropriate that we were able to celebrate the international phenomenon of the Grimms Fairy Tales in London. It was a big conference, with over eighty speakers from at least 26 countries (Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, England, Estonia, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Wales, Scotland, South Africa, Switzerland, USA). And those are just the speakers! We also had many of the top names of the international fairy tale community: D.L. Ashliman, Don Haase, Sadhana Naithani, Marina Warner and Jack Zipes, most of whom are
already on the Advisory Board of the Sussex Centre, and on the Editorial Board of its journal Gramarye. Incidentally the conference also made the Times Higher Education campus round-up. John Patrick Pazdziora (St Andrews) reviews the conference here for our newsletter:
Conference Report The bicentenary celebrations of the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen arrived in the UK with the interdisciplinary conference After Grimm: Fairy Tales and the Art of Storytelling, 6-8 September 2012. Hosted jointly by the University of Kingston and the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy, the conference discussed the legacy of the Brothers Grimm in 21st-century fairy tale criticism and adaptation. Professor Bill Gray, the conference co-convenor, noted how the conference reflected the Sussex Centre’s ‘key theme’ of ‘crossover’ between genres, media, disciplines, and so on. This was very much in evidence during the conference, he said. Notably, there was ‘a crossover of languages (though the conference was held in English), traditions and cultures, with delegates from 26 different countries and every continent represented’. ‘The superb keynote lectures from the world’s leading fairy-tale experts was blended with lively panel discussions of an almost incredible range of topics related to fairy tales and the art of storytelling, ranging from ancient myths and legends to contemporary myth-punk,’ Gray said.
The conference began with a keynote address by Donald Haase (Wayne State) on fictional representations and re-appropriation of the Brothers Grimm.
Noting that an earlier version of the paper had been given at the Instituto de Estudos de Literatura Tradicional, Lisbon, Haase argued that the Grimms have been used as cultural icons for both the commendable and the destructive sides of national and ethnic identity. Haase delineated the shape-shifting mythology of the Grimms through various media, moving from post-WWII literary glosses, through the deconstructionism of the ’70s and ’80s, to recent artistic depictions such as Terry Gilliam’s eponymous film. Four separate panels ran concurrently throughout the first two days of the conference, presenting delegates with a plethora of critical opinions and discussion topics. Panels on the first included fairy-tale theatre, film, visual arts, the Grimms in translation, and contemporary retellings. But, in the midst of theory and analysis, the conference kept a firm link to the tradition and practice of storytelling. ‘Another feature of the conference was the strong presence of story-tellers, both amateur and professional, both presenting papers and giving performances,’ said Gray. ‘A vibrant story-telling evening was held in a nearby theatre where a range of professional story-tellers from the UK and abroad performed a variety of Grimms fairy tales in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways.’ The second day’s keynote was given by Neil Philip, the acclaimed writer and folklorist. Philip argued that the Grimms’ legacy diverges into, first, ‘meticulous-record taking’, and second, ‘zestful reworking’. Contrasting the Grimms’ work with that of Rabbi Nahman, Philip suggest that the Grimms deliberately downplayed the role of the individual storyteller to accentuate the idea of a national body of tales. The Grimms’ legacy should be treated with caution, he suggested, neither fully embraced but also not simply dismissed.
Panels on the second day elaborated on earlier topics, but expanded to include more text-based analysis, such as regional folktale study, including Scotland and South Asia, the development of children’s literature, and the writing of new literary fairy tales. A lively conference banquet rounded off the two days of workshop sessions. On the last day of the conference, Marina Warner (Essex) presented a study on how animators have demonstrated affinity between their art form and the magical objects, body parts, and detritus found in the Grimm tales. Warner traced the motif of bones alternately accusing and consoling the living – ‘The Singing Bone’ and ‘Aschenputtel’, respectively – from its mythological origins to its reinterpretation in later narratives. Warner then presented a case study on the works of Lottie Reiniger to demonstrate how the work of the animator – giving inanimate objects voice and vitality – was felt to correspond in some way to the older, magical tradition. This was followed by a plenary session. D.L. Ashliman (Pittsburgh) discussed censorship of the Grimms’ works, providing examples of ways in which the English translations had been variously bowdlerised. Sandra Beckett (Brock) presented on illustration and visual retelling of several Grimm stories, both in popular children’s books and in more experimental art forms. Lastly, Sadhana Naithani (Jawaharlal Nehru) traced the Grimms’ influence on folktale collectors in 19th-century British India.
Jack Zipes (Minnesota) gave the final keynote. Zipes put forward a textual history of the first translation of the Grimms into English. He argued that through his changes and adaptations of the German text, the translator, Edgar Taylor, helped
establish what has become accepted in English as standard fairy tale diction. Taylor, he said, shifted the focus of the Grimms’ formal academic project by marketing his translation as children’s literature rather than a weighty work of folkloristics. This not only influenced the perception and reception of the Grimms in the English-speaking world, Zipes said, but even influenced how the Grimm’s presented their own work in later editions. The conference concluded with an announcement of the winners of the After Grimm Tale Writing competition, judged by Warner and Zipes. The winner then read her story, a retelling of Cinderella in which the bad stepsister successfully nabs the prince. Afterwards, many delegates expressed their enthusiasm for the event, and their appreciation for its intellectual merits and general collegiality. Gray agreed: ‘There was a real sense of synergy, of wisdom mingling with youthful energy and enthusiasm as scholars young and old together explored, discussed and celebrated what they all love: fairy tales and the art of storytelling.’
Philip Pullman’s Grimm Tales for Young and Old out now
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hilip Pullman, best known for his awardwinning Dark Materials Trilogy, has turned his attention to 50 of Grimms’ classic fairy tales. Having already written his own versions of Puss in Boots and Aladdin, as well as four original fairy tales, he was the obvious candidate for the Penguin Classics commission. Choosing only 50 out of the 200-plus tales was no mean feat, and Pullman has skillfully mixed timeless classics with more obscure and unusual stories. The tales are told in a way that stays true to the original text, brought up to date in no other way than by rewriting in modern English. Pullman has said that the brevity of fairytale language, such as the lack of adverbs, may well influence the writing of his companion to the Dark Materials trilogy, The Book of Dust. You can read an interview with Philip Pullman here and here.
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Unsettling Wonder call for   submissions
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nsettling Wonder is a new literary journal that publishes both creative and academic work on fairy tales, folklore, and mythology. We welcome original writing that deals honestly with such topics as worthwhile in and of themselves: new stories, retellings, and imaginative appropriations. We are both an online and a print publication. We invite submissions for our inaugural issue, Wonder Voyages. Please send your poetry, prose, flash fiction and abstracts to submissions@ unsettlingwonder.com by 1 December 2012. For more information about submission guidelines, please visit: www.unsettlingwonder.com.
Coming soon
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he Sussex Centre has a stack of things to do in 2012-13 and here are just a select few:
Videos of previous lectures soon to be   available We are in the process of uploading our public lecture videos, such as those of John Vernon Lord, Jacqueline Simpson, Kate Forsyth and Larisa Prokhorova and most recently Janet Dowling,
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online and they will soon be freely available at sussexfolktalecentre.org and www.chi.ac.uk/scfff
Fairy Tale Illustrations Exhibition Anne Anderson, curator of the Froud/Lee exhibition The Truth About Faeries, will be creating a special exhibition of fairy-tale illustrations at the Otter Gallery in the latter part of the year. We are currently planning a one-day symposium, gallery tours and talks as part of the exhibition.
Sussex Centre PhD research online We will shortly be presenting outlines of the Research topics for the PGR students supervised by Prof. Bill Gray as part of the Centre’s work. The Research topics will be shown on the sussexfolktalecentre.org website along with a short biography of each student.
Miracle Enough: Papers on the works of Mervyn Peake Bill Gray and Peter Winnington, founder of the journal Peake Studies, have selected papers from the Sussex Centre’s Peake centenary conference ‘Mervyn Peake and the Fantasy Tradition’ in 2011 and the resulting book is due out in 2013 with Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
artSOUTH:collaborations
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SDNA, a London-based creative studio producing digital artwork, has asked to collaborate with Bill Gray on a commission called artSOUTH: collaborations.
Feedback Please contact Heather Robbins (h.robbins@chi.ac.uk) with any suggestions or feedback
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