tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/stories-23698/articlesStories – The Conversation2023-09-06T14:55:49Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2129292023-09-06T14:55:49Z2023-09-06T14:55:49ZThree medieval tales about adventures to the Moon from around the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546667/original/file-20230906-25-imgaen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We have always wondered what was up there. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=moon+engraving&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With <a href="https://www.news9live.com/science/here-is-why-jaxas-slim-spacecraft-will-take-at-least-four-months-to-snipe-the-moon-2275228">the Japan mission to the Moon just beginning</a> and with the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-chandrayaan-3-landing-moon-south-pole-rcna101296">space race to its south polar region</a>, we are reminded of the wonder and excitement of travelling to the Moon. </p>
<p>Of course, since the 20th century, humans have been able to physically travel there, but imagining travel to the Moon has been part of our history from long before the 1900s. Looking back through the centuries reveals exciting stories of lunar adventure. </p>
<h2>1. An English poem: The Man in the Moon</h2>
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<img alt="Engraving of the man in the moon" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Man in the Moon in this medieval English tale is sent away from earth for stealing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/82/Man_in_Moon_engraving.png">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>The English poem, <a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/fein-harley2253-volume-3-article-81">The Man in the Moon</a>, tells the story of a man who is living and suffering on the Moon. The poem is in a famous book known as the <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/harley-manuscripts?gclid=CjwKCAjwo9unBhBTEiwAipC11-Fh3CFmKn8GNMbx9-ibCnTyMJ-YsIRbabMtCdRkh-c1_Zilv2zuJxoCAy0QAvD_BwE">Harley manuscript</a>, which was written in the 1300s.</p>
<p>There are many versions of this folktale, including in English, German and Dutch traditions. In this English version of the story, the man on the Moon (known as Hubert) is imagined as a medieval peasant guilty of stealing thorns to make a hedge. Medieval peasants would make hedges to act as fences, which were important for keeping animals from wandering. </p>
<p>It’s said in this poem that Hubert was born and raised on the Moon, though he also seems to be imprisoned there. In other traditions elsewhere in Europe, the peasant’s punishment is to be exiled to the Moon.</p>
<p>The person who speaks in the poem is on Earth, looking up at Hubert and trying to help free him from his imprisonment. </p>
<p>The cunning plan is this: the speaker and his wife will distract the “hayward” (legal official) by getting him drunk and then stealing the pledge (the penalty) the hayward has taken, in order to release Hubert. But unfortunately, Hubert can’t seem to hear the speaker of the poem and the speaker grows frustrated.</p>
<p>In this poem, there is a comical attempt to connect with Hubert – an attempt to bring the Moon and the Earth that bit closer.</p>
<h2>2. An Italian epic poem: Orlando Furioso</h2>
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<img alt="An illustration of a boat travelling to the Moon" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A knight who has lost his mind must travel to the moon to find it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bibliothèque nationale de France, Gallica collection</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/ariostos-orlando-furioso-in-english-1591">Orlando Furioso</a> (The Frenzy of Orlando) is an Italian epic written by poet Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533). It tells the story of Charlemagne’s knights and their adventures. Charlemagne (who died in 814) was a king and emperor who is known for uniting most of Europe under his rule. Unsurprisingly, there are many legends about him and his knights. </p>
<p>One of his knights is Astolfo, cousin to the knight Orlando. Orlando has “lost his mind” or “lost his wits”. His lost sanity can only be found on the Moon and so Astolfo has to travel there.</p>
<p>When Astolfo is on the Moon, he discovers that it is a kind of dump site and all that has been lost from Earth has found its way there – which is why Orlando’s lost sanity can be found on the Moon. </p>
<p>The Moon carries not only physical objects but also abstract ideas like fame, broken promises and the tears and sighs of lovers. The one thing Astolfo can’t find on the Moon is foolishness – because there is plenty of that here on Earth.</p>
<p>In this poem, the Moon becomes a reflection of Earth and its people, with all their limitations and frailties.</p>
<h2>3. A Japanese story: The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter</h2>
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<img alt="A Japanese painting of a woman in the sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">After growing up on earth, Kaguya-hime must return to her home on the moon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese_Fairy_Book_-_Ozaki_-_P118.png">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>What about Moon people travelling to the Earth? This very thing happens in a Japanese story from the late 800s or early 900s: <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2014/09/the-original-japanese-moon-princess.html">Taketori Monogatari</a> (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter). </p>
<p>An old man, while cutting bamboo, finds a tiny, three-inch girl bathed in light. He takes her home and he and his wife nurture her tenderly, even placing her in a cradle. </p>
<p>She grows up remarkably quickly under the care of her adoptive parents, bringing them great joy. They bring a diviner to grant her a name, and she is called <em>Nayotake no Kaguya-hime</em> (Shining Princess of the Young Bamboo).</p>
<p>But in her adult years, Kaguya-hime keeps looking at the Moon with great sadness and her loved ones are worried about her. She eventually reveals what is wrong – she is not an earthling. </p>
<p>She actually comes from the Moon and now she must return there. A magnificent troop comes to take her away and Kaguya-hime is forced to leave the people on Earth she has grown to love.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-boy-and-the-heron-hayao-miyazakis-latest-studio-ghibli-film-is-a-skilled-remix-of-his-greatest-hits-212811">The Boy and the Heron: Hayao Miyazaki's latest Studio Ghibli film is a skilled remix of his greatest hits</a>
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<p>The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is the earliest surviving example of the <em>monogatari</em> (tale, novel) and has been adapted into a Studio Ghibli animation, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILVGna1QMkc">The Tale of Princess Kaguya</a>. </p>
<p>The Moon has always been a place that inspires imaginative stories of travel, adventure, and discovery. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter also reminds us that these stories are not found only in Europe. </p>
<p>All these texts – the English poem, the Italian epic, the Japanese narrative – raise important questions about what it is to be human, and how valuable the Earth is itself.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ayoush Lazikani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Humans have always been fascinated by the moon and before we could really get there we travelled to it in our stories.Ayoush Lazikani, Lecturer in Medieval English, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2057232023-08-07T13:03:29Z2023-08-07T13:03:29ZWhat’s behind our enduring fascination with wives and mothers who kill?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540540/original/file-20230801-19-4zkxdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C22%2C2991%2C2029&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A family photo of Andrea Yates, her husband and four of their five children. Yates killed all five by drowning them in a bathtub in 2001.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-undated-family-photo-shows-four-of-the-five-children-news-photo/1607982?adppopup=true">Photo Courtesy of Yates Family/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In March 2023, a Utah woman named Kouri Richins published a children’s book titled “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/123277319">Are You With Me?</a>” which she characterized as an effort to help her three young sons process the loss of their father, who had died suddenly the previous year. Presenting herself as a concerned mother and grieving widow, she was interviewed on “<a href="https://www.abc4.com/gtu/a-childrens-book-to-aid-in-coping-with-grief/">Good Things Utah</a>” in April 2023.</p>
<p>A few weeks later, on May 8, 2023, Richins was arrested and charged with killing her husband, Eric.</p>
<p>An autopsy showed that the 39-year-old man died of a massive fentanyl overdose. Since Eric had no history of drug abuse, his family found the circumstances suspicious. In the months before his death, Eric confided in his business partner that on several occasions – after being served a drink or meal by his wife, including on Valentine’s Day – he had become violently ill. Utah’s <a href="https://www.parkrecord.com/news/prosecutors-provide-more-information-about-alleged-marital-troubles-between-kamas-couple/">Park Record reported</a> that he had mentioned to friends and family that if anything were to happen to him, Kouri would be the likely culprit.</p>
<p>In August 2023, as I write this, the Richins’ housekeeper <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/07/07/housekeeper-admits-selling-kouri-richins-fentanyl-affidavit/">has confessed</a> to providing the fentanyl that killed Eric, and the case is mired in multiple lawsuits, including one in which <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/2023/06/28/sister-eric-richins-sues-kouri/">the victim’s sister accuses</a> Kouri of “enacting a horrific endgame to steal money from her husband, orchestrate his death and profit from it.” Meanwhile, Kouri Richins refutes these charges and has filed her own <a href="https://kutv.com/news/local/utah-woman-accused-of-husbands-murder-faces-civil-case-over-property-finances">civil suit</a> “seeking not only half of the marital residence but also her late husband’s business, which is valued at approximately $4 million.” She has been <a href="https://kutv.com/news/local/judge-denies-kouri-richins-bail-request-due-to-severity-of-charges-potential-penalties-eric-richins-kamas-book-author-fentanyl-summit-county-court">denied bail</a> and is currently awaiting trial – an event destined to become a media spectacle.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Inside Edition’ reports on the arrest of Kouri Richins.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Whether or not it’s true that “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2007/10/16/15244466/love-and-hate-a-tolstoy-family-tale">each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way</a>,” as Leo Tolstoy famously wrote, other people’s domestic misery seems to be a constant source of interest. </p>
<p>What lies behind the public’s fascination with familial trauma, especially when it turns deadly? And what occluded anxieties or longings do people confront or exorcise as they consume these stories of mayhem and murder?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/20/true-crime-podcasts-are-popular-in-the-us-particularly-among-women-and-those-with-less-formal-education/">The interest in true-crime podcasts</a>, series and documentaries is nothing new. The public appetite for easily accessible portraits of real-life murders stretches back to the early days of print, when they were repackaged and sold as ballads, domestic tragedies and lurid penny pamphlets.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/961f96e82665b4b9a540742fafcf3ca5/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=51922&diss=y">My research</a> as a scholar of 16th- and 17th-century English literature is largely focused on popular representations of domestic crime. I’m often struck by the resonance between these historical portrayals and the way such incidents are reported today.</p>
<p>While the medium has changed, the framing of these stories has remained strikingly consistent. The same queasy combination of sensationalist titillation and pious condemnation found in 16th- and 17th-century media appears in today’s news coverage of domestic murders – and it shines a light on enduring cultural anxieties. </p>
<h2>‘Sleeping in a serpent’s bed’</h2>
<p>The Richins case – with its themes of marital distrust, betrayal and conflicting interests – echoes a 16th-century murder so scandalous that it was reported in historical chronicles and popular pamphlets alike. It also inspired the Elizabethan domestic tragedy “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43440/43440-h/43440-h.htm">Arden of Faversham</a>” and at least <a href="https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/printballad.php?i=rox_album_3_156-157_2448x2448.jpg">one ballad</a>. </p>
<p>The crime occurred on Valentine’s Day 1551, when <a href="https://blog.pshares.org/alice-arden-of-faversham-and-womens-interest-in-true-crime/">Alice Arden</a> conspired with her lover and some hired assassins to kill her husband, Thomas, at his own dinner table. </p>
<p>The historical records and the play depict a woman who places desire above duty, determined to kill her husband and replace him with her paramour, who was a servant in her stepfather’s household – a step down the social ladder that added insult to injury.</p>
<p>That the murder of a middle-class suburban bureaucrat rated inclusion in official sources like “<a href="https://english.nsms.ox.ac.uk/Holinshed/">Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland</a>” and the “<a href="https://www.exclassics.com/newgate/ng4.htm">Newgate Calendar</a>” – and was still inspiring fresh interpretations decades later – suggests an appeal beyond the merely salacious. </p>
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<img alt="Crude drawing of man being strangled with a cloth at a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540532/original/file-20230801-19-wj7vfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">An undated print depicts the murder of Thomas Arden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://from.ncl.ac.uk/hubfs/Ardens_Murder.png">Newcastle University</a></span>
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<p>In 16th-century England, where the majority of adults <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DrMyGQGmwmoC&q=adventure+of+marriage#v=snippet&q=adventure%20of%20marriage&f=false">were married</a>, women effectively became their husbands’ legal “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverture">subjects</a>” upon marriage. This meant that a wife who killed her spouse was guilty not only of murder but of petit, or “petty,” treason, a crime against the state punishable by burning. <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/9789004400696/BP000015.xml?language=en">As I have argued elsewhere</a>, the idea of violent marital insurrection posed a frightening challenge to patriarchal notions of a man’s home as his castle. </p>
<p>But cases of female violence were – <a href="https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/domestic-abuse-is-a-gendered-crime/">as now</a> – comparatively rare: The figure of the murderous wife wielded far more power in the imagination than in reality. </p>
<p>As the unmarried Elizabeth I’s long reign drew to its close, fears about domestic partners gone wild indicated broader fears about the family as a “<a href="https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/CleaverGodly_M/index.html">little commonwealth</a>” or microcosmic state – and the need to reinforce the status quo in politically uncertain times.</p>
<p>In life and onstage, Alice Arden was the stuff of proto-feminist fantasy and masculine nightmare, and early modern plays, pamphlets and ballads sought to defuse the rogue woman’s perceived menace in the way they presented the scandal. </p>
<p><a href="http://elizabethandrama.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Arden-of-Feversham-Annotated.pdf">In the play</a>, Alice’s lover, Moseby, notes that “‘tis fearful sleeping in a serpent’s bed,” since when she has “supplanted Arden for my sake” she might “extirpen me to plant another.” </p>
<p>These suspicions find an echo in Eric Richins’ <a href="https://meaww.com/eric-richins-husband-allegedly-poisoned-by-author-wife-kouri-richins-believed-she-was-unfaithful">fears</a> about his wife’s intentions, and in some media portrayals of her as a <a href="https://meaww.com/kouri-richins-utah-woman-who-killed-husband-believed-she-would-inherit-3-6-m-until-he-changed-will">thwarted gold digger</a>.</p>
<h2>‘Like a fierce and bloody Medea’</h2>
<p>If a homicidal wife was a terrifying prospect, a murderous mother presented an entirely different level of horror. </p>
<p>The anonymous 1616 pamphlet “<a href="https://www.executedtoday.com/2015/05/18/1616-margaret-vincent-pitilesse-mother/#:%7E:text=A%20pitiless%20mother%2C%20that%20most,Vincent%20of%20the%20same%20town.">A Pittilesse Mother That at One Time Murdered Two of Her Own Children at Acton, etc.</a>” tells the story of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/medieval-and-early-modern-murder/monstrous-unmaking-maternal-infanticide-and-female-agency-in-early-modern-england/664BA2D9B855631299EF057D94BDB25C">Margaret Vincent</a>, who strangled and killed her two young children in an attempt to save their souls when her husband refused to convert to Catholicism. (She later repented, saying she had been “converted to a blind belief of bewitching heresy.”)</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Crude drawing of woman murdering two little children on a bed while a demon watches." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540533/original/file-20230801-18384-iitsai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘A Pittilesse Mother’ tells the story of Margaret Vincent’s murder of her two children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://jenikirbyhistory.getarchive.net/media/strangling-from-a-pittilesse-mother-that-most-unnaturally-at-one-time-murthered-eb67ac">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are many parallels in the stories of Vincent and an evangelical Christian named <a href="https://time.com/4375398/andrea-yates-15-years-drown-children/">Andrea Yates</a>, who in 2001 drowned her five children in the bathtub of their Texas home, believing she would send their souls to heaven and drive Satan from the world. In March 2002, Yates was sentenced to life in prison, but a 2006 appeal found her not guilty by reason of insanity. She now resides in a mental health facility from which <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/u-s-woman-who-drowned-children-refuses-release-from-psychiatric-hospital-every-year">she routinely refuses</a> to apply for release.</p>
<p>Neither Vincent nor Yates had been involved in any previous crimes or scandals, but both had exhibited signs of spiritual or mental instability. Vincent had “disobediently” insisted her family become Roman Catholics; Yates had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates#:%7E:text=Yates%20stopped%20taking%20Haldol%20in,feverishly%2C%20and%20stopped%20feeding%20Mary.">stopped taking the medication</a> prescribed for her postpartum depression and later psychosis without her doctor’s approval. Both women reportedly planned their children’s murders carefully, waited until their husbands were away from home to commit them, invoked diabolical forces to explain their actions, and initially claimed to feel no remorse. </p>
<p>The correlation between these historically distant murders is disturbing and fascinating, not least because both narratives feature conventionally “good,” married, middle-class mothers. Yet both were excoriated in contemporary media as <a href="https://nypost.com/2001/06/26/the-murdering-mom-the-prison-of-self/">monsters</a>: guilty of <a href="https://www.executedtoday.com/2015/05/18/1616-margaret-vincent-pitilesse-mother/">crimes against nature</a>, their husbands and their offspring.</p>
<p>Fast-forward to Jan. 24, 2023, when <a href="https://www.wcvb.com/article/lindsay-clancy-duxbury-mother-children-killed-committed-6-months/43852054">Lindsay Clancy</a> sent her husband, Patrick, on an errand and, like Margaret Vincent, strangled her three children before attempting suicide.</p>
<p>When Patrick Clancy returned to their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, he found Lindsay on the lawn with major injuries, suffered in a jump from a second-story window. Inside, his children – ages 5 years, 3 years and 8 months – were unconscious. The two oldest were pronounced dead at the scene, <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/as-community-mourns-duxbury-children-killed-questions-circle-about-maternal-mental-health/2956568/">while the youngest survived for several days</a>. </p>
<p>As more details of the case became known, a picture emerged of a doting mother and nurse midwife who often shared family photos and anecdotes on social media. After her youngest child’s birth, these posts included references to depression, anxiety and her ongoing attempts to find relief via therapy and medication. </p>
<p><a href="https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/unlike-any-other-type-of-homicide-how-lindsay-clancy-mirrors-andrea-yates-case/">The inevitable comparisons</a> to the 2001 Yates murders were exacerbated by her lawyer’s revelation that Clancy had been prescribed more than a dozen medications in recent weeks, and by her own claim – as reported during her Feb. 7, 2023, <a href="https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/02/07/lindsay-clancy-duxbury-arraignment">arraignment</a> – that she had “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/health/lindsay-clancy-child-murder-charges-massachusetts.html">heard a man’s voice, telling her to kill the kids and kill herself because it was her last chance</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Split screen of judge sitting at his dais and woman wearing facemask lying in a hospital bed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540538/original/file-20230801-19-3rdp00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lindsay Clancy appeared at her arraignment over Zoom while still in the hospital recovering from self-inflicted injuries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/lindsay-clancy-appeared-at-her-plymouth-district-court-news-photo/1246891610?adppopup=true">David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The prosecution presented Clancy as a coldblooded, calculating murderer. The defense countered with a portrait of a woman suffering from serious mental illness with inadequate treatment. <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/duxbury-tragedy-read-patrick-clancys-full-statement-on-his-wife-deaths-of-3-kids/2957737/">Patrick Clancy</a> has argued that his wife deserves compassion rather than condemnation. </p>
<p>As the familiar lines are drawn on the battlefield of public opinion, the sense of déjà vu is palpable. Is Lindsay Clancy a latter-day <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea">Medea</a>, the vengeful child killer of Greek mythology, or an overwhelmed and poorly supported woman struggling with a serious illness? As of this writing, <a href="https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/lindsay-clancy-duxbury-mother-accused-murdering-her-kids-remain-committed-6-months/PM7XPI3MCVFINO65YCCAGBSCNQ/">Clancy is committed</a> to Tewksbury State Hospital until November 2023, at which point future legal proceedings will be assessed.</p>
<p>These events are unquestionably horrific, but the passage of two decades may have wrought some changes in the public’s response. While Clancy has been reviled in some quarters as a coldblooded killer – <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@aprnbeauty_81/video/7198259011211365637">particularly on social media</a> – the murders have also sparked a discussion about <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/what-we-still-dont-understand-about-postpartum-psychosis#:%7E:text=In%20November%2C%20Clancy%2C%20who%20is,with%20Ativan%2C%20a%20benzodiazepine%2C%20but">postpartum mental health</a>, suggesting a willingness to better understand this complicated topic.</p>
<h2>A queasy sort of comfort</h2>
<p>Tales of domestic murder expose and underscore fears about society’s most fundamental institutions: home, family and community. The media in every period are extremely skilled at weaponizing – and capitalizing on – worries about the family’s capacity to provide a safe haven in a turbulent world.</p>
<p>In early modern England, highly gendered ideas about the home as a reflection of the state politicized anxieties about order, stability and the family as a patriarchal institution. Then as now, it was a frightening – yet compelling – prospect that threats to a family’s very survival might be hiding in the place people should feel safest. </p>
<p>Perhaps the ongoing fascination with dysfunctional, broken homes <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-it-feel-good-to-see-someone-fail-107349">is based in schadenfreude</a>, and the comforting realization that as troubled as our own families may be, we have not taken violent action against them. </p>
<p>Like the repentant gallows speeches recounted in ballads, or the assurance in “A Pittilesse Mother” that Margaret Vincent “earnestly repented the deed,” the containment and punishment of those who disrupt this bedrock institution offer reassurance that they are anomalies. (I could never do that; you could never do that.)</p>
<p>Or the appeal may lie in the idea that any of us might, in fact, be capable of such things. </p>
<p>Perhaps in choosing to be disturbed, entertained and ultimately comforted by narratives about domestic stability turned to chaos, we find a way to confront, if only obliquely, our most primal fears about the institutions we trust, the people we love – and our own capacity to destroy them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205723/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dianne Berg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The framing of these stories of murder and mayhem have remained remarkably consistent since the invention of the printing press – and may reveal our own hidden fears and desires.Dianne Berg, Visiting Assistant Professor of English, Clark UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2038282023-06-05T12:06:11Z2023-06-05T12:06:11ZBirth of a story: How new parents find meaning after childbirth hints at how they will adjust<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529856/original/file-20230602-19-u8qb1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=94%2C549%2C4418%2C2943&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Having a new baby can upend everything about your old life.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/newborn-baby-boy-being-cradled-by-new-parents-in-royalty-free-image/1307728623">Cavan Images/Cavan via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Gather a group of new parents and the conversation will likely turn to their childbirth stories – ranging from the joyful to the gnarly to the positively traumatic. <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/01/birth-stories-feminist-history-internet-sharing.html">Birth story podcasts and websites</a> feature a curated range of birth experiences, and you can buy embossed leather “birth story” journals as a baby shower gift. People are fascinated by this pivotal, emotionally complex and literally life-and-death experience.</p>
<p>Birth narratives might also contain clues about how the adjustment to parenthood will go.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/203434/the-uses-of-enchantment-by-bruno-bettelheim/">People have long used stories</a> to understand difficult experiences. Stories may be particularly valuable as a source of “meaning-making,” the process of finding order in chaos by making sense of unexpected events, identifying silver linings and discovering the patterns and connections that thread seemingly random events together into a coherent narrative.</p>
<p>In a new study led by <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YRIcV6YAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Geoffrey Corner</a>, a former graduate student in <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/nestlab/">my lab</a>, we found that the levels of meaning-making in the stories new parents told about their baby’s birth <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0001062">predicted their relationship quality and parenting stress</a> in the child’s first months.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="three moms with infants on mats facing an instructor with a doll in a baby yoga class" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529857/original/file-20230602-23-6cutjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When new moms come together, the talk often turns to their childbirth stories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/baby-massage-class-switzerland-new-mothers-learn-how-to-news-photo/629429057">BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Constructing meaning in your own life</h2>
<p>Finding meaningful themes and patterns in life’s seeming randomness is a fundamentally human activity. As writer Joan Didion put it, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/40775/we-tell-ourselves-stories-in-order-to-live-by-joan-didion-introduction-by-john-leonard/">we tell ourselves stories in order to live</a>.”</p>
<p>“Meaning-making” can buffer despair in the wake of tragedy. Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl’s memoir, “<a href="http://www.beacon.org/Mans-Search-for-Meaning-P602.aspx">Man’s Search for Meaning</a>,” argued that meaning and purpose can prevent the bitterness and disillusionment that can otherwise fester after great loss. Research on what psychologists call <a href="https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1501_01">post-traumatic growth</a> has found that the level of “meaning-making” in people’s narratives about a difficult event predicts their mental health over time.</p>
<p>For example, studies have found <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018301">links between meaning-making and resilience</a> in cancer patients, bereaved parents and caregivers. Cancer survivors might discover that their chemo ordeal brought them closer to friends and family, or helped them step back from the hustle of everyday life and embrace a slower pace.</p>
<p>Although childbirth is typically experienced as a joyful rather than a tragic event, it can still be unpredictable, frightening and even life-threatening. Indeed, psychologists have begun to recognize that particularly difficult labors <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02646838.2015.1031646">can trigger post-traumatic stress symptoms</a>, not just in mothers but in their partners as well. Even normal, nontraumatic births require parents to cope with hours, sometimes days, of pain and discomfort. Therefore, we hypothesized that meaning-making might be an important part of couples’ birth narratives, potentially promoting resilience in new parents.</p>
<p>To test these hypotheses, we collected birth stories from 77 couples who were participating in our lab’s <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/nestlab/research/">longitudinal study of the transition to parenthood</a>. We visited couples at the hospital within a day or two of their infant’s birth, and audio-recorded them sharing their stories together. We told couples, “We’d like to hear you tell the story of your birth experience. Start from the beginning and tell us as much as you remember.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="three masked medical workers hold newborn above mother's body during C-section operation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529858/original/file-20230602-29-rszklh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parents may need to process even a normal childbirth with healthy outcomes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/caesarian-babys-first-breath-royalty-free-image/125951777">Peter Dazeley/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Listening for meaning-making in birth stories</h2>
<p>A team of coders listened to each story and recorded examples of meaning-making, using three categories established in the research literature:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Sense-making: Identifying reasons that an event might have unfolded the way it did or making connections that show why an event was meaningful. For example, one mother in our sample found meaning in her long labor, describing her baby as “very brave and tough” because she survived hours of pushing. </p></li>
<li><p>Benefit-finding: Pointing out silver linings or unexpected positive effects of a difficult experience. For example, after a difficult birth, one parent in our sample stated, “It was scary, but the nurses and the doctors were so nice to us.”</p></li>
<li><p>Change in identity: Describing how an event has transformed one’s sense of self. As a parent in our sample said, “I feel like my life has changed completely with the baby now here.”</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Although couples told their story together, we tracked meaning-making separately for each partner. We also rated how much each partner participated in telling their story so we could adjust for their levels of engagement in sharing their birth narrative.</p>
<p>The couples in our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0001062">sample were avid “meaning makers”</a>: Almost all the participants made at least some meaning-making statements in their birth stories. Of the three categories of meaning-making, “change in identity” language surfaced least often, appearing in about 37% of the birth stories. Mothers tended to use more “sense-making” and “benefit-finding” language than fathers. And both members of a couple tended to use similar amounts of meaning-making language. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="infant on mother's chest in hospital bed with father smiling down at baby" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529859/original/file-20230602-27-200pws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A new parent’s meaning-making can affect them and their partner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mixed-race-family-admiring-their-newborn-baby-at-royalty-free-image/1248789907">SelectStock/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Becoming mom or dad</h2>
<p>After we had coded all of the narratives, we next looked to see whether “meaning-making” predicted relationship satisfaction and parenting stress in our couples. The transition to parenthood can be a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/347802">crisis event” for the couple relationship</a> and is often linked with <a href="https://theconversation.com/have-children-heres-how-kids-ruin-your-romantic-relationship-57944">declines in relationship quality</a>.</p>
<p>But when mothers used more “sense-making” and “benefit-finding” language, they showed a smaller drop in their relationship satisfaction than moms who used less. Fathers who used more “sense-making” and “benefit-finding” language reported lower parenting stress at six months postpartum than dads who used less.</p>
<p>And partners of fathers who used more “change in identity” language also reported lower parenting stress later on, suggesting that dads who experience the transition to parenthood as transformative may be able to help mothers cope better with new parenthood. On the flip side, though, when mothers showed more meaning-making, their partners actually reported more parenting stress at six months postpartum. It may be that when mothers find the birth experience to be more personally meaningful, partners feel left out or pressured to step up their own parenting.</p>
<p>Overall, these results supported our initial hunch that meaning-making might be detectable in birth narratives and forecast parents’ psychological adjustment after birth. Greater meaning-making language seemed to benefit the couple relationship and largely buffer parenting stress.</p>
<p>This study was limited by a fairly small sample of cohabiting heterosexual parents. Nevertheless, it highlights the value of stories in shaping family transitions. For therapists working with new parents in the wake of a difficult birth, encouraging couples to seek meaning in their birth story may help ease their transition to parenthood. Journaling and storytelling exercises may help couples process their feelings about their childbirth experiences. After all, the birth of a baby is also the birth of a story – and that story is well worth telling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203828/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darby Saxbe receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>How you tell the story of a momentous event can help you make sense of what happened. Research finds new moms’ and dads’ narratives around childbirth held clues about their transition to parenthood.Darby Saxbe, Associate Professor of Psychology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1998352023-02-24T12:13:31Z2023-02-24T12:13:31ZDystopian games: how contemporary stories critique capitalism through deadly competition<p>If our nightmares change, what does that tell us about our waking lives? <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-we-living-in-a-dystopia-136908">Dystopian stories</a>, from novels and films to games, have often been considered a pessimistic reflection on the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0725513619888664">direction society</a> is going in.</p>
<p>Classic dystopias usually offer a vision of a totalitarian state, equipped with an apparatus of repression and propaganda, for instance, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nineteen-Eighty-four">1984</a> by George Orwell or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Handmaids-Tale-by-Atwood">The Handmaid’s Tale</a> by Margaret Atwood. Beyond the external threat of authoritarian and violent control, these fictions also offer dystopian visions of how individuals can be corrupted, indoctrinated and transformed. </p>
<p>These stories were responding to 20th-century experiences of state authoritarianism, from fascism to Stalinism and beyond. It is understandable given this history that dystopias have largely expressed our anxieties and fears about the state. </p>
<p>Yet, around the turn of the millennium writers of dystopias increasingly turned their attention to critiquing capitalism. These stories presented fictional worlds where protagonists compete in deadly <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17499755221143835">games</a>.</p>
<h2>The game of life?</h2>
<p>This sub-genre of dystopia features elimination contests where there can be only one winner. The scenarios might seem extreme or absurd but are apt satires of living within a capitalist system. </p>
<p>The games in these dystopian worlds tend to be excruciatingly cruel, with human life often wagered on their outcome.</p>
<p>Watching protagonists grapple with strategic challenges, endure pain and frustration, work together or undermine each other and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat reminds us of our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0038026117728620">own struggles</a>. It reminds us how our fate often depends on our performance in life.</p>
<p>Even if we are not in mortal danger, our lives depend upon competition.</p>
<p>In educational institutions, we strive for top marks. In the labour market, we compete for jobs. On social media, we vie for attention and approval. Even in love and friendship, it seems the contemporary world is awash with rivalry. </p>
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<p>Of course, this is not human nature or common to all societies, but is a result of a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/33788">hyper-competitive mindset or culture</a> cultivated under contemporary capitalism. Essentially, these visions of dystopian games offer a critique of the intensification of capitalism, wherein every decision is made with the market in mind first. </p>
<p>Dystopias exaggerate what they satirise to make their point – consider two of the most popular and influential cases: <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44987307">The Hunger Games</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10126902221107468">Squid Game</a>.</p>
<p>Set in a futuristic authoritarian regime, the Hunger Games are a sadistic propaganda operation whereby the “Capitol” pits teenage “tributes” from subjugated districts against each other in a televised bloodbath. The prize is a life of comparative luxury, although winners are often traumatised by their own victory. </p>
<p>While outlandish, it resonates with young people, perhaps reflecting their experiences on social media or even the growing trend for reality TV as a means of <a href="https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/celebrity-social-mobility-and-the-future-of-reality-tv-reprint">social mobility</a>. It also reflects the wider capitalist system where the rich get richer and the poor stay poor; social mobility is only possible for the chosen few, the exceptional. </p>
<p>Squid Game depicts a fight to the death orchestrated by a shadowy criminal organisation with billionaire backers where contestants compete in deadly versions of children’s games. Four hundred and fifty-six desperate or indebted people in contemporary South Korea are enticed into participating, and only one will survive. This surreal scenario reflects the crisis of personal <a href="https://theconversation.com/squid-game-the-real-debt-crisis-shaking-south-korea-that-inspired-the-hit-tv-show-169401">debt in South Korea</a> and beyond, and the ethics of winner-takes-all in contemporary capitalism.</p>
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<p>In each, we follow protagonists who are often faced with terrible moral conundrums as they fight to survive. We sympathise with the Hunger Game’s Katniss Everdeen’s struggle and cheer her on as she forms alliances with weaker players. We root for Squid Game’s Seong Gi-Hun’s team in a lethal version of tug-of-war but become ambivalent when he uses an older contestant’s failing memory against him. </p>
<h2>Bloody spectacles</h2>
<p>Strikingly, both of these contests are a spectacle for an audience. </p>
<p>The Hunger Games are televised propaganda for a totalitarian regime, while sadistic billionaires watch the Squid Game from a booth. This plays upon the perpetual visibility of modern life on social media. But also makes us complicit as <a href="https://dspace.allegheny.edu/handle/10456/48115">viewers who enjoy</a> watching bloody contests. </p>
<p>Within the drama, the play of artifice and authenticity is another game. </p>
<p>We see Katniss stage a love story to ensure her survival. Seong Gi-Hun eventually realises that his apparent ally in the Squid Game, the older man he used, is actually (spoiler alert) one of the organisers of this tormenting tournament. This game-playing, full of falsehoods and suspicion, within these spectacles, might well reflect our own struggles with constant <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/16/9808">impression management</a> amid the compulsive visibility of social media.</p>
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<p>While these dystopian visions are extremely dark, they are warnings of the direction that society is going or analyses of dynamics that are coming to dominate our world but are not inevitable. Interestingly that Squid Game’s popularity has led to it being adapted into <a href="https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/squid-game-reality-competition-series-casting-call">game show</a> where “456 players will compete to win the life-changing reward of $4.56 million (£3.78 million)”. </p>
<p>These dystopian stories do offer hope, however. The capacity of the protagonists to play these games through cooperation rather than competition, care rather than cruelty, provides a utopian counterpoint – one that we might follow in our own lives. Refusing to play the game or playing it differently is not a trivial gesture, our lives and our future depend on it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199835/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Boland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bloody games where there can be only winner critique the ‘winner takes all’ mentality fostered under capitalism.Tom Boland, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University College CorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1947272022-12-14T13:13:33Z2022-12-14T13:13:33ZSocial media always remembers – which makes moving on from a breakup that much harder<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500465/original/file-20221212-112102-qh64s7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=460%2C360%2C4498%2C3334&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's no playbook for how to navigate breakups in the digital age.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/broken-heart-on-screen-royalty-free-image/1307271698?phrase=digital heart break&adppopup=true">Sean Gladwell/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before the internet, people <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98REWkLwnQM&ab_channel=manbehindthescreen">commonly burned</a> Polaroids and love letters in a fire as an act of closure following a breakup. </p>
<p>Nowadays, it isn’t so simple. People produce and consume massive amounts of digital stuff – <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-data-explained-how-much-were-producing-and-where-its-all-stored-159964">33 trillion gigabytes</a> of online data in 2018 alone, a number that has surely grown.</p>
<p>Even as more and more of daily life is experienced and documented online, there’s no playbook for how to navigate breakups in the digital age. In the past, if bonfires weren’t your thing, you could simply throw out love letters, gifts and photographs, or put them in a box and store them in the attic – out of sight and out of mind. </p>
<p>Now, as you scroll through your accounts, you might find yourself returning to your own memories – including reminders of your former partners, which live on long after the dissolution of a relationship.</p>
<p>As communication researchers, we’ve conducted a series of studies investigating how people decide whether to keep or delete something following the end of a romantic relationship – and how these decisions affect their ability to move on.</p>
<h2>Relationship ‘cleansing’</h2>
<p>In some of our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407514524848">earlier research</a> – all the way back in 2013 – we studied how people used social media after a breakup.</p>
<p>We found that they often carried out what we call “relational cleansing” by hiding their relational status, deleting photos or scrubbing old social media posts. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305116680004">another study</a>, we found that people who spent a good deal of time looking at old digital photos of their relationships and those who monitored their previous partners on social media following a breakup had a harder time moving on.</p>
<p>To explore these findings in more depth, we conducted a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407520921460">follow-up study</a> that looked at whether keeping or deleting virtual objects following a breakup helped people move on and emotionally recover following the end of their relationship.</p>
<p>We found that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-psychological-benefits-and-trappings-of-nostalgia-77766">people who were more nostalgic</a> – that is, those who tended to have a sentimental longing for the past – were more likely to keep digital objects from their previous relationship, and that preserving those objects tended to make it harder to adjust to the relationship’s end.</p>
<p>In the analysis of the results, we speculated that when people continually revisit these digital memories, they’re unable to fully detach from the relationship. </p>
<p>Based on this research we came up with a model called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtac018">Virtual Relational Memory</a>. Specifically, we suggest that individuals going through a breakup consider three components of their digital lives: objects, stories and networks.</p>
<h2>To purge or not to purge?</h2>
<p>In relationships, people produce a trove of digital objects, such as messages and photos, that represent and document their relationships.</p>
<p>Those happy and joyous photos of past anniversaries and trips linger in online photo albums long after the relationship ends. </p>
<p>Because many of these digital objects are distributed across platforms and accounts – many of which people don’t have access to – they’re more likely to persist. Old photos memories can algorithmically appear at inopportune times, too, spurring unanticipated thoughts about your partner. </p>
<p>Still, you can exert some control over whether to <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2470654.2466241">delete or keep</a> the memories you have access to.</p>
<p>By keeping the objects, maybe you can continue to reflect on the relationship, prompting personal growth. By deleting them, perhaps you can more quickly move on from your previous partner and prepare for your next relationship. </p>
<h2>Losing control of the narrative</h2>
<p>Beyond considering how to manage things like photos and old messages, people going through a breakup should also think about the narrative, or story, of the breakup. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X13516865">stories people tell about their breakups</a> are powerful reminders of their relationships. But they also help people reconcile and move on to new ones. </p>
<p>When a relationship ends, people often construct a story, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2019.1627647">that story varies for different audiences</a>. When your parents ask why you broke up, you might tell a story about your differing life goals. When your friends ask why you broke up, you might tell a story about your inability to manage conflict. </p>
<p>Social media complicates the story-creation process, because it is more difficult to construct distinct stories for different audiences. For instance, some people have both a main Instagram account and a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-teens-use-fake-instagram-accounts-to-relieve-the-pressure-of-perfection-92105">Finsta</a>” that presents their more authentic identity. Someone who shares the gritty details of their breakup on their finsta would have a difficult time reconciling that version of the narrative with the one they present on their more curated main profile. </p>
<p>Also, people tend to change the story they tell about breakups over time as they move on from a relationship. Their story might evolve to be less hostile to their partner, or more accepting of the need for the end of the relationship. When people are exposed to virtual objects such as old photos or texts, their narratives can quickly revert back to the stories they created shortly after the relationship ended.</p>
<h2>Adapting your network</h2>
<p>Next, it’s important to think about your network, which refers to the connections in which our relationships are embedded. </p>
<p>When you’re in a relationship, you often connect with your partner’s family members and friends on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Those networks often linger following the end of the relationship unless you make an active effort to disconnect. </p>
<p>You may ask yourself whether you really care what your previous boyfriend’s childhood best friend is doing on vacation. Even worse, your previous partner could appear in those very vacation photos.</p>
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<span class="caption">Unfollowing your ex on social media is straightforward enough. But what about their friends?</span>
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<p>The persistence of these networks makes ending relationships harder. In a sense, these networks act as a brain, archiving virtual memories through social connections that can be reactivated by the social network. </p>
<p>Although research into the effects of these factors is ongoing, especially as technology continues to evolve, we suggest that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2020.1796617">people think carefully</a> about which objects, stories and networks they want to retain, and which they want to jettison. Though tentative, the findings across our studies suggest that people who selectively keep some objects and delete others fare better following a breakup than those who obsessively keep or delete. In other words, everything in moderation.</p>
<p>Perhaps, as country singer Sam Hunt put it, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvnY6qn80u0&ab_channel=SamHuntVEVO">breaking up was easier in the 1990s</a>. But that doesn’t mean you can’t reassert control over how you want to move on – and decide which digital relics of your relationships to preserve and which to purge for good.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There was once a time when you could simply put old photos and love letters out of sight and out of mind. Editing your ex out of your digital life is a lot trickier.Kate G. Blackburn, Post Doctoral Researcher, The University of Texas at AustinLeah E. LeFebvre, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, University of AlabamaNick Brody, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, University of Puget SoundLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1886142022-08-11T15:31:10Z2022-08-11T15:31:10ZThree Raymond Briggs books that helped make the graphic novel respectable<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/10/snowman-author-raymond-briggs-dies-aged-88">Raymond Briggs</a>, who died on August 9 aged 88, transformed the way we see and value the strip cartoon and graphic novel in this country. Briggs’ great achievement was to make the form intellectually respectable through telling stories about seemingly ordinary characters, which were rendered skilfully in the egalitarian medium of coloured pencil.</p>
<p>Born in suburban London in 1934, Briggs had an early ambition to become a cartoonist but this was met with disappointment from his parents, who didn’t see it as a respectable or financially secure choice. After experiencing more snobbery from his teachers at both Wimbledon and Slade art schools, Briggs began his career as a professional illustrator working on conventional children’s books. </p>
<p>The default at the time was to treat words and pictures as separate entities. It wasn’t until the 1960s that he explored his talent and skill to combine both words and pictures, utilising the form of the strip cartoon that defined his future work.</p>
<p>Briggs is best known for his wordless masterpiece The Snowman, published in 1978, essentially a sweet children’s tale. But the loss of his parents Ethel Bowyer and Ernest Briggs in 1971, and his wife Jean Taprell Clark in 1973, imbued an unsentimental directness in his work. </p>
<p>As we mark his passing, it seems fitting that we look at back at three books that each say something quite sweet and poignant about the human condition and elevated the form of graphic novels.</p>
<h2>1. Fungus the Bogeyman (1977)</h2>
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<p>The success of the curmudgeonly Father Christmas and its sequel Father Christmas Goes on Holiday in 1975 established a loyal readership that enabled Briggs time and space to explore more experimental territory, like the wonderfully melancholic nihilism of the children’s book Fungus the Bogeyman published in 1977.</p>
<p>It follows a day (night) in the life of Fungus, a working class bogeyman whose job is to scare humans, as he begins to question the point of his work.</p>
<p>In Fungus, we see Briggs capture the mood of 1970s England through a slimy fairytale. The lights are out. The familiar domestic settings Briggs employs in many of his books is there from the start. Fungus’s wife Mildew rousing her husband in the marital bed: “Time to get up, Fungus my dreary. It’s nearly dark.” </p>
<p>The world-weary introspective musings of Fungus play to young and old readers alike. I recommend reading in slow voice to really get a sense of the wonderful sluggish and downtrodden nature of Fungus: “Oh well, here we go … Off to work again … Onwards always onwards, In Silence and in Gloom.”</p>
<p>It pre-empts both the wave of strikes that would result in Britain’s “winter of discontent” of 1978-79 and the “upside-down” world of the Netflix science fiction series Stranger Things. Briggs flips us, far underground, to the slow, damp, slime of Bogeydom. The world is drawn is exquisite detail employing a cold colour palette of grey greens, muted blues and browns that create its alluring bleakness.</p>
<p>Briggs playfully subverts the graphic convention of the comic strip, drawing in blacked out panels that have apparently been censored by the publisher in the interests of decorum. One such panel declares: “The Publishers wish to state that this picture has been deleted in the interests of good taste and public decency.”</p>
<p>Diagrams, footnotes and an array of asides are “pinned” throughout the story, adding detail and depth to the culture of Bogeydom. One aside, for example, reads: “Bogey umbrellas are upside down. They are designed to catch water and shower it onto the user.” The story is carefully structured, richly detailed and beautifully drawn, unsurprisingly taking Briggs two years to complete.</p>
<h2>2. When the Wind Blows (1982)</h2>
<p>Briggs resurfaced in 1982 with the politically charged, cold war graphic novel When the Wind Blows, further developing the characters of Jim and Hilda Bloggs from his 1980 book Gentleman Jim. </p>
<p>Briggs was inspired by the absurd and outdated <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1500124311">Protect and Survive public information pamphlet</a>, which had been published by the British government in 1980 to advise the public what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. He used the advice within the book to show how shockingly inadequate it was.</p>
<p>The story sets the horror of a nuclear apocalypse against the domestic backdrop of Jim and Hilda’s retired life in rural England. The warmth and geniality of the old couple’s interactions are punctuated by ominous double page spreads of the impending attacks. </p>
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<p>Scale is used to brilliant effect, contrasting the tightly ordered panels framing the couple’s organised home life against spreads of military hardware that break the boundary of the page. The inevitable nuclear explosion obliterates the structure of successive pages, and their lives. </p>
<p>It is graphically stunning, with the following frames bent all out of shape until they return to a stable rectangle punctuated with a Briggsian “Blimey!”. The remainder of the book is bleak and achingly sad, a testament to Briggs’ skill with his pencils, empathetic dialogue and willingness to face finitude head on.</p>
<h2>3. Ethel and Ernest (1998)</h2>
<p>In the 1990s Briggs turned his attention to his own parents in his graphic memoir Ethel and Ernest. It unflinchingly tells the story of how his working-class parents met, and then raised their only child, Raymond. </p>
<p>Their lives are played out against the social and political upheavals taking place through the middle of the 20th century, including the depression, second world war, the birth of the welfare state, television and the Moon landings. </p>
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<p>It is both deeply personal yet typically universal, a loving and unsentimental social history document. The British class system is played out through Ethel’s respectable conservatism and Ernest’s ideological socialism. </p>
<p>Though politically polarised, they are kind and stoic, wanting the best for their son. They died in 1971 within months of each other, their son rendering their end with characteristic directness. How proud and amazed they would undoubtedly have been to see what he achieved. Blimey!</p>
<p>The contemporary American cartoonist Chris Ware, much admired by Briggs, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/11/chris-ware-graphic-novelist-interview">said of comics</a>, “There is a magic when you read an image that you know doesn’t move but you have a sense that something is moving, if not on the page, then in your mind.” </p>
<p>While there are many much loved film and television adaptations of Briggs’ work, it is sitting quietly and patiently with his books where that humane magic can be found.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Edgar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Much of his work was imbued with a sense of the end, so it is fitting to look back at three of his best works to mark the illustrator’s passingMatthew Edgar, Principal Lecturer in Visual Communication, Sheffield Hallam UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1870392022-08-04T16:36:36Z2022-08-04T16:36:36ZWhy have so few women won the Leacock prize for comedy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477216/original/file-20220802-25-wlgzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C1%2C844%2C604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Stephen Leacock Medal is one of the few prizes for literary humour.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leacock_in_Colliers_1926_01.jpg">(Stephen Leacock/Wikimedia Commons)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After winning the <a href="https://www.leacock.ca/aboutus.php">Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour</a> in 1996 for <a href="https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/letters-from-the-country"><em>Letters from the Country</em></a>, journalist and humourist Marsha Boulton proudly declared in an interview with the <em>Vancouver Sun</em>: “This means I really am a funny woman and women in Canada are funny people, and we can write humour just as well as men can.” </p>
<p>Boulton was right to feel honoured, as she was in exclusive company. And as a woman writing humour, even more so. Only nine women have won since the first medal was awarded in 1947. </p>
<p>On August 3, the Leacock Associates <a href="https://quillandquire.com/omni/mark-critch-dawn-dumont-and-rick-mercer-shortlisted-for-25k-stephen-leacock-medal/">announced the shortlist for the 75th annual award</a>: Three books by established Canadian writers Mark Critch, Dawn Dumont and Rick Mercer. </p>
<p>As judges prepare to announce the winner in September, it’s worth asking: why have so few women won the Leacock Medal? And on the rare occasions when they have won, what kind of women’s humour has been rewarded?</p>
<h2>Why have so few women won the Leacock Medal?</h2>
<p>Most of the <a href="https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2015/04/29/leacock-awards-history-of-overlooking-women-is-no-laughing-matter.html">women who submit their writing</a> for the award have already <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/06/catherine-nichols-female-author-male-pseudonym">negotiated structural barriers, like sexism, at elite publishing houses</a>. They’ve also dealt with a culture that continues to perpetuate <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701">the myth that women aren’t funny</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.leacock.ca/medalaward.php#judging">The judging process</a> also works against women. There’s a lack of criteria, judge anonymity and no discussion among judges – they simply read and rank the texts.</p>
<h2>What kind of women’s humour has been rewarded?</h2>
<p>Though few in number, there have been some great selections of women’s humour. But most have reflected a limited sense of what constitutes Canadian humour, especially Canadian women’s humour. </p>
<p>Earlier winning books often reinforced conservative stereotypes about women, domesticity and Canadian provincialism. </p>
<p>The first five books to win, which span almost 50 years, are largely autobiographical accounts of women in the home, often in rural settings, with the comedy arising from the contrast between <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1997.10.2.137">the cultural edge and the center</a>. At the same time however, other Canadian women like Margaret Atwood, Erika Ritter and Carol Shields were writing comedy that didn’t conform to this narrow vision. </p>
<p>It is no accident that the most fallow period for female prizewinners corresponded with both the flourishing of second-wave feminism and the subsequent backlash of the 1980s, <a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/181915">when anti-feminist humour proliferated</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Susan Juby talks character and voice.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Among the four most recent female winners, the comedic themes are harder to classify. Some mine, but also challenge, domestic and provincial comedy. </p>
<p>Susan Juby’s <a href="https://susanjuby.com/books/republic-of-dirt-return-to-woefield/"><em>Republic of Dirt</em></a> appears to be a typical Canadian provincial story, where the land is a source of both comedy and domestic values. But, in fact Juby’s book treats issues like sexual assault, marital breakdown and drug addiction with comic dexterity, while the novel’s only loving and functional nuclear family is composed of two women and their adopted children. </p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130610185058/http:/www.leaderpost.com/news/Eston%2Bauthor%2Bwins%2BLeacock%2BMedal/8491504/story.html"><em>Dance, Gladys, Dance</em></a> creates a family of quirky characters who engage in civil protest to preserve a community art space. The protagonist of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/books/molly-of-the-mall-1.5809535"><em>Molly of the Mall</em></a> pursues a bachelor’s degree at the University of Alberta, while <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-bc-based-author-jennifer-craig-wins-stephen-leacock-medal-for-humour"><em>Gone to Pot</em></a> features a grandmother earning a living in a most unconventional manner by running a grow-op in her basement.</p>
<h2>Improving the judging</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781683930723/Women-and-Comedy-History-Theory-Practice">English professors</a> and <a href="https://udpress.udel.edu/book-title/prologues-and-epilogues-of-restoration-theater/">comedy</a> <a href="https://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/fall_2020/zwagerman.htm">scholars</a>, we offer several suggestions for changing the adjudication of the Leacock Medal. </p>
<p>We would like to see the judging process made transparent, with the judges’ identities made public — like the Giller and Governor General’s literary awards.</p>
<p>We would also like the judges to consider the structural issues facing women humorists, and widen their sense of what Canadian comedy can be beyond rural, domestic and overwhelmingly white themes. </p>
<p>Several studies have shown that when adjudicators remain unaware of applicants’ gender, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.90.4.715">results</a> are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4">fairer</a>. Have attempts been made to anonymize submissions?</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">An animated film based on Stephen Leacock’s account of a young man’s first brush with banking.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The more complex issue concerns humour as a matter of taste. Given that films are frequently termed “chick flicks” simply for having a female protagonist, and that as recently as 2013, Wikipedia grouped American novels into <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/apr/25/wikipedia-women-american-novelists">two different pages</a>, “American novelists” and “American women novelists” — judges should be aware and discuss their own potential biases.</p>
<p>The Stephen Leacock Medal is one of the few prizes for literary humour. It is undeniably important in bringing attention to humour writing, which is unlikely to win any other mainstream literary prize. We need to value the recognition of great Canadian comic writing, and ensure it’s judged equitably. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a story originally published on Aug. 4, 2022. The earlier story mentioned one of the Leacock Prize nominees, Dawn Dumont (also known as Dawn Walker) and her son Vincent were missing since July 22, 2022. They have since been found, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/update-dawn-walker-august-5-2022-1.6542497">find more information here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187039/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We need to value the recognition of great Canadian comic writing and ensure it’s judged equitably.Sean Zwagerman, Associate Professor, Department of English, Simon Fraser UniversityDiana Solomon, Associate Professor of English, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1681772021-09-23T17:37:48Z2021-09-23T17:37:48ZPowerful, local stories can inspire us to take action on climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422722/original/file-20210922-21-bd4s81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C0%2C4935%2C3287&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stories about the impact of climate change can help spur people to action.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/powerful--local-stories-can-inspire-us-to-take-action-on-climate-change" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The climate emergency has put the world in grave peril, but that is hard to tell when <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/broadcast-networks/how-broadcast-tv-networks-covered-climate-change-2020">watching the news</a> or looking at the overall global response to the climate crisis, which <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2021_08_adv_1.pdf">continues to be lax</a>. </p>
<p>Climate change is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.11">complex and difficult problem to communicate</a>. It is slow-moving, it does not always feel urgent and there is often very little gratification for acting to mitigate it. </p>
<p>For decades, the assumption has been that members of the public, politicians and policy makers would take the matter more seriously if only there was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.301">more information about the impacts and consequences of a warming planet</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr/">science, now, is unequivocal</a>. Humans are responsible for <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter_11.pdf">climate change and the extreme weather events it generates</a>. </p>
<p>We need to rethink the way we communicate climate change. The best tool at our disposal is a simple one: storytelling. Stories have the power to transform complex subject matters into something that feels personal, local, relatable and solvable. </p>
<p>But stories about the climate crisis – for example, about how people are responding in real time and making a difference – are still few and far between.</p>
<p>That needs to change. </p>
<h2>The role of emotions</h2>
<p>Traditionally, emotions have been seen as separate from rational judgment. Sabine Roeser, an ethics researcher, investigates the role of emotions in communicating climate change: “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01812.x">Emotions are generally considered to be irrational states and are hence excluded from communication and political decision making</a>.”</p>
<p>Emotions, Roeser argues, play a very important role in how people engage with risk. As urgent as it is, the climate crisis does not always garner the same attention as other topics, such as COVID-19 or the economy. Climate change can still feel abstract, personal and even distant. </p>
<p>But that is rapidly changing. Around the world, more people are starting to agree that the climate crisis is not just a distant threat, but one that will affect them personally and directly. </p>
<p>In Canada, concern about the personal impacts of climate change has risen <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/09/14/in-response-to-climate-change-citizens-in-advanced-economies-are-willing-to-alter-how-they-live-and-work/">seven percentage points over the past six years</a>. In 2015, 27 per cent of Canadians felt “very concerned” that the climate crisis was going to affect them personally. This past spring, that had risen to 34 per cent.</p>
<p>This growing concern over the personal impacts of climate change represents an excellent opportunity for journalists, policy makers and environmental advocates to localize and personalize climate communication to engage people more effectively through the power of storytelling.</p>
<p>As important as it is to communicate information about the impacts of climate change, it is also important to include stories that people can relate to and draw inspiration from.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Global News looks at Canadian attitudes and beliefs about climate change.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Improving science communication</h2>
<p>Enric Sala spent years as a university professor, doing research on ocean life. He thought that his increasingly alarming reports on the state of the world’s oceans would spur policy makers into action. But that did not happen so Sala left academia.</p>
<p>“When I was an academic, I thought that science was all we needed,” <a href="http://www.outrageandoptimism.org/episodes/the-nature-of-nature?hsLang=en">he said in an interview on the podcast <em>Outrage and Optimism</em></a>. “That if we continued providing the scientific papers, that for some miraculous reason, leaders would read the papers.”</p>
<p>Sala finally realized what science communicators already know: that the relationship between how much people know about the climate crisis and how they act is not necessarily linear. </p>
<p>“I thought that having enough information, leaders would be able to make rational decisions,” Sala said. But he quickly realized that “the world doesn’t work like this and most decisions are made in an irrational way.” </p>
<p>In their book <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/89308/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman/9780385676533"><em>Thinking Fast and Slow</em></a>, psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky famously describe the interplay between the “System One” brain — the intuitive, emotive, non-analytic response mechanism in our brains — and the “System Two” brain — the analytic mechanism. </p>
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<p>As journalist Dan Gardner succinctly puts it, the challenge for science communicators is to “help System 1 feel what System 2 calculates” — <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-why-dont-we-care-about-climate-change/">to make climate change feel personal, relatable and local</a>.</p>
<h2>Ecological crisis stories</h2>
<p>Most communication about the climate crisis builds on communicating facts and figures at people on the consequences and impacts of a warming planet. </p>
<p>What is missing are stories about ordinary people who are grappling with the crisis in deeply personal ways and doing something about it. Examples include stories of Indigenous communities <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/02/news/tsilhqotin-nation-sends-mining-company-home-peaceful-protest">fighting to protect environments from irreparable harm</a> and <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2019/03/13/climate-strikes-led-by-students-of-color">students rallying for climate action</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422720/original/file-20210922-19-1mqjxkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young person photographed from behind holding a sign saying WE NEED A CHANGE" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422720/original/file-20210922-19-1mqjxkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422720/original/file-20210922-19-1mqjxkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422720/original/file-20210922-19-1mqjxkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422720/original/file-20210922-19-1mqjxkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422720/original/file-20210922-19-1mqjxkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422720/original/file-20210922-19-1mqjxkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422720/original/file-20210922-19-1mqjxkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Global youth protests have brought the urgency of the climate crisis to the foreground.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>These can be very mobilizing narratives about solutions to the climate crisis. They do not gloss over the fact that the world is in grave peril, or focus on <a href="https://learninglab.solutionsjournalism.org/en/courses/basic-toolkit/introduction/how-do-i-know-its-not-solutions-journalism">technological quick fixes or hero worship</a>. These stories both communicate facts and underscore the crisis the world faces. </p>
<p>That facts-based approach is necessary. As journalist Chris Hatch observes: “<a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/newsletters/zero-carbon/2021/07/16/canada-fire-why-isnt-our-politics">Most people still have a muddled understanding of climate breakdown – of its urgency, that it’s caused overwhelmingly by fossil fuel burning, and that carbon pollution from oil, gas and coal needs to be phased out entirely</a>.”</p>
<p>Fear can also play a productive role, as there is still <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/opinion/sunday/fear-panic-climate-change-warming.html">far too much complacency</a>. Fear can mobilize action. </p>
<p>But what is consistent is the power storytelling has to engage. </p>
<h2>Effective communication</h2>
<p>Climate scientists — passionate about the work they do — are reacting with <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8154343/canadian-rockies-glacier-melt/">sadness and disbelief</a> to the speed with which glaciers are receding in the Canadian Rockies. Coral researchers are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGGBGcjdjXA&t=4328s">emotionally worn out by witnessing drastic coral bleaching</a>. And firefighters are <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2020/10/22/tough-fire-season-takes-toll-on-firefighters-mental-health">reaching breaking points</a>. </p>
<p>Stories can connect us to ecological crisis on a deeply personal level. Luckily, those personal and emotional connections are being made with increasing frequency in the news media, in documentary films and even on social media.</p>
<p>“I am an Incident Commander with the #BCWildfire Service,” Kyle Young of the B.C. Wildfire Service tweeted during this past wildfire season. “I am writing this post rather than sharing a video message because, frankly, it would be too emotional for me.”</p>
<p>Kyle described the physical and emotional toll the ever-intensifying wildfires in British Columbia had taken on him and his colleagues. </p>
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<p>These stories of sacrifice and courage are among the many relatable and personalized narratives that can connect us to the climate crisis. Climate scientist Michael Mann observes that <a href="http://www.outrageandoptimism.org/episodes/ipcc-the-tipping-point-action?hsLang=en">it took elementary and high school students protesting in the streets for the adults to finally take note of the urgency of the crisis</a>.</p>
<p>It is no longer an abstraction. It is is affecting people directly, and stories are one of the best ways to capture and communicate that urgency.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168177/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kamyar Razavi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Storytelling can be a powerful tool to communicate complicated crises like climate change. Telling relatable and local stories can help motivate people to action.Kamyar Razavi, PhD candidate in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1083052021-07-12T18:18:49Z2021-07-12T18:18:49ZReconciliation and Residential Schools: Canadians need new stories to face a future better than what we inherited<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410481/original/file-20210708-15-r4tzl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C44%2C4904%2C3208&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An upside down maple leaf is tucked behind a plaque as people gather on Parliament Hill in Ottawa at a rally to honour the lives lost to residential schools and demand justice for Indigenous peoples, on Canada Day, July 1, 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Indigenous leaders have advised Canadians to <a href="https://twitter.com/perrybellegarde/status/1410294015069757451">brace themselves for findings of more unmarked graves of children</a> on the sites of former Indian Residential Schools.</p>
<p>Speaking of the residential school legacies, Murray Sinclair, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has said: “<a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/06/30/self-educating-and-speaking-out-essential-for-reconciliation-indigenous-lecturer-says.html">Education got us into this mess and education will get us out</a>.”</p>
<p>To move forward in a positive way requires Canadians to acknowledge <a href="https://theconversation.com/egerton-ryerson-racist-philosophy-of-residential-schools-also-shaped-public-education-143039">how schooling Indigenous people and settlers has advanced colonization</a>. The problem is, too often, <a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-mmiwg-report-spurs-debate-on-the-shifting-definitions-of-genocide-118324">a refusal to know</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-many-canadians-dont-seem-to-care-about-the-lasting-effects-of-residential-schools-161968">Why many Canadians don’t seem to care about the lasting effects of residential schools</a>
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<p>Any honest historical <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/14/canada-systemic-racism-history">examination of contemporary relations</a> will challenge many Canadians’ cherished myths about our country, including the belief that Canada is a meritocracy with improving Indigenous-settler <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/23/anti-asian-racism-reaches-crisis-point-in-canada-advocates-say">and race relations</a>.</p>
<p>It also challenges the idea that all or most of those representing Canadians in government have the desire, power and commitment to solve inequities. </p>
<p>As a scholar concerned with how <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442619241">teachers’ own education shapes what happens in classrooms</a> and how <a href="https://www.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/ATA/Publications/Research/COOR-101-16%20Next%20Acts%20Monograph_2018-08.pdf">curriculum in Alberta schools</a> can help students to be ethically engaged treaty partners, there are two concepts that may be helpful: considering learning in schools as a process of encounter and thinking about people’s relationships to stories about the past. </p>
<h2>Learning is an encounter</h2>
<p>The possibilities of what students learn at school are shaped by how teachers understand what they are doing.</p>
<p>Whether teachers learn to deliver curriculum as just a body of facts, attitudes and skills or whether they see themselves providing students opportunities to encounter new possibilities matters enormously. </p>
<p>For teachers, approaching curriculum as an encounter means looking at the ways in which students at any age have already learned much about making sense of life, their country and themselves in relation to others. What they take for granted as common sense is itself a historical legacy that requires explicit study. </p>
<p>To recognize is to “re-cognize”: to bring into consciousness so as to know again. </p>
<p>Understanding teaching an encounter asks educators to not only engage their students to “re-cognize” what they have been formally taught — but also what they have informally learned. </p>
<p>For example, students have been subject to imagined but powerful social ideas related to ideal or acceptable forms of sexuality, gender and racialization. We need look no further than examples of hateful slurs on bathroom stall walls or uttered in schoolyards to know that these powerful and dehumanizing ideas persist and require explicit attention.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-black-racism-is-not-a-consensual-schoolyard-fight-160134">Anti-Black racism is not a 'consensual schoolyard fight'</a>
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<img alt="A worker cleans a rainbow path on the ground that has been vandalized." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410480/original/file-20210708-23-1qnlivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410480/original/file-20210708-23-1qnlivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410480/original/file-20210708-23-1qnlivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410480/original/file-20210708-23-1qnlivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410480/original/file-20210708-23-1qnlivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410480/original/file-20210708-23-1qnlivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410480/original/file-20210708-23-1qnlivr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A city worker cleans a rainbow pathway in Airdrie, Alta., that appears to have been tarred and feathered, in 2020. A Pride organization said it would paint over vandalism as many times as necessary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Airdrie Pride Society-Candice Kutyn</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Tensions with preparing teachers</h2>
<p>I conducted a study with five university social studies teacher instructors about how to prepare new teachers to engage the inclusion of Indigenous and francophone perspectives in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210903254083">Alberta’s (then new) current program of social studies</a>. One finding from that study was the need to get better at equipping teachers and students to navigate discomfort and apprehension.</p>
<p>In teacher education, classrooms and beyond, what is needed is a cultural shift to valuing being <a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/unsettling-canada">“unsettled”</a> by the unpleasant facts both of our historical and on-going relationships. </p>
<p>Educational institutions need to find ways to support students in understanding how we might forge our personal and collective identities ethically, responsive to all those with whom we are in treaty relations. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two jingle dancers dance at a public square under advertisemennts and an ad for Team Canada." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409757/original/file-20210705-126293-1pomrpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C336%2C5768%2C3091&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409757/original/file-20210705-126293-1pomrpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409757/original/file-20210705-126293-1pomrpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409757/original/file-20210705-126293-1pomrpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409757/original/file-20210705-126293-1pomrpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409757/original/file-20210705-126293-1pomrpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409757/original/file-20210705-126293-1pomrpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Dancers perform a Jingle Dance during a Cancel Canada Day rally in Toronto.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov</span></span>
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<h2>Easily digestable stories</h2>
<p>The German scholar Jorn Rüsen argues that the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25618580?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">ability to perceive moral obligations in the present is related to how we position ourselves in relationship to inherited stories from or about the past</a>. He says our capacities to change our current moral course of action hinges on this and he speaks of “narrative competence.” I take this to mean the extent to which a person can learn useful lessons from a variety of stories about the past to think creatively about present and possible futures.</p>
<p>But the big stories about “our” origins as members of nation-states — <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-postmodern-condition">what the theorist Jean-François Lyotard called “grand narratives”</a> — work against narrative competence. These grand narratives are <a href="http://thenhier.ca/en/node/752.html">easily digestible stories around which an imaginary “we” can unite through the exclusion of others “not us.”</a></p>
<p>Two problems grand narratives present is that they oversimplify the complexity of the past and present, and contribute to narrow national identifications about who has and has not contributed to the building of the country. As a powerful cultural story template and meme, Canada’s grand narratives get retold in textbooks, heritage minutes and movies with an occasional addition of women, Indigenous and racialized people, immigrants or workers being added for flavour.</p>
<h2>The power of stories to shape us</h2>
<p>Researchers concerned with how people are understanding the call to truth, justice and reconciliation <a href="https://arpbooks.org/Books/S/Storying-Violence">and what blocks it talk about “story-ing” — the process through which people understand their lives through the stories they are told and tell</a>. It is my hope that non-Indigenous scholars continue to learn from Indigenous scholars and story tellers like <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-truth-about-stories">Thomas King</a> and <a href="https://www.canadianscholars.ca/authors/lee-maracle">Lee Maracle</a> amongst many others in our local communities.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/leaked-alberta-school-curriculum-in-urgent-need-of-guidance-from-indigenous-wisdom-teachings-148611">Leaked Alberta school curriculum in urgent need of guidance from Indigenous wisdom teachings</a>
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<p>Canadians now need to acknowledge the power of stories to shape how people relate to each other, our non-human relatives, to the past, the nation and the world. And we need to ask whether we have the right stories to thrive well together in the face of present and future collective challenges.</p>
<p>The histories we tell each other must start with questions about justice and who we wish to collectively become. We need education that engages with our stereotypes and educated apprehensions so as to “re-story” a future better than that we have inherited. </p>
<p><em>If you are an Indian Residential School survivor, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kent den Heyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Considering our relationships to stories about the past and looking at learning as a process of encounter can help Canadians to become better treaty partners.Kent den Heyer, Professor of Secondary Education, Faculty of Education, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1623302021-06-15T13:42:27Z2021-06-15T13:42:27ZWhat Greek epics taught me about the special relationship between fathers and sons<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405985/original/file-20210611-27-1140y10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C81%2C3615%2C2489&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Odysseus reuniting with his father, Laertes.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/odysseus-and-his-father-laertes-king-of-the-cephallenians-news-photo/167069604?adppopup=true">Leemage/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Father’s Day inspires mixed emotions for many of us. Looking at advertisements of happy families could recall difficult memories and broken relationships for some. But for others, the day could invite unbidden nostalgic thoughts of parents who have long since died.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=1be7ee967d45605afddf7da9ad4ca2c049a26c0b">scholar of ancient Greek poetry</a>, I find myself reflecting on two of the most powerful paternal moments in Greek literature. <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D24%3Acard%3D507">At the end of Homer’s classic poem, “The Iliad</a>,” Priam, the king of Troy, begs his son’s killer, Achilles, to return the body of Hektor, the city’s greatest warrior, for burial. Once Achilles puts aside his famous rage and agrees, the two weep together before sharing a meal, Priam lamenting the loss of his son while Achilles contemplates that he will never see his own father again.</p>
<p>The final book of another Greek classic, “The Odyssey,” brings together a father and son as well. After 10 years of war and as many traveling at sea, Odysseus returns home and goes through a series of reunions, ending with his father, Laertes. <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D24%3Acard%3D232">When Odysseus meets his father</a>, however, he doesn’t greet him right away. Instead, he pretends to be someone who met Odysseus and lies about his location. </p>
<p>When Laertes weeps over his son’s continued absence, Odysseus loses control of his emotions too, shouting his name to his father only to be disbelieved. He reveals a scar he received as a child and Laertes still doubts him. But then Odysseus points to the trees in their orchards and begins to recount their numbers and names, the stories Laertes told him when he was young.</p>
<p>Since the time of Aristotle, interpreters have questioned “The Odyssey"’s final book. Some have wondered why Odysseus is cruel to his father, while others have asked why reuniting with him even matters. Why spend precious narrative time talking about trees when the audience is waiting to hear if Odysseus will suffer at the hands of the families whose sons he has killed?</p>
<p>I lingered in such confusion myself until I lost my own father, John, too young at 61. Reading and teaching "The Odyssey” in the same two-year period that I lost him and welcomed two children to the world changed the way I understood the father-son relationship in these poems. I realized then in the final scene, what Odysseus needed from his father was something more important: the comfort of being a son. </p>
<h2>Fathers and sons</h2>
<p>Fathers occupy an outsized place in Greek myth. They are kings and models, and too often challenges to be overcome. In Greek epic, fathers are markers of absence and dislocation. When Achilles learns his lover and friend, Patroklos, has died in “The Iliad,” he weeps and says that he always imagined his best friend returning home and <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D19%3Acard%3D309">introducing Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, to Achilles’s father, Peleus</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406240/original/file-20210614-125373-kj2k0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Son of the warrior Achilles and the princess Deidamia in a scene from the Greek mythology." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406240/original/file-20210614-125373-kj2k0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406240/original/file-20210614-125373-kj2k0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406240/original/file-20210614-125373-kj2k0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406240/original/file-20210614-125373-kj2k0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406240/original/file-20210614-125373-kj2k0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406240/original/file-20210614-125373-kj2k0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406240/original/file-20210614-125373-kj2k0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Greek myths highlight many moments in father-son relationships.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-repentance-of-neoptolemus-1880-son-of-the-warrior-news-photo/654314530?adppopup=true">The Print Collector/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The Trojan Prince Hektor’s most humanizing moment is when he laughs at his son’s <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D6%3Acard%3D414">startled cry at seeing his father’s</a> bloodied armor. Priam’s grief for Hektor’s loss stands in for the grief of all parents bereft of children taken too soon. When he hears of the death of his son, he lies prostrate on the earth, covering his head with ash and weeping. The sweetness of Hektor’s laugh foreshadows the bitter agony of his father’s pain.</p>
<p>I don’t think I had a grasp of either before I became a father and lost one.</p>
<h2>How stories bring us home</h2>
<p>Odysseus’ reunion with his father is crucial to the completion of his story, of his return home. In Greek the word “nostos,” or homecoming, is more than about a mere return to a place: It is a restoration of the self, a kind of reentry to the world of the living. For Odysseus, as I explore in my recent book “<a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501752346/the-many-minded-man/">The Many-Minded Man: The Odyssey, Modern Psychology, and the Therapy of Epic</a>,” this means returning to who he was before the war, trying to reconcile his identities as a king, a suffering veteran, a man with a wife and a father, as well as a son himself.</p>
<p>Odysseus achieves his “nostos” by telling and listening to stories. As psychologists who specialize in <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501752346/the-many-minded-man/">narrative therapy</a> explain, our identity <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4317515">comprises the stories we tell and believe about ourselves</a>. </p>
<p>The stories we tell about ourselves condition how we act in the world. Psychological studies have shown how losing a sense of agency, the belief that we can shape what happens to us, can keep us trapped in cycles of inaction and make us more prone to depression and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905522/">addiction</a>. </p>
<p>And the pain of losing a loved one can make anyone feel helpless. In recent years, researchers have investigated how <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2012.14.2/mshear">unresolved or complicated</a> grief – an ongoing, heightened state of mourning – upends lives and changes the way someone sees oneself in the world. And more pain comes from other people not knowing our stories, from not truly knowing who we are. Psychologists have shown that when people do not acknowledge their mental or emotional states, they experience “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6212305/">emotional invalidation</a>” that can have negative mental and physical consequences from depression to chronic pain.</p>
<p>Odysseus does not recognize the landscape of his home island of Ithaca when he first arrives; he needs to go through a process of reunions and observation first. But when Odysseus tells his father the stories of the trees they tended together, he reminds them both of their shared story, of the relationship and the place that brings them together. </p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p>
<h2>Family trees</h2>
<p>“The Odyssey” teaches us that home is not just a physical place, it is where memories live – it is a reminder of the stories that have shaped us.</p>
<p>When I was in third grade, my father bought several acres in the middle of the woods in southern Maine. He spent the rest of his life clearing those acres, shaping gardens, planting trees. By the time I was in high school, it took several hours to mow the lawn. He and I repaired old stone walls, dug beds for phlox, and planted rhododendron bushes and a maple tree.</p>
<p>My father was not an uncomplicated man. I probably remember the work we did on that property so well because our relationship was otherwise distant. He was almost completely deaf from birth, and this shaped the way he engaged with the world and the kinds of experiences he shared with his family. My mother tells me he was worried about having children because he wouldn’t be able to hear them cry. </p>
<p>He died in the winter of 2011, and I returned home in the summer to honor his wishes and spread his ashes on a mountain in central Maine with my brother. I had not lived in Maine for over a decade before his passing. The pine trees I used to climb were unrecognizable; the trees and bushes I had planted with my father were in the same place, but they had changed: they were larger, grown wilder, identifiable only because of where they were planted in relation to one another.</p>
<p>That was when I was no longer confused about the walk Odysseus took through the trees with his father, Laertes. I cannot help but imagine what it would be like to walk that land with my father again, to joke about the absurdity of turning pine forests into lawn.</p>
<p>“The Odyssey” ends with Laertes and Odysseus standing together with the third generation, the young Telemachus. In a way, Odysseus gets the fantasy ending Achilles couldn’t even imagine for himself: He stands together in his home with his father and his son.</p>
<p>In my father’s last year, I introduced him to his first grandchild, my daughter. Ten years later, as I try to ignore another painful reminder of his absence, I can only imagine how the birth of my third, another daughter, would have lit up his face. </p>
<p>“The Odyssey,” I believe, teaches us that we are shaped by the people who recognize us and the stories we share together. When we lose our loved ones, we can fear that there are no new stories to be told. But then we find the stories that we can tell our children. </p>
<p>This year, as I celebrate a 10th Father’s Day as a father and without one, I keep this close to heart: Telling these stories to my children creates a new home and makes that impossible return less painful.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Christensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On Father’s Day, a scholar of ancient Greek poetry explains how he came to understand the father-son relationship and his journey of loss and yearning through reading the epics.Joel Christensen, Professor of Classical Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1589602021-04-15T03:00:00Z2021-04-15T03:00:00ZBrittany Higgins’ memoir will join a powerful Australian collection reclaiming women’s stories of trauma. Here are four<p><a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/how-australian-politics-has-been-shaken-to-the-core-in-the-wake-of-brittany-higgins-rape-allegation">Brittany Higgins</a> has <a href="https://twitter.com/PenguinBooksAus/status/1381872347339177984">signed a book deal</a> with Penguin Random House Australia. Not just any book — a <a href="https://celadonbooks.com/what-is-a-memoir/">memoir</a>. </p>
<p>Higgins <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com.au/brittany-higgins-memoir">says her book</a> will be a chance to tell “a firsthand account of what it was like surviving a media storm that turned into a movement”.</p>
<p>Memoir can help readers explore and understand trauma from a very personal perspective. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170601-can-writing-about-pain-make-you-heal-faster">Research suggests</a> writing can be used to work through, or even heal from, <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma">trauma</a>. It is a chance for a writer like Higgins,
who alleges she was raped in a senior minister’s office, to reclaim her story. </p>
<p>Here are four powerful Australian examples of women’s memoirs about trauma and abuse.</p>
<h2>1. Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395153/original/file-20210415-13-1uaq5ce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="book cover: eggshell skull" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395153/original/file-20210415-13-1uaq5ce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395153/original/file-20210415-13-1uaq5ce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395153/original/file-20210415-13-1uaq5ce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395153/original/file-20210415-13-1uaq5ce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395153/original/file-20210415-13-1uaq5ce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395153/original/file-20210415-13-1uaq5ce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395153/original/file-20210415-13-1uaq5ce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/other-books/Eggshell-Skull-Bri-Lee-9781760295776">Allen & Unwin</a></span>
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<p>Sydney-based author, writer, and researcher Bri Lee witnessed justice and heartbreak while working as a <a href="https://www.courts.qld.gov.au/about/jobs-with-the-courts/judges-associates">judge’s associate </a>in the Queensland District Court. Two years later, she took her own abuser to court.</p>
<p>Although the abuse occurred in childhood, Lee pursued a conviction for the perpetrator (a family friend) in young adulthood. In <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/other-books/Eggshell-Skull-Bri-Lee-9781760295776">her 2018 book</a>, she acknowledges that the longer the time between an incident and investigation, <a href="https://theconversation.com/delays-in-reporting-alleged-rapes-are-common-even-years-later-this-isnt-a-barrier-to-justice-156201">the more potential hurdles may arise</a>; her journey for justice is far from straightforward.</p>
<p>Lee acknowledges this in the way she explores personal, public, and legal discourse surrounding abuse. She jumps back and forth in time, and weaves her story with others in the <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/legal-system">Australian legal system</a> in a blend of journalistic and personal storytelling. This approach also acknowledges <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150205-how-extreme-fear-shapes-the-mind">trauma can affect memory</a>. Details can be unbearably clear, difficult to remember, or both.</p>
<p>Through poetic reflection, and searing critique, Lee carves a space for her story.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-weeks-news-has-put-sexual-assault-survivors-at-risk-of-secondary-trauma-heres-how-it-happens-and-how-to-cope-156482">This week's news has put sexual assault survivors at risk of 'secondary trauma'. Here's how it happens, and how to cope</a>
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<h2>2. No Matter Our Wreckage by Gemma Carey</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395154/original/file-20210415-16-a8gdhh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="book cover: No matter our wreckage" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395154/original/file-20210415-16-a8gdhh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395154/original/file-20210415-16-a8gdhh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395154/original/file-20210415-16-a8gdhh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395154/original/file-20210415-16-a8gdhh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395154/original/file-20210415-16-a8gdhh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395154/original/file-20210415-16-a8gdhh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395154/original/file-20210415-16-a8gdhh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/other-books/No-Matter-Our-Wreckage-Gemma-Carey-9781760877675">Allen & Unwin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From age 12, Gemma Carey was groomed and abused by a man twice her age. In young adulthood, Carey discovers her mother knew about the abuse. When her mother dies, the enduring effects of this betrayal surface.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-can-you-keep-a-secret-family-memoirs-break-taboos-and-trust-52699">Family memoirs are often taboo</a>; family memoir about child abuse and complicity even more so. Despite fraught themes, the Sydney-based author and academic writes with rigour and honesty. <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/other-books/No-Matter-Our-Wreckage-Gemma-Carey-9781760877675">Her 2020 memoir</a> asks us to examine social — and family — structures which allow these injustices. </p>
<p>Carey’s tone is dark but inquisitive. She speaks directly to readers, incorporating research, and unpicking the threads of trauma and grief.</p>
<p>Carey emphasises writing about abuse doesn’t always fit a mould. In an interview, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/23/i-wrote-a-memoir-about-abuse-that-doesnt-mean-youre-entitled-to-every-detail">she explains</a>, “Writing trauma stories that will change societal narratives around abuse and victims involves showing the contradictions that exist in trauma and grief”.</p>
<p>In her book, she reflects on her younger self, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was broken and trying to work out how to fix myself … no one had ever given me the tools… I had to figure it out on my own.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This rebuilding took time. At 12, Carey buried her experience, at 17 she successfully took the perpetrator to court, in adulthood, she wrote her memoir.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-why-we-need-childrens-life-stories-like-i-am-greta-148178">Friday essay: why we need children's life stories like I Am Greta</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>3. The Anti-Cool Girl by Rosie Waterland</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395155/original/file-20210415-22-1ojg77g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="book cover: the anti cool girl" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395155/original/file-20210415-22-1ojg77g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395155/original/file-20210415-22-1ojg77g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395155/original/file-20210415-22-1ojg77g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395155/original/file-20210415-22-1ojg77g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395155/original/file-20210415-22-1ojg77g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395155/original/file-20210415-22-1ojg77g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395155/original/file-20210415-22-1ojg77g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://i.harperapps.com/hcanz/covers/9781460750643/y648.jpg">Harper Collins</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460750643/the-anti-cool-girl/">The Anti-Cool Girl</a> (2018), comedian and writer Rosie Waterland reveals a turbulent childhood; drug and alcohol-addicted parents, absent family, death and loss, poverty, mental health struggles, and sexual abuse experienced within the Australian <a href="https://www.sa.gov.au/topics/care-and-support/foster-care/how-adoption-is-different-from-foster-care">foster care</a> system.</p>
<p>Waterland writes unflinchingly. She tackles difficult subjects with intelligence and humour. Each chapter is addressed to herself: “You will be in rehab several times before you’re ten years old”, or “Your foster dad will stick his hands down his pants, and you will feel so, so lucky”. Like Carey, Waterland acknowledges trauma often manifests in ways which might seem “odd” or “unconventional” to others.</p>
<p>While comedic throughout, Waterland approaches her trauma with care and, understandably, anger. <a href="https://honey.nine.com.au/latest/rosie-waterland-abuse-story/4c9c33d1-28e4-401b-b94b-cd7562b3be4e">She later lamented</a> that she was unable to name her abuser, due to fears of litigation.</p>
<p>The Anti-Cool Girl, blending humour and pain, remains a testament to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-25/rosie-waterland-vows-to-stop-mining-her-painful-past-for-comedy/10879424">Waterland’s endurance and survival</a>.</p>
<h2>4. The Girls by Chloe Higgins</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395157/original/file-20210415-13-kvg7ac.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="book cover: the girls" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395157/original/file-20210415-13-kvg7ac.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395157/original/file-20210415-13-kvg7ac.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395157/original/file-20210415-13-kvg7ac.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395157/original/file-20210415-13-kvg7ac.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395157/original/file-20210415-13-kvg7ac.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395157/original/file-20210415-13-kvg7ac.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395157/original/file-20210415-13-kvg7ac.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781760782238/">Pan Macmillan</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Chloe Higgins’ sisters — Carlie and Lisa — died in a car accident when Higgins was 17. In <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781760782238/">her 2019 memoir</a> Higgins — a Wollongong-based author and academic — asks us to consider the nature of ongoing grief and the way trauma stretches over different experiences.</p>
<p>Higgins’ grief influences her sexual experiences in often troubling ways — but the way she discusses it is revolutionary. She explores the weaponisation of sex, how it is a form of self-harm; sex and substance abuse, and the pleasures and pressures of sex work. </p>
<p>She jumps between stories of gentility (caring lovers, exploration, sex clients who felt more like friends) and horror stories featuring <a href="https://www.womenshealth.gov/relationships-and-safety/other-types/sexual-coercion">coercion</a> and fear, threats, and sex without consent. Higgins examines her own experiences and links them to memory, identity, and control.</p>
<p>In her Author’s Note, Higgins reflects: “Publishing this book is about stepping out of my shame”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These are not the only parts of me, but they are the parts I’ve chosen to focus on … Since that period of my life, I have begun to recover.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These books signal the importance of memoir as a platform where personal trauma stories are told, reclaimed, and witnessed. They are a valuable (and intimate) contribution to the conversation about trauma and sexual abuse in Australia.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-the-story-writing-trauma-in-cynthia-banhams-a-certain-light-115301">Inside the story: writing trauma in Cynthia Banham's A Certain Light</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158960/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marina Deller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Brittany Higgins’ forthcoming memoir will allow her to tell her story in her own words. She’ll join a group of strong women who’ve done just that.Marina Deller, PhD Candidate, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1505182020-12-14T13:19:59Z2020-12-14T13:19:59ZMermaids aren’t real – but they’ve fascinated people around the world for ages<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373403/original/file-20201207-21-12cp4yd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C2690%2C1775&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Superstition or wishful thinking could trick you into thinking you saw one of these mythical creatures.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MermaidParade/0154fe6abe4e4c2cae3ccf829c03c60d/">AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Are mermaids real? – Verona, age 9, Owensboro, Kentucky</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>Mermaids – underwater creatures that are half fish and half human – do not exist except in people’s imaginations. Scientists who study the ocean for the United States have investigated their possible existence and <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/mermaids.html">say no evidence of mermaids has ever been found</a>. </p>
<p>You might wonder why government scientists looked into this question. There are many stories about mermaids on TV, the internet and in magazines that pretend to be real science news. They try to fool people into believing mermaids are real, without any true evidence. This is called “cryptoscience” or “cryptozoology,” but it’s not real science. Don’t let intriguing stories deceive you about mermaids and other fun but made-up creatures, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. </p>
<p>But just because mermaids are not real does not mean they are not meaningful. Mermaids, or merfolk as they are sometimes called because not all of them are female, have a long history and are known all over the world – the same way dragons, fairies and unicorns are.</p>
<h2>More than one kind of mermaid</h2>
<p>Some of the earliest <a href="http://mermaidsofearth.com/on-the-origin-of-mermaids/">mermaid stories are part of ancient Greek mythology</a> from over 3,000 years ago. The Greeks imagined lots of creatures that were part human and part animal, like harpies (bird and human) and centaurs (horse and human). </p>
<p>Sometimes their mermaids were good, like the Greek goddess Atargatis, who protected humans, but others were dangerous, like the Sirens, who sang beautiful songs that made sailors crash their ships into rocks and sink. <a href="https://darkemeraldtales.wordpress.com/2018/04/03/merrow-seducers-of-the-irish-seas/">Irish mermaids, called “merrows</a>,” which date back 1,000 years, were also considered a sign of bad luck. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bronze statue of a mermaid with two tails. She is holding a tail in each hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A two-tailed mermaid from Padua, Italy, made in the first half of the 16th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mermaid-italian-padua-first-half-16th-century-italian-padua-news-photo/1277896003">Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mermaid bodies have been imagined differently in different places. There’s a legendary <a href="http://yokai.com/ningyo/">Japanese mermaid called a “ningyo</a>,” which is mostly a fish, but has a human face. Maybe you’ve seen the <a href="https://movies.disney.com/ponyo">animated film “Ponyo</a>,” about a goldfish with a little girl’s face? In Europe, there were mermaids called <a href="http://symboldictionary.net/?p=1153">“melusines” who had two fish tails</a>. </p>
<p>Stories about mermaids also varied depending on where and when they were told. Only some are about mermaids falling in love and wanting to be human, like Ariel and Ponyo. In the storybook “<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/mermaids-on-mars/9781614486701">Mermaids From Mars</a>,” for instance, mermaids have used up all the water on Mars and come to Earth to help people learn the lesson of water conservation. </p>
<p>In a lot of places, mermaids were used as symbols of power and wealth. For example, the city of Warsaw in Poland has a legend of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.12.2.13">mermaid who is considered to be the protector of the city</a>. There’s a huge statue of her there, and she is even featured on the city’s coat of arms. Many castles in Europe also have mermaid symbols to demonstrate royal power and wealth – <a href="https://www.dieriegersburg.at/geschichte/">even in countries with no oceans, like Austria</a>. </p>
<h2>Why mermaids?</h2>
<p>You may wonder how mermaids came to be. Why did so many people around the world imagine them throughout history? It’s an interesting question that probably has more than one answer.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Period drawing of a Viking wooden ship surrounded by evil looking mermaids." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Danish Viking ship under attack by mermaids, circa 1200.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/circa-1200-a-danish-viking-ship-beset-by-mermaids-news-photo/51241447">Photo by Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Superstitious sailors, <a href="https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/10/12/mermaids/">including Christopher Columbus</a> and others, reported seeing mermaids on their travels, but scientists and historians think they probably saw real animals, like manatees or seals.</p>
<p>Throughout time, people have often created stories to help explain all kinds of things they couldn’t understand at the time. Stories also <a href="https://lithub.com/how-mermaid-stories-illustrate-complex-truths-about-being-human/">help people understand their own dreams, desires and fears</a>. </p>
<p>Whatever the reasons, people still clearly love mermaids. You can buy mermaid dolls, coloring books and costumes. You can find them on flags, coins and Starbucks coffee. At some aquariums and water parks, real people perform as mermaids and have to practice holding their breath and keeping their eyes open underwater for a long time. There’s even a brand of <a href="https://www.funslurp.com/mermaid-farts-cotton-candy">cotton candy called “Mermaid Farts,”</a> which is described as “sweet and fluffy!” </p>
<p>Even though mermaids are not really real, they can feed your imagination and creativity. Mermaids are also important because they are a shared idea that has linked people together around the world for a very long time.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Goggin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mermaids are not real, but are meaningful to people around the world.Peter Goggin, Associate Professor of English, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1486112020-11-03T19:42:44Z2020-11-03T19:42:44ZLeaked Alberta school curriculum in urgent need of guidance from Indigenous wisdom teachings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367114/original/file-20201102-15-1qqshgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C352%2C2861%2C1755&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Cree concept 'wâhkôhtowin' emphasizes more-than-human kinship relations. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Alberta, drafts of a proposed kindergarten to Grade 4 curriculum for social studies and fine arts were recently leaked to the media and have been broadly criticized by education experts. </p>
<p>The leaked curriculum suggests references to residential schools “can probably best be saved for later when learners are more mature,” for example Grade 9, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/learning-about-residential-schools-in-elementary-grades-non-negotiable-education-minister-says-1.5772176">and minimizes the impact of the schools and their harmful reach in the Canadian colonial context</a>. </p>
<p>The drafts would see Grade 1 students become familiar with <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/education-experts-slam-leaked-alberta-curriculum-proposals-1.5766570">the art of Claude Monet, Georgia O'Keefe and Pablo Picasso and introduce learning Bible verses and Indigenous stories about creation as poetry</a>. In the leaked documents, the social studies curriculum for kindergarten to Grade 4 contains a list of points with the header <a href="http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/7273491/2020-07-31-Social-Studies-K-to-2-Champion.pdf">“sounds like mysticism” with a list of crossed-off items that includes oral history and the wisdom teaching that “the land sustains everything.”</a></p>
<p>The leaked documents also show signs that the authors prefer a “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1494485">back to the basics</a>” approach that stresses learning key facts. The authors express nostalgia for an imagined simpler time when students were required to memorize key dates and events related to the history of the Canadian nation, heritage and Indigenous Peoples. These dates include histories such as 1701 being the date when the Great Peace of Montréal between New France and 39 First Nations was established or 1885 as the date of the second Riel Rebellion/Métis Resistance. </p>
<p>The problem here is that simply plugging in more information about events that include Indigenous Peoples maintains an education model focused on consuming facts as the scaffolding for knowing.</p>
<p>Research shows that <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-030-37210-1">helping students find meaning from the study of the past is much more complex than simple memorization and recall</a>.</p>
<p>The leaked curriculum documents also frame references to Indigenous topics and themes in the past — as though we as Indigenous Peoples don’t exist in the present. Incorporating course content that devalues and marginalizes the significance of Indigenous knowledges, experiences and histories <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-senator-criticizes-alberta-proposal-to-shield-younger-students-from">is an expression of racism and white supremacy</a>. </p>
<p>Instead of this, we need to focus on leading students to understand relationships with each other, with Indigenous communities and with the world in qualitatively different ways.</p>
<h2>Stories for good guidance</h2>
<p>When teaching and learning is reduced to simply memorizing and recalling information, this ignores the complex and varied ways that humans perceive the world.</p>
<p>School curricula are compilations of stories told to students regarding knowledge and their relationship to it. The stories children hear in schools are meant to foster qualities and understandings that express specific notions of what it means to be human and how to live as citizens. </p>
<p>As a descendent of the amiskwaciwiyiniwak (Beaver Hills people) and the Papaschase Cree who has studied how Indigenous philosophies can expand and enhance our understandings of what and how children should be taught, I find there is much at stake in these curriculum debates. </p>
<p>Soon after Alberta’s United Conservative Party (UCP) was elected in April 2019, a UCP-appointed panel of experts reviewed curriculum work undertaken by the previous NDP government and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-curriculum-review-panel-1.5256237">Education Minister Adriana LaGrange announced a new direction</a>. The government says the leaked material consists of only early drafts, but <a href="https://www.teachers.ab.ca/News%20Room/NewsReleases/Pages/Teachers-Have-Lost-Trust-in-Curriculum-Redesign-Efforts.aspx">the Alberta Teachers Association has criticized</a> the goverment’s process and its direction.</p>
<p>In the context of Alberta today, we need leadership that provides foresight and guidance on how to understand and address the key concerns of our times: climate change, systemic racism, wellness and economic sustainability. We need stories that <a href="https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/02/25/Cree-Way-of-Living">teach how humans are related to each other and to all life forms</a> rather than reinforcing inherited colonial divides.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VM1J3evcEyQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Dwayne Donald discusses how 2009 Alberta curriculum advanced ideas of resilience understood within the confines of our existing capitalist oil economy.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reviving colonial myths</h2>
<p>The leaked curriculum documents express a clear desire to revive the old story of the Canadian nation told in schools for many generations. This story characterizes Canada as a nation created through the hard work and perseverance of settlers who <a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/canada%E2%80%99s-vanishing-point">brought prosperity and progress to a land perceived to be empty</a>.</p>
<p>Prioritizing this narrative marginalizes Indigenous standpoints and experiences. It draws on a divisive colonial approach to education that my research has explored through the <a href="https://www.mfnerc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/004_Donald.pdf">mythic symbol of the fort</a> at the heart of the creation story in Canada.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.teachers.ab.ca/News%20Room/ata%20magazine/Volume-93/Number-4/Pages/Teachers-aboriginal-perspectives.aspx">fort is a symbol of colonialism that teaches separation</a> and exclusion of Indigenous Peoples from everyone else. In the Canadian West, forts normalize the colonial divides in Canadian society. Schools and what they teach are founded on these colonial divides. Such teachings reinforce Eurocentric standards and enhance existing divides. </p>
<p>When European explorers landed on Turtle Island they instigated a centuries-long process of imposing a universalized model of the human being upon people they encountered. Jamaican cultural theorist Sylvia Wynter has noted that this process served to present a European-specific <a href="https://cosmopolis.woo.cat/media/pages/events/08-11-19/collective-thinking/2931087183-1573123705/sylvia-wynter-1492-a-new-world-view.pdf">conception of being human that is presented as universally good for all people to aspire to be</a>.</p>
<p>Formal schooling became a primary means by which those with power could discipline the citizenry to conform to this model. This has resulted in schooling approaches that perpetuate <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-intimacies-of-four-continents">falsely universalized assumptions of human knowing and being</a>. These assumptions have become so pervasive that it has become difficult to imagine different ways to be a human being.</p>
<p>This struggle is perhaps the most pressing challenge we face today if we wish to live in more collaborative ways. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Walls of Fort Edmonton" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366791/original/file-20201030-17-viq44v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366791/original/file-20201030-17-viq44v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366791/original/file-20201030-17-viq44v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366791/original/file-20201030-17-viq44v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366791/original/file-20201030-17-viq44v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366791/original/file-20201030-17-viq44v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366791/original/file-20201030-17-viq44v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fort Edmonton seen in July 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">(John Stanton/Wikimedia Commons)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Kinship relations</h2>
<p>The recent leaked curriculum documents in Alberta are evidence of the desire to continue with this “fort-ified” approach to education. They provide little guidance on how to proceed differently. What is urgently required instead are stories that teach young people to be good relatives to their human and more-than-human kin. </p>
<p>The Cree wisdom concepts most central to this understanding of kinship relationality are <em>wîcêhtowin</em> and <em>wâhkôhtowin</em>. </p>
<p><em>wîcêhtowin</em> refers to the life-giving energy that is generated when people face each other as relatives and build trustful relationships by connecting with others by putting respect, kindness and compassion at the forefront of our interactions.</p>
<p>Translated into English, <em>wâhkôhtowin</em> is generally understood to refer to human kinship. <em>wâhkôhtowin</em> describes practical ethical guidelines regarding how you are related to your kin and how to conduct yourself as a good relative. However, <em>wâhkôhtowin</em> also emphasizes more-than-human kinship relations. This emphasis guides human beings to understand themselves as fully enmeshed in networks of relationships. </p>
<p>Following the kinship relational wisdom of <em>wâhkôhtowin</em>, we’re called to repeatedly acknowledge and honour the fact that the sun, the land, the wind, the water, the animals and the trees (just to name a few) are quite literally our relatives: we carry parts of each of them inside our own bodies. </p>
<p>Taken together, <em>wîcêhtowin</em> and <em>wâhkôhtowin</em> can be understood as promoting an ecological understanding of kinship relationality that becomes apparent to us as human beings when we honour the sacred ecology that supports all life and living. </p>
<p>Today, now more than ever it seems, young people need stories that teach them how to be good relatives with all their relations — human and more-than-human.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148611/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dwayne Donald has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada</span></em></p>Leaked curriculum drafts in Alberta show a desire to revive old colonial myths. To face today’s challenges, we need stories that teach how humans are related to each other and to all life forms.Dwayne Donald, Associate professor, Faculty of Education, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1309882020-02-13T14:14:08Z2020-02-13T14:14:08ZAmerica’s postwar fling with romance comics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315078/original/file-20200212-61912-op3vlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=125%2C52%2C1067%2C711&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With over 100 issues, 'Young Love' was one of the longest running romance comics series. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gary Lee Watson Comic Book Collection, Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of South Carolina Libraries</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last year, comic book enthusiast <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/582733/gary-watson-comic-collection-donated-university-south-carolina">Gary Watson</a> donated his massive personal collection to <a href="https://sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/university_libraries/browse/irvin_dept_special_collections/index.php">the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections</a> at the University of South Carolina. </p>
<p>As the <a href="https://sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/university_libraries/about/contact/faculty-staff/weisenburg_michael.php">reference and instruction librarian</a>, I’m tasked with getting to know the collection so I can exhibit parts of it and use the materials for teaching. One of the great pleasures of assessing and cataloging Watson’s collection has been learning about how comic books have changed over time. Sifting through Watson’s vast collection of 140,000-plus comics, I’m able to see the genre’s entire trajectory.</p>
<p>Before World War II, superheroes were all the rage. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/17/art-spiegelman-golden-age-superheroes-were-shaped-by-the-rise-of-fascism">Reflecting anxieties</a> over the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and the march to war, readers yearned for mythical figures who would defend the disenfranchised and uphold liberal democratic ideals.</p>
<p>Once the war ended, the content of comic books started to change. Superheroes gradually fell out of fashion and a proliferation of genres emerged. Some, such as <a href="http://www.powerhousebooks.com/books/golden-age-western-comics/">Westerns</a>, offered readers a nostalgic fantasy of a pre-industrial America. Others, like <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114164218">true crime</a> and <a href="https://www.outrightgeekery.com/2017/10/18/the-rise-fall-and-rebirth-of-horror-comics-a-history/">horror</a>, hooked readers with their lurid tales, while <a href="https://comicsalliance.com/best-silver-age-sci-fi-covers-gallery/">science fiction comics</a> appealed to the wonders of technological advancement and trepidation about where it might lead us.</p>
<p>But there was also a brief period when the medium was dominated by the romance genre. </p>
<p>Grounded in artistic and narrative realism, romance comics were remarkably different from their superhero and sci-fi peers. While the post-war popularity of romance comics only lasted a few years, these love stories ended up actually having a strong influence on other genres.</p>
<h2>Romance comics’ origin story</h2>
<p>Though today they are most famous for creating “Captain America,” the creative duo of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=gUCgAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false">launched the romance comic book genre in 1947</a> with the publication of a series called “Young Romance.” </p>
<p>Teen comedy series like “<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/1/26/13149304/archie-comics-riverdale-evolution">Archie</a>” had been around for a few years and occasionally had romantic story lines and subplots. Romance pulps and true confession magazines had been around for decades. </p>
<p>But a comic dedicated to telling romantic stories hadn’t been done before. With the phrase “Designed for the More Adult Readers of Comics” <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Young_Romance_Issue_1.jpg">printed on the cover</a>, Simon and Kirby signaled a deliberate shift in expectations of what a comic could be. </p>
<p>While most scholars have argued that <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9pPgDE63U9oC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA127#v=onepage&q&f=false">romance comics tend to reinforce conservative values</a> – making marriage the ultimate goal for women and placing family and middle-class stability on a pedestal – the real pleasure of reading these books came from the mildly scandalous behavior of their characters and the untoward plots that the narratives were ostensibly warning against. With titles like “I Was a Pick-Up!,” “The Farmer’s Wife” and “The Plight of the Suspicious Bridegroom,” “Young Romance” and its sister titles <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9pPgDE63U9oC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PP1&dq=Comic%20Book%20Nation%3A%20The%20Transformation%20of%20Youth%20Culture%20in%20America.&pg=PA128#v=onepage&q&f=false">quickly sold out of their original print runs</a> and began outselling other comics genres.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315088/original/file-20200212-61958-1y8dre8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315088/original/file-20200212-61958-1y8dre8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315088/original/file-20200212-61958-1y8dre8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315088/original/file-20200212-61958-1y8dre8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315088/original/file-20200212-61958-1y8dre8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315088/original/file-20200212-61958-1y8dre8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315088/original/file-20200212-61958-1y8dre8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315088/original/file-20200212-61958-1y8dre8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Issue #1 of ‘Teen-Age Romances’ (St. John, 1949).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gary Lee Watson Comic Book Collection, Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of South Carolina Libraries</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other publishers noticed the popularity of the genre and followed suit with their own romance titles, most of which closely followed Simon and Kirby’s style and structure. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ndJ7BwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">By 1950</a>, about 1 in 5 of all comic books were romance comics, with almost 150 romance titles being sold by over 20 publishers.</p>
<p>The rage for all things romance was so sudden that publishers eager to take advantage of the new market altered titles and even content in order to save on <a href="https://www.comichron.com/faq/postalsalesdata.html">second-class postage permits</a>. Second-class or periodical postage is a reduced rate that publishers can use to save on the cost of mailing to recipients. Rather than apply for new permits every time they tested a new title, comics publishers would simply alter a failing title while retaining the issue numbering in order to keep using the preexisting permit. To comics historians, this is a telltale sign that the industry is undergoing a sudden change. </p>
<p>One striking example of this is when comics publisher Fawcett ended its failing superhero comic “<a href="https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=72086">Captain Midnight</a>” in 1948 with issue #67 and launched its new title, “<a href="https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=63254">Sweethearts</a>,” in issue #68. In this case, the death of a superhero comic became the birth of a romance comic. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315086/original/file-20200212-61912-e6lwjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315086/original/file-20200212-61912-e6lwjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315086/original/file-20200212-61912-e6lwjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315086/original/file-20200212-61912-e6lwjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315086/original/file-20200212-61912-e6lwjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315086/original/file-20200212-61912-e6lwjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315086/original/file-20200212-61912-e6lwjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Issue #3 of ‘Bride’s Romances’ (Quality Comics, 1953).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gary Lee Watson Comic Book Collection, Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of South Carolina Libraries</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With so many new titles flooding newsstands and department stores, the bubble was bound to burst. In what comic book historian Michelle Nolan <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ndJ7BwAAQBAJ&lpg=PR4&ots=e23lp1L4DI&dq=Nolan%2C%20Michelle%20(2008).%20Love%20on%20the%20Racks%3A%20A%20History%20of%20American%20Romance%20Comics.%20McFarland%20%26%20Company%2C%20Inc.&pg=PA62#v=onepage&q&f=false">has dubbed</a> “the love glut,” 1950 and 1951 witnessed a rapid boom and bust of the romance genre. Many romance titles were canceled by the mid-1950s, even as stalwarts of the genre, such as “Young Romance,” remained in print into the mid-1970s. </p>
<p>There was the brief popularity of the sub-genre of gothic romance comics in the 1970s – series with names like “The Sinister House of Secret Love” and “The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love.” But romance comics would never approach their brief, postwar peak.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315111/original/file-20200212-61966-vvwu6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315111/original/file-20200212-61966-vvwu6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315111/original/file-20200212-61966-vvwu6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315111/original/file-20200212-61966-vvwu6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315111/original/file-20200212-61966-vvwu6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315111/original/file-20200212-61966-vvwu6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315111/original/file-20200212-61966-vvwu6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gothic romances – like this issue of ‘The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love’ – had a brief run in the 1970s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gary Lee Watson Comic Book Collection, Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of South Carolina Libraries</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A brief boom, an enduring influence</h2>
<p>Among collectors, issues of romance comics are less sought after than those of other genres. For this reason, they tend to go under the radar.</p>
<p>Romance comics, however, featured work by pioneering artists like <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/real-life-comic-book-superhero-74267">Lily Renée</a> and <a href="https://www.twomorrows.com/media/MattBakerPreview.pdf">Matt Baker</a>, both of whom worked on first issue of “Teen-Age Romances” in 1949. </p>
<p>Baker is the first-known black artist to work in the comic book industry and Renée was one of comics’ first female artists. Prior to working on “Teen-Age Romances,” they both drew “<a href="https://www.goodgirlcomics.com/good-girl-history/">good girl art</a>” – a set of artistic tropes borrowed from pinups and pulp magazines – for several titles. Their work in both genres exemplifies how earlier pulp magazine themes of desire and seduction could readily be applied to newer genres. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315090/original/file-20200212-61912-w4chvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315090/original/file-20200212-61912-w4chvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315090/original/file-20200212-61912-w4chvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315090/original/file-20200212-61912-w4chvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315090/original/file-20200212-61912-w4chvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315090/original/file-20200212-61912-w4chvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315090/original/file-20200212-61912-w4chvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315090/original/file-20200212-61912-w4chvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘But He’s the Boy I Love’ was one of the few romance comic to feature black characters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gary Lee Watson Comic Book Collection, Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of South Carolina Libraries</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the “love glut,” sub-genre mashups nonetheless emerged. For example, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ndJ7BwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA86#v=onepage&q&f=false">cowboy romances</a> were briefly popular. Later, in response to the civil rights movement, Marvel published the 1970 story “<a href="https://truelovecomicstales.blogspot.com/2016/02/our-love-story-but-hes-boy-i-love.html">But He’s the Boy I Love</a>,” which was the first story in a romance comic to feature African-American characters since Fawcett’s three-issue run of “<a href="https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=360151">Negro Romance</a>” in 1950. </p>
<p>Even after romance comics largely fell out of fashion, the genre’s visual tropes and narrative themes became more prevalent during what’s known as the “<a href="https://www.cosmiccomics.vegas/latest-news/the-history-of-silver-age-comic-books/">Silver Age</a>,” a superhero revival that lasted from 1956 to 1970. Titles such as “Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane” often borrowed heavily from romance for their plots to generate intrigue and tension in the hopes of driving up sales. </p>
<p>Issue 89, in which Lois marries Bruce Wayne, is a prime example of such marketing techniques. Issues such as these were often situated as “what if” narratives that offered readers speculative story lines, such as “What if Lois Lane married Bruce Wayne?” Though they’re generally thought of as separate from the superhero canon, these love stories show that comic book writers had internalized the main narrative techniques of romance comics even if the genre itself was in decline. </p>
<p>But other comics didn’t merely use romantic themes for the occasional gimmick issue. Instead, they made the love lives of their characters a central plot point and a fundamental aspect of their characters’ identities. Comics such as the “Fantastic Four” and the “X-Men” rely heavily on the heated emotions and jealousies found in group dynamics and love triangles.</p>
<p>Take Wolverine. Presumably tough and stoic, he’s so enamored of Jean Grey – and so envious of her love interest, Scott Summers – that you could argue that unrequited love is one of his primary motivations throughout the series.</p>
<p>Thanks to romance comics, even stoic superheroes got bitten by the love bug.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael C. Weisenburg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>During the ‘love glut,’ roughly 1 in 5 of all comic books were romance comics, as publishers scrambled to appease readers’ appetites for scandalous storylines.Michael C. Weisenburg, Reference & Instruction Librarian at Irvin Department of Rare Books & Special Collections, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1300432020-02-03T13:53:26Z2020-02-03T13:53:26ZDo authors really put deeper meaning into poems and stories – or do readers make it up?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312578/original/file-20200129-92954-lqsff9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many books, like 'Charlotte's Web,' contain symbolism.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/near-rural-window-daylight-dark-room-1486987019">Dmitriy Os Ivanov/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Do authors really put deeper meaning into poems and stories – or do readers make it up? Jordan, 14, Indianapolis, Indiana</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>One of my favorite novels is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/07/05/137452030/how-e-b-white-spun-charlottes-web">“Charlotte’s Web</a>,” the famous story of a friendship between a pig and a spider.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=b2aAT9YAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I often talk</a> about this novel with my students studying children’s literature. At some point, someone always asks about “deeper meaning.” Is it really a story of, say, the cycle of death and rebirth? Or the importance of friendship? Or the significance of writing?</p>
<p>Or is it just a story of life in the barn, with talking animals? </p>
<p>In a way, it doesn’t matter. Because every writer is also a reader, and that means that whatever a writer puts into a story probably came from somewhere else, whether it’s another story, or a poem, or their own life experience.</p>
<p>And readers, too, will bring their own experience – of other stories, other poems and life – and that will direct their interpretation of what they absorb. We can see one example of this if we look at the spider in “Charlotte’s Web.”</p>
<h2>The meaning of character</h2>
<p>That spider, Charlotte, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/07/biographer-spider-charlottes-web">is based on a real spider</a>. We know this because E.B. White drew pictures of spiders, studied them and made sure to be as accurate as he could when he wrote about them.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Charlotte’s Web’ by E. B. White.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte%27s_Web#/media/File:CharlotteWeb.png">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But, to a reader she <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Arachne">may also represent Arachne</a>, the talented weaver who challenged the goddess Athena and was changed into a spider for her pride. Or she may be the “noiseless patient spider” of <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45473/a-noiseless-patient-spider">Walt Whitman’s poem</a>, who flings out thread-like filaments as the poet flings out words.</p>
<p>She may also be the spider who weaves “<a href="https://www.vqronline.org/silken-tent">the silken tent</a>” of Robert Frost’s poem. Maybe we’ll think about how the spider, like a human storyteller, generates something seemingly out of nothing, which makes her web miraculous.</p>
<p>Each of these spiders symbolizes different things. When we read about her, then, we may think of all those other spiders. Or we may just think about the spider we saw on our own front porch that morning, weaving her own web.</p>
<p>As the writer Philip Pullman said, “The meaning of a story emerges in the meeting between the words on the page and the <a href="https://www.philip-pullman.com/">thoughts in the reader’s mind</a>.”</p>
<h2>The reader is in charge</h2>
<p>What Pullman is suggesting, then, is that it’s up to readers to make the meaning they want out of the stories they hear and the books they read.</p>
<p>It’s a powerful statement: We are in charge.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean that anything goes. Meanings come from context, from convention, from older stories and from previous usage. But it’s up to us to interpret what we read and to make the case for how we’re doing it.</p>
<p>Or, as the novelist John Green writes of his books, “<a href="https://www.johngreenbooks.com/where-i-get-my-ideas-inspiration-and-general-writing-stuff">They belong to their readers now</a>, which is a great thing – because the books are more powerful in the hands of my readers than they could ever be in my hands.”</p>
<p>What we do with the books we read matters, Green tells us. It’s up to us to make the meaning and up to us to decide what to do with that meaning once we’ve made it.</p>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elisabeth Gruner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Authors sometimes put deeper meanings into their stories, but really, it’s the reader who decides.Elisabeth Gruner, Associate Professor of English, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1103292019-01-28T11:43:13Z2019-01-28T11:43:13ZSylvia Plath’s new short story was never ‘lost’ – so why is the media saying it was ‘just discovered’?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255433/original/file-20190124-196244-wsoh70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Archivists put an immense amount of work into organizing, digitizing and maintaining repositories.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Britain-Newspapers-Online/211fb4035a2c483db402f46cc6eb9750/245/0">AP Photo/Matt Dunham</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent publication of Sylvia Plath’s short story “Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom” has been met with much fanfare, with the media eager to highlight that the story had been “lost,” only to have recently been “found.”</p>
<p>The Boston Globe <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2019/01/10/sylvia-plath-recently-discovered-short-story-will-now-published-jan/n7unSlueQhgdSqNOITzCzK/story.html">described the work</a> as “recently discovered” in its headline. A <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/1/22/18188354/sylvia-plath-mary-ventura-and-the-ninth-kingdom-review">Vox article</a> evoked a scene of abandonment and deterioration – the story had “languished in her archives for decades.” </p>
<p>And a recent New Yorker article, “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-lost-story-by-sylvia-plath-contains-the-seeds-of-the-writer-she-would-become">A Lost Story by Sylvia Plath Contains the Seeds of the Writer She Would Become</a>,” noted that “not even the author’s estate had known the story existed until the critic and academic Judith Galzer-Raymo stumbled over it while doing research in Plath’s archives.” </p>
<p>But was Plath’s story really “lost”? For years, “Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom” has been preserved – and has been accessible to the public – at Indiana University’s Lilly Library, thanks to the work of archivists and other cultural stewards.</p>
<p>As an archivist, I bristle at this sort of misleading coverage, which is only the latest example of the media ignoring the work of archivists in order to highlight something found in archives as “newly discovered.” </p>
<p>What’s behind this media impulse and why do these mischaracterizations persist?</p>
<h2>Archival tropes</h2>
<p>I’ve become all too accustomed to seeing headlines about “long-lost” manuscripts that have been found.</p>
<p>For example, in 2012 <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/nota-bene-if-you-discover-something-in-an-archive-its-not-a-discovery/258538/">two</a> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/actually-yes-it-is-a-discovery-if-you-find-something-in-an-archive-that-no-one-knew-was-there/258812/">articles</a> in The Atlantic debated whether a medical report relating to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination amounted to a “discovery.” </p>
<p>As another example, The Chronicle of Higher Education <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/Key-Letter-by-Descartes-Lost/64369">reported</a> a “long-lost letter” by René Descartes that had “lain buried in the archives [at Haverford College] for more than a century.” The public also recently learned of <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/you-know-that-we-had-nothing-to-do-with-this-war-long-lost-letters-from-interned-japanese-canadians">letters</a> from interned Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War that had been “long-forgotten in the bowels of Library and Archives Canada.” In all these examples, the documents were already preserved and accessible in archival repositories.</p>
<p>And on the rare occasions that archives are featured in the press or in popular culture, they’re usually characterized as old, secluded and dusty places.</p>
<p>For example, in 2013 The New York Times published an article titled “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/nyregion/archivists-bringing-past-into-future-are-now-less-cloistered.html">Leaving Cloister of Dusty Offices, Young Archivists Meet Like Minds</a>.” </p>
<p>If the headline alone didn’t convey this sentiment, the text drove it home: The archivists, it read, had “long spent their careers cloistered, like the objects they protected.”</p>
<p>Any archivist reading this story knows that nothing could be further from the truth. In a letter to the editor, Helen W. Samuels, a former archivist at MIT, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/opinion/digital-not-dusty-the-archivists-tale.html">responded</a>, “While I was delighted that your article focused attention on the talented archivists now employed by so many institutions, I was saddened that it perpetuated the outdated image of archivists as preservers of dusty, precious artifacts maintained in a cloistered environment.” </p>
<h2>Innovators versus maintainers</h2>
<p>For the record, “dusty” doesn’t characterize any of the repositories I’ve worked in or visited. For example, the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia is clean with an open layout, <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54734291e4b0a7be4111f6b8/547e02d9e4b0484a85949f1c/551d47f2e4b0d35570d7a3bb/1427982323657/UVA_012.jpg?format=1500w">and its spaces are filled with natural light</a>. Similarly, the University of Michigan’s William L. Clements Library spaces <a href="http://files.ctctcdn.com/dab5d8ce001/999d1eed-d9a5-4609-80fa-10aa456aa337.jpg">do not fit</a> the “dusty” stereotype.</p>
<p>Perhaps the media finds these tropes appealing because they evoke the romance and mystery of unearthing, discovering and rescuing rare books, documents or artifacts, as if they’re hidden treasures. After all, who doesn’t want to feel like Indiana Jones? And by representing archives as dusty, cloistered places, the materials appear to be on the verge of disappearing into obscurity – that is, unless a researcher comes to the rescue.</p>
<p>Another reason these tropes persist could have to do with the way our society privileges innovators over maintainers. Maintainers, <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/innovation-is-overvalued-maintenance-often-matters-more">according to scholars Andrew Russell and Lee Vinsel</a>, are “those individuals whose work keeps ordinary existence going rather than introducing novel things.” </p>
<p>Archivists are <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181031031852/https://hillelarnold.com/blog/2016/08/critical-work/">maintainers</a>: They perform the “ordinary” work of acquiring, appraising and arranging archival materials. They respond to the inquiries of students and researchers, and work to preserve materials for posterity.</p>
<p>As members of the archival community <a href="https://medium.com/on-archivy/implications-of-archival-labor-b606d8d02014">have pointed out</a>, this sort of work is generally ignored and misunderstood. Instead, when it comes to stories about archival research, stories will focus on the “innovators” – the scholars who write about the rare manuscript or old letter and, in doing so, rescue these materials from obscurity.</p>
<p>In almost every case, these stories gloss over the fact that these items exist in publicly accessible collections and are described in finding aids and databases.</p>
<h2>Giving credit where credit’s due</h2>
<p>This is not to take anything away from the work of researchers. Archival research is a process that often involves an intense commitment of time and energy. A researcher can see value or significance in a letter or manuscript that might have otherwise gone unnoticed outside of the archives.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Much of the media coverage of ‘Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom’ describe it as a work that was ‘lost’ and then ‘found.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://i.harperapps.com/covers/9780062940858/y648.jpg">Harper Collins</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nonetheless, while a researcher might be the first researcher to read a document, they may not be the first person to have encountered it – not when archivists, curators, librarians and other staff work with materials on a daily basis. </p>
<p>Interestingly, the researcher featured in The New Yorker article about the Plath short story doesn’t appear to have been the first scholar to have “discovered” that “lost” Sylvia Plath story. As <a href="https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2019/01/11/iu-lilly-library-lost-sylvia-plath-story-isnt-lost/2546031002/?fbclid=IwAR2C2wO39348xKG7Um9D9wEQn67vz55p79lvE4ZU40QQcwR0NZ9qvThUV-c">Rebecca Baumann</a>, Head of Public Services at the Lilly Library, noted, “Many people have written about ["Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom”] … There’s published scholarship that discusses [it].“</p>
<p>But that doesn’t always make for the best story.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bethany Anderson has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She currently serves as Reviews Editor for American Archivist, the Society of American Archivists' peer-reviewed journal published semi-annually.</span></em></p>The media trope negates the work done by archivists, who are often well-aware of the existence of ‘long-lost’ letters, journals and stories.Bethany Anderson, University Archivist, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/970412018-06-28T12:47:46Z2018-06-28T12:47:46ZKamishibai: how the magical art of Japanese storytelling is being revived and promoting bilingualism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224942/original/file-20180626-112607-6dhvzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kamishibai Performer In Japan</span> </figcaption></figure><p>In a world where technological advancement seems to be at the forefront of almost everything, it can sometimes feel like if it doesn’t have a screen or a keyboard, it isn’t worth engaging with.</p>
<p>Yet despite this backdrop of ongoing high tech developments, a centuries-old Japanese storytelling tradition is being revived for modern audiences. Meet kamishibai – from kami, meaning paper and shibai, meaning play or theatre – the ancient Japanese storytelling tool that many <a href="http://images.charentelibre.fr/2018/03/12/5aa6442d7971bbba1edb2969/golden/le-kamishibai-est-l-ancetre-de-la-television.jpg">librarians</a>, <a href="https://images.lanouvellerepublique.fr/image/upload/t_1020w/58c83280459a4550008b4614.jpg">nursing-homes</a> and <a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UL2DX7RTNBs/VQY9YGjuKHI/AAAAAAAABCY/Ip-Ug4P4xkc/s1600/IMG_7125%2Bcopy.jpg">schools</a> use in several countries around the world. </p>
<p>Pronounced ka-mee-shee-bye, kamishibai is such a powerful medium that Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) adopted it in 2011 as part of its AIDS campaign: “<a href="http://www.diversal.co.uk/books-and-stories/tales-kamishibai-a3/sieteleguas/when-born-malik-spanish-english-french-100032878-1569-145-1325--32.html#.WwR904oh33h">Befriend Malik</a>”.</p>
<p>And more recently a French organisation promoting multilingualism, DULALA – which stands for D'Une Langue A L'Autre, and translates as “from one language to the other” – encouraged French schools to enter its first national kamishibai competition. This year, DULALA launched its first international “<a href="https://www.dulala.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/GUIDELINES-Dulala.pdf">Plurilingual Kamishibai competition</a>”.</p>
<p>The street style of storytelling is reminiscent of two Japanese traditions: <a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Q37WWGZ1L.jpg">etoki</a>, the art of picture telling which <a href="http://ichcourier.ichcap.org/en/the-history-of-japanese-pictorial-storytelling-etoki/">dates back to the 12th century</a> and benshi – the <a href="http://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/a_brief_history_of_benshi#sthash.cdWcsQWh.dpbs">silent film narrators of the 1900s</a>. But unlike a picture book which is designed to be enjoyed by an individual, kamishibai is a group activity – a shared experience. Storytellers engage their audience, eliciting reactions and answers from their public.</p>
<h2>A brief history of kamishibai</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220032/original/file-20180522-51109-9s78y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220032/original/file-20180522-51109-9s78y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220032/original/file-20180522-51109-9s78y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220032/original/file-20180522-51109-9s78y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220032/original/file-20180522-51109-9s78y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220032/original/file-20180522-51109-9s78y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220032/original/file-20180522-51109-9s78y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220032/original/file-20180522-51109-9s78y7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kamishibai illustration (collage and painting) from budding artist Bérengère Bossard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the 1920s to the early 1950s, Japanese sweet sellers and storytellers travelled by bicycle from town to town, village to village, drawing large, young audiences. <a href="http://www.storycardtheater.com/images/photos/kamishibai_man_lg.jpg">Kamishibai men</a> would secure their <em>butai</em> – a wooden structure, half picture frame, half theatre stage – <a href="https://d32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net/NLii5TIq5E1kAlYOriTePg/large.jpg">to the back of their bicycle</a>, and would use wooden clappers (<em>hyoshigi</em>) to beckon their young spectators. </p>
<p>The children who had purchased sweets from him were allowed to sit at the front. Once everyone was settled, the kamishibai man would start telling a story – pulling each of his numbered storyboards from the side, and sliding it at the back of the stack, one after the other. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220033/original/file-20180522-51141-18m2tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220033/original/file-20180522-51141-18m2tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220033/original/file-20180522-51141-18m2tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220033/original/file-20180522-51141-18m2tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220033/original/file-20180522-51141-18m2tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220033/original/file-20180522-51141-18m2tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220033/original/file-20180522-51141-18m2tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220033/original/file-20180522-51141-18m2tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children’s kamishibai illustration (collage and drawing)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the front of the boards were illustrations for the audience to enjoy, whereas on the back of the previous storyboard was the corresponding passage, which the storyteller would read aloud.</p>
<p>To ensure repeat custom, the kamishibai man stopped at a cliffhanger point. The children, eager to know the end of his story, would come back and buy more sweets.</p>
<h2>Paper play</h2>
<p>Kamishibai performances and workshops are popular in <a href="https://www.lourdes.fr/images/kamishibai-mai.jpg">France</a>, <a href="http://www.sophiedaxhelet.com/sites/default/files/styles/in-content/public/affiche_kamishiba%C3%AF.png?itok=27CIPZoA">Belgium</a>, <a href="https://artebambini.it/assets/Uploads/atelier-cinquestorie-libreria-kamishibai.png">Italy</a>, <a href="https://leonardobpleon.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/kamishibai-4-18-mayo.jpg">Spain</a>, <a href="https://wachsenlassen.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/kamishibai_februar-2017_2x-a5-auf-a4_neu.jpg">Germany</a>, <a href="http://blog.pucp.edu.pe/blog/cise/wp-content/uploads/sites/443/2015/10/taller-mukashi.jpg">South America</a> and <a href="https://goodmorninggloucester.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/revisedkamishibai_web.jpg">the US</a>. </p>
<p>The storyboards can introduce audiences to folktales from Japan – such as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8eqfFLHz6o">Hats for the Jizos</a>. Or for European audiences, they might focus on tales from closer to home, such as <a href="https://www.callicephale.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/wkm_55475a826fece.pdf">The legend of the fir tree</a> from Alsace – a cultural and historical region in eastern France.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B4J9rB1ozkE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">“The great snake mistake”, an interactive kamishibai performance by Tara McGowan.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They also cover a wide range of themes, from <a href="http://www.pemf.fr/upload/443687710_1316237123.jpg">friendship</a>, to <a href="http://www.kamishibais.com/kamishibai-sur-le-fil-des-souvenirs-110.html">getting old</a>, <a href="http://www.kamishibais.com/lib/uploads/img/big/kamishibai1-115.jpg">Father Christmas</a>, and even <a href="http://www.mk67.eu/kamishibai/71-adis--mon-copain-d-une-autre-planete.html">autism</a>. They can be very factual – some explain the <a href="https://www.callicephale.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/wkm_57ea7ef07fa32.pdf">water cycle</a>, while others focus on <a href="https://shop.artebambini.it/leonardo-the-mathematician-of-art-kamishibai?___store=en&___from_store=default">Leonardo da Vinci</a> or <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/03/16/national/nagasaki-hibakusha-pass-experiences-traditional-story-telling#.WwR1jIoh33h">Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors</a>. </p>
<h2>Modern storytellers</h2>
<p>Kamishibai is an extremely versatile and entertaining tool, which explains why schools in many countries have adopted it in the classroom. It offers an integrated approach not only to learning or revising, but also to drama and visual art. So it’s not really surprising then that more and more kamishibai stories are available in <a href="https://sieteleguas.es/879-thickbox_default/gaito-kamishibaiya.jpg">several languages</a> – and some offer up to three levels of reading difficulty per story.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220034/original/file-20180522-51135-10qcz2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220034/original/file-20180522-51135-10qcz2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220034/original/file-20180522-51135-10qcz2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220034/original/file-20180522-51135-10qcz2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220034/original/file-20180522-51135-10qcz2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220034/original/file-20180522-51135-10qcz2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220034/original/file-20180522-51135-10qcz2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220034/original/file-20180522-51135-10qcz2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children’s kamishibai illustration (collage and painting)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tara McGowan, who has published <a href="http://www.taramcgowan.com/Publications.htm">several books and articles on kamishibai</a>, explains that this tool offers a <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Performing-Kamishibai-Emerging-Routledge-Education/dp/1138851515">spectrum of possibilities</a>: “from extreme top-down control” – when a teacher reads a published kamishibai story to “a quiet audience of well-behaved children” – to practices that give students the chance to direct.</p>
<p>As a result, kamishibai performances can take various forms. At times, the storyteller reads a published kamishibai, but occasionally improvises and incorporates the audience’s perspectives during the telling. At other times, members of the audience may take over the reading or performance of published kamishibai stories. Ultimately, participants can create and perform a kamishibai – individually or as a group – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEId2SFRezY">writing an original tale and illustrating their own storyboards</a> using drawing, painting, and collage.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220036/original/file-20180522-51127-g5xg3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220036/original/file-20180522-51127-g5xg3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220036/original/file-20180522-51127-g5xg3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=287&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220036/original/file-20180522-51127-g5xg3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=287&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220036/original/file-20180522-51127-g5xg3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=287&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220036/original/file-20180522-51127-g5xg3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220036/original/file-20180522-51127-g5xg3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220036/original/file-20180522-51127-g5xg3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">My own kamishibai story box, which, with its blue shutters, should remind the audience of the south of France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You can make your own butai <a href="https://www.springboardstories.co.uk/index.php/downloads/extras/403-kamishibai-theatre-template/file">in cardboard</a> or in wood. Some butais look rather <a href="http://www.mondotroll.it/catalog/images/8801c.jpg">plain</a>, while others are real <a href="https://latelierdebiarritz.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/butai-rose.jpg?w=820&h=615">works of art</a> – the audience feels transported to another world before the story has even begun.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97041/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Géraldine D Enjelvin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Welcome to the wonderful world of kamishibai – a centuries-old Japanese storytelling tradition.Géraldine D Enjelvin, Associate Lecturer in French, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/970422018-06-07T10:59:23Z2018-06-07T10:59:23ZHow fairy tales have stood the test of time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222025/original/file-20180606-137291-gkez6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An illustration of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "The Brave Little Tailor.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Brothers Grimm have been dead more than 150 years, but they <a href="https://blog.calm.com/relax/lost-grimm-fairy-tale-is-first-ai-bedtime-story">recently released a new story</a> with a little help from artificial intelligence.</p>
<p>The Princess and the Fox was created after a group of writers, artists and developers used a program inspired by predictive text on phones to scan the collected stories of the Brothers Grimm to suggest words and similar phrases. Human writers then took over, to help shape the AI’s algorithmic suggestions into the latest Grimm fairy tale.</p>
<p>The new tale tells the story of a talking fox who helps a lowly miller’s son rescue a beautiful princess from the fate of having to marry a horrible prince she does not love.</p>
<p>But here’s the thing, the Brothers Grimm didn’t actually write their fairy tales in the first place. They collected them – from friends, servants, workers and family members. Fairy tales, of course, have always been retold. They come alive in the telling – whether that’s a child listening to an audio book in the car, watching Snow White and the Huntsman on DVD or singing along to Shrek The Musical in the theatre. </p>
<p>The Grimms’ fairy stories <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/grimms-fairy-tales-exerted-profound-2285773">were first published in 1812</a> and have never gone out of print. The Grimm Brothers were involved in the struggle for German independence. As part of the case for nationhood, they wanted to prove that Germans, as a distinct people, had their own folklore. They were political campaigners too, and among the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6ttingen_Seven">Göttingen Seven</a> who refused to take an oath of loyalty to the new King of Hanover when he rejected a more liberal constitution. They lost their jobs as a result and Jakob Grimm – like many characters in the fairy tales – had to go into exile. </p>
<p>Since then Grimms’ Fairy Tales have been translated into a hundred languages and retold again and again. They have inspired thousands of other works, from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bloody_Chamber">Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber</a> to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIyV17TbdUA">The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221515/original/file-20180604-175438-12285dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The princess and the Fox was written in part by AI.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTUyODEzMjU2NiwiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfNzM0MTIxMjQ0IiwiayI6InBob3RvLzczNDEyMTI0NC9odWdlLmpwZyIsIm0iOjEsImQiOiJzaHV0dGVyc3RvY2stbWVkaWEifSwicENVWFVRQ24yMVJxWUl5emR6b0FweUo1R2hVIl0%2Fshutterstock_734121244.jpg&pi=33421636&m=734121244&src=NvspoIUya7T1JZ8IKLwJYA-1-41">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jakob Grimm wasn’t just a collector of folk tales either. He was also a philologist (someone who studies language) and lexicographer whose work is still influential today. As well as being a master storyteller, the ideas he developed are still being researched in universities.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm%27s_law">Grimm’s Law</a>, named after Jakob Grimm, looks at how sounds change as they pass from one language to another – “P” tends to become “F”, while “G” becomes “W” and so on. </p>
<h2>Happily ever after</h2>
<p>The Grimms’ fairy stories are still passed down through generations. And even though the cast of princesses and swineherds seem a very long way away from the world most of us inhabit, the stories are still a crucial part of our cultural heritage. The stories the brothers found in Northern Germany at the beginning of the 19th-century now belong to everyone. </p>
<p>As a child growing up in Oxford <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ganz">my father</a> – a refugee from Germany and, like Jakob, a philologist – used to tell me the Grimm’s story of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frog_Prince">The Frog Prince</a> on our Sunday walks in the grounds of <a href="https://www.blenheimpalace.com/">Blenheim Palace</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221697/original/file-20180605-175414-168klyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blenheim Palace Gateway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>In my father’s version of the tale, the princess first met the frog by the lake – in reality built by Capability Brown for the first Duke of Marlborough – when she dropped her favourite plaything, a golden ball, into the water. When they lived happily ever after, the couple commemorated their meeting by putting golden balls on the top of Blenheim Palace. Now when I think of the story I think of Blenheim Palace, and I hear the splash of the frog in the lake, just as I thought I heard it long ago as a child. </p>
<p>This is exactly what stories can do, they fold all of their tellers and places together – and therein lies their mystery and their magic – once a story exists, it changes how we experience the world. And that will be the only test of “the new Grimm’s tale”, The Princess and the Fox – whether it will be retold and come to life in the telling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Ganz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fairy stories come alive in the telling — and the retelling.Adam Ganz, Reader Department of Media Arts, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/911832018-02-09T10:45:05Z2018-02-09T10:45:05ZBecoming beast: Marvel’s new Black Panther movie has a surprising medieval connection<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205292/original/file-20180207-74506-1u9l4qn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.image.net/xads/actions/layout/endusersearch.do?folder_max=48&selection_action=null&box=false&page=7&forward=search&product_nav_root=&product_nav=&category_nav=&search_spec=567976966&display_asset_matches=true&seldir=4&unselected_assets_prodgrid_search=536939648%2C536939654%2C536939665%2C536939680%2C536939682%2C536939692%2C536939693%2C536939694%2C536939710%2C536939711%2C536939712%2C536939728%2C536939729%2C536939730%2C536939751%2C536939762%2C536939767%2C536939779%2C536939800%2C536939801%2C536939809%2C536939824%2C536939828%2C536939829%2C&pageNoTop1=">Image.net</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Black Panther looks to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/12/will-black-panther-be-marvels-biggest-blockbuster-yet">another hit for Marvel</a>. The film has been highly anticipated, not least because it is a <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/black-superheroes-matter-why-black-panther-is-revolutionary-w509105">milestone in cinema</a> with a black lead superhero starring alongside a majority black cast. </p>
<p>The film tells the story of T'Challa, who grapples with his new role as king of the technologically advanced, fictional African nation of Wakanda. He also happens to be a badass warrior who runs around in a bulletproof catsuit with retractable claws.</p>
<p>Humans with the heightened senses and enhanced strength and agility of animals, have become a staple feature of the comic book genre. But what makes Black Panther different from Spiderman or Wolverine is that his abilities are not the result of genetic mutation or technological augmentation. Though his suit is advanced technology, T'Challa’s abilities come from <a href="http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Heart-Shaped_Herb">a magical herb</a> and his mystical connection with a Panther god. </p>
<p>Considering these supernatural origins, Black Panther has interesting echoes with medieval tales of humans who take on the appearance and characteristics of beasts. And just like Black Panther, in these tales, getting closer to the animal doesn’t make someone less than human – but superhuman. </p>
<p>These are not the usual stories of fear that the animal inside will overwhelm the human, but of humans still in control of their faculties when they become the beast.</p>
<h2>Medieval werewolves</h2>
<p>Surely the most famous example of humans with the skins of beasts is the werewolf. <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/news_and_events/researchblog/werewolf/">Medieval werewolves differ from later versions</a>, as they are often sympathetic heroes rather than dangerous adversaries. </p>
<p>Take <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melion">Melion</a>, one of King Arthur’s knights. His transformation, with the help of an enchanted ring, is portrayed not as problematic, but as a loving gesture. Melion becomes a werewolf because he believes this will save his wife. Only in wolf form is he able to hunt down the stag she claims she must eat or she will die. The real foe in this story is the wife, as she takes her husband’s becoming a wolf as the perfect excuse to elope with another man.</p>
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<p>Another heroic werewolf appears in the romance <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_de_Palerme">Guillaume de Palerne</a>. This wolf saves the four-year-old prince Guillaume from his uncle’s plot to poison him and take the throne. The werewolf continues to take care of Guillaume well into adulthood, probably because the two have much in common. The beast is also a prince, Alfonso, whose enchantment is the result of another family struggle over the throne.</p>
<p>Both tales show how there remains a human inside the beast. Melion continues to think rationally and feel human emotions while in wolf form. When at court, the wolf shows civilised behaviour, even drinking wine instead of water. </p>
<p>Alfonso might look like a dangerous animal, but he is highly intelligent and has self-control. His civilised, human nature shines through, for instance, when he feeds Guillaume processed food like bread and wine instead of raw meat. And when Alfonso does hunt, it is a sign of his intelligence, as he gets deer skins they can use as a disguise while they are on the run.</p>
<h2>Humans in animal skins</h2>
<p>Melion and Alfonso have enhanced abilities, too – they are stronger, faster, and often more intelligent than humans – but the beast never takes over. Though their bodies change, their identity remains stable. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205297/original/file-20180207-74509-24ywnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205297/original/file-20180207-74509-24ywnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205297/original/file-20180207-74509-24ywnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205297/original/file-20180207-74509-24ywnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205297/original/file-20180207-74509-24ywnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205297/original/file-20180207-74509-24ywnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205297/original/file-20180207-74509-24ywnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205297/original/file-20180207-74509-24ywnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">T'Challa is the Black Panther – a righteous king, noble Avenger, and fearsome warrior.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54345116">Art by Gabriele Dell'Otto</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even when the wolves threaten to lose control and act violently against humans, these acts are presented as reasonable and understandable. This is because the main victim of such violence is someone who hurt them. Alfonso growls at the stepmother who enchanted him, and Melion attacks the man his wife left him for.</p>
<p>We are meant to see this not as a loss of control, but the only way someone stuck in a wolf skin can let others know of their plight, since they can no longer speak. Alfonso in particular finds out that when he gestures with his paws, the humans only give him a puzzled look – an interesting comment on the limits of communication across species.</p>
<h2>Enhanced humans?</h2>
<p>In both tales, it is this uncharacteristic beastly behaviour that leads to the discovery that the wolves are enchanted humans, and their return to human form. But not all medieval stories end with a fairy tale like resolve where the animal becomes human again.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205258/original/file-20180207-74512-4jmx6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205258/original/file-20180207-74512-4jmx6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205258/original/file-20180207-74512-4jmx6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205258/original/file-20180207-74512-4jmx6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205258/original/file-20180207-74512-4jmx6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205258/original/file-20180207-74512-4jmx6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205258/original/file-20180207-74512-4jmx6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Melusine takes care of her children while in half-animal form.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AM%C3%A9lusine_allaitant_BnF_Fran%C3%A7ais_24383_fol._30.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A case in point is Melusine, a woman cursed to turn into a half serpent once a week. After discovering her part-animal form, Melusine’s husband chooses to see his wife as a beast rather than a fellow human being, condemning her to become a serpent for all time. But as with the werewolves, Melusine remains human inside her dragon-like suit – though with the added bonus of being able to fly.</p>
<p>What all this shows is that humans with the abilities of animals are certainly not an idea first invented in comic books. But like Black Panther, these medieval stories are about a fusion of human and animal characteristics rather than strict hybridity – highlighting the potential advantages of becoming beast. As a reader or viewer, we are invited to imagine what it may be like to be an animal – but while the human inside remains unchanged.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91183/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lydia Zeldenrust does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The new Black Panther film has a lot in common with medieval romance tales.Lydia Zeldenrust, Associate Lecturer in Medieval Literature, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/900542018-01-30T12:11:33Z2018-01-30T12:11:33ZWhy there need to be more autistic characters in children’s books<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203085/original/file-20180123-33538-1la00lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Autistic characters in children's books are few and far between.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/562916113?src=bBUiB70Ppvf-uZAEDbmQ4w-1-2&size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The children’s writer Michael Morpurgo has written a new novel inspired by his autistic grandson, which is set to be published later this year. <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flamingo-Boy-Michael-Morpurgo/dp/0008134642">Flamingo Boy</a> is set in the Camargue in the south of France during World War II and features a boy who “sees the world differently”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/news/morpurgos-next-novel-inspired-autistic-grandson-707561">Morpurgo explained</a> how it didn’t occur to him to write a book about autism until his grandson was born, which isn’t totally surprising – as autistic characters in books are few and far between. </p>
<p>Fiction plays a significant role in <a href="http://edfa2402resources.yolasite.com/resources/Understanding%20%28Dis%29abilities%20through%20childrens%20literature.pdf">shaping how people understand and respond to autism</a>. And in this way, books are often used by both schools and parents to help children and young people understand more about autism. </p>
<p>But the limited and skewed portrayal of autism means it is often
misrepresented rather than represented in fiction. For an autistic child or young person this can be extremely isolating and they are <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03178225">often unable to find a version</a> of “themselves” in a book. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203084/original/file-20180123-33554-1igc1z9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203084/original/file-20180123-33554-1igc1z9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203084/original/file-20180123-33554-1igc1z9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203084/original/file-20180123-33554-1igc1z9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203084/original/file-20180123-33554-1igc1z9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203084/original/file-20180123-33554-1igc1z9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203084/original/file-20180123-33554-1igc1z9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There aren’t many autistic characters in children’s books.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/books-in-black-wooden-book-shelf-159711/">Pexels.</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>The sad reality is many authors and publishers – perhaps from fear of causing offence – appear to steer clear of autistic characters in their narrative. As a consequence, books with autistic characters are either tucked away in the special section of bookshops and libraries, or absent altogether. </p>
<h2>Writing together</h2>
<p><a href="http://www4.shu.ac.uk/mediacentre/social-science-festival-puts-spotlight-autism">My research</a> looks at the role fiction plays in creating awareness and acceptance of autism among children, as well as how the portrayal of autism in children’s books shapes how autism is understood and responded to. As part of the research, I recently put on an interactive discussion at the Festival of Social Science around the topic of how autism is portrayed in children’s fiction.</p>
<p>The panel included Vicky Martin, writer of M is for autism and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Autism-Students-Limpsfield-Grange-School/dp/1849056846/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1516791021&sr=1-1&keywords=m+is+for+autism%20,%20https://www.amazon.co.uk/Middle-Students-Limpsfield-Grange-School/dp/1785920340/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=FH8CTPH86QWDDM8VM1QN">M in the middle</a>, and Amanda Lillywhite, writer and illustrator of picture books including <a href="https://shop.nfauk.org/collections/friends-by-amanda-lillywhite">Friends</a>, written for the Neuro Foundation which works to improve the lives of those affected by <a href="https://www.nfauk.org/">neurofibromatosis</a> – a genetic condition caused by a mutation in one of their genes. On the panel was also Elaine Bousfield, founder of new publishing house <a href="http://zuntold.com/">Zuntold</a>. And the audience consisted of autistic children, young people and adults. As well as parents of autistic children, secondary school teachers, academics and the general public. </p>
<p>One of the key topics discussed at the event was around the idea of “co-production”. This is where books are written in collaboration with autistic children and young people – much like the M in the Middle series, which was authored by Martin, but written jointly with girls of Limpsfield Grange, a school for autistic girls. </p>
<h2>Making magic happen</h2>
<p>The story of M has captured the hearts of readers and already resulted in a sequel to the first book. <a href="https://vimeo.com/199745757">The girls of Limpsefield Grange</a> have also featured in an ITV documentary <a href="https://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/girls-autism">Girls with autism</a>. Why? Because M is the story of an autistic teenage girl who is interesting, endearing and real. </p>
<p>She’s written and created with a group of teenage autistic girls. Big chunks of the book is written verbatim, with their very words, and the rest is heavily edited by them. It doesn’t get more real than that. M is the one girl they all created together. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203082/original/file-20180123-33560-1l9pk7b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203082/original/file-20180123-33560-1l9pk7b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203082/original/file-20180123-33560-1l9pk7b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203082/original/file-20180123-33560-1l9pk7b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203082/original/file-20180123-33560-1l9pk7b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203082/original/file-20180123-33560-1l9pk7b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203082/original/file-20180123-33560-1l9pk7b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With younger children, drawing or comic workshops might be a more accessible way of getting them to think about characters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/arts-and-crafts-child-close-up-color-159579/">Pexels.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, as a part of her book for the Neuro Foundation, Lillywhite spent time with children with neurofibromatosis. They spoke about themselves and their experiences of things that matter not just to them but also to many other children, such as bullying. And while all the characters in the book have the genetic disorder neurofibromatosis, the stories aren’t about that and are just as relevant for every child.</p>
<h2>Getting heard</h2>
<p>Autism is extremely diverse and perhaps the only way to have a good representation of it in fiction is by having lots of autistic characters – in comics, in picture books and in novels. </p>
<p>Publishers too have an important role to play in garnering collaborations and bringing work co-produced with autistic children and young people to market – much as in the M books. Publishing house Zuntold, for example, has an interactive <a href="http://www.zuntold.com/magazinePiece/8">novel writing project</a> which encourages people to write the next piece. </p>
<p>Ultimately, every story – whether in life or fiction – has characters, and all characters are different. So given that autism affects more than one in 100 people, there needs to be more done to represent the outside world inside story books.</p>
<p>Millions of people have a relative on the autism spectrum. And it is only by making autistic characters a part of mainstream books that we can hope for widespread understanding and acceptance of autism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90054/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shalini Vohra received funding from ESRC to run the kick-start event for this research as a part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science. </span></em></p>The limited and skewed portrayal of autism means it is often
misrepresented rather than represented in fiction.Shalini Vohra, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Sheffield Hallam UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/855962017-12-07T19:20:08Z2017-12-07T19:20:08ZFriday essay: monsters in my closet – how a geographer began mining myths<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198049/original/file-20171206-31528-1my5vem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mount Mazama, a volcano in Oregon. Indigenous stories preserve tales of its eruption more than 7,000 years ago. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>So you think the Loch Ness Monster never existed? That the story is a cunningly cobbled-together fiction intended to boost tourist interest in an otherwise unrelentingly dull (only to some) part of mid-Scotland? Think again.</p>
<p>The embryonic science of geomythology is breathing new life into such stories, legitimising the essence of some and opening up the possibility that other such folk tales might not be pure fiction but actually based on memories of events our ancestors once observed. </p>
<p>Lacking the scientific understanding available to us today, people in the past contextualised such observations in ways that made sense to them. Keen that their descendants should know what had happened, not least should it happen again, many such stories were passed on (commonly orally) from one generation to the next. Invariably cloaked in multiple layers of embellishment, some stories have survived until today.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198053/original/file-20171207-31517-4fiud7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Nessie’ may not be a real being, but the stories about the Loch Ness Monster may contain a kernel of geological truth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Loch_Ness_Monster_02.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Science has long vilified those who argue for the existence of giant saurians lurking in the depths of Loch Ness, but there has been some rehabilitation of these “monster sightings”. The geologist Luigi Piccardi, who has done much to make the novel field of geomythology respectable, has argued that observations of “Nessie” are no more than the unusual agitation of the lake’s water surface during an earthquake. </p>
<p>The first written mention of the Loch Ness Monster, in the seventh-century Life of St Columba, notes that the “dragon” appears <em>cum ingenti fremitu</em> (with strong shaking) before disappearing <em>tremefacta</em> (shaking herself). And Piccardi <a href="https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2001ESP/finalprogram/abstract_7279.htm">has noted</a> that the most seismically active sector of the Great Glen Fault, along which periodic earthquakes occur, runs along the axis of Loch Ness.</p>
<p>Piccardi also argues that many temples built during the Classical period in the eastern Mediterranean were intentionally built over geological fissures from which escaping neurotoxic gases might cause those sitting above them – like Pythia in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-secrets-of-the-delphic-oracle-and-how-it-speaks-to-us-today-61738">Oracle at Delphi</a> – to go into a trance in which they could reputedly foresee future events.</p>
<p>The Pacific Islands, the focus of most of my research over the past 30 years, has stories about past natural events – massive eruptions and earthquakes, giant waves, for instance – that have traditionally been regarded as largely apocryphal. I have focused on <a href="http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-5246-%209780824832193.aspx">some of the stories from Pacific Island cultures about “vanished islands”</a>, stories that come from almost every part of this vast region – nearly one-third of the earth’s surface. The idea of an entire island disappearing suddenly seems instinctively implausible, the stuff of Atlantean fantasy, yet there are many such stories in the Pacific that seem quite believable at their cores.</p>
<p>Take the example of Teonimenu, which probably disappeared some 400 years ago, between the islands of Makira and Ulawa in the central Solomon Islands. While most local traditions remember its disappearance as the act of a vengeful cuckold, the details about the accompanying series of tsunami waves and the location of Teonimenu on the crest of a steep underwater ridge suggest this might really have happened as a result of an earthquake-induced landslip. </p>
<p>Similar stories have been collected from central Vanuatu, where an island named Vanua Mamata abruptly disappeared about 1870. This was probably a result of an eruption-linked landslide on the underwater flanks of the giant Ambae Island volcano (which today is once again threatening to erupt). With great difficulty, it is said, the survivors saved themselves, paddling north to settle on the island of Maewo where today they recall the loss of Vanua Mamata <em>bifo bifo yet</em> (long long ago).</p>
<p>Of course, there is a limit. And that limit has been crossed when you confront many of the stories about “sunken continents” in the Pacific, perhaps Mu or (Pacific) Lemuria dreamed up by some of its early European explorers who struggled to rationalise the existence of such a large, almost landless, ocean. Some of them, like Dumont d'Urville and the geologist Jules Garnier, were convinced there had once been a continent spanning the Pacific that had sunk, leaving only the former mountaintops poking above the ocean surface. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198044/original/file-20171206-31517-18xmqsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The lost continent of Mu as proposed by James Churchward in 1927.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_lands#/media/File:Book_map1.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This theory allowed 19th-century Europeans to deny the manifestly extraordinary maritime abilities of Pacific Islanders who were portrayed as the fortunate survivors of the cataclysm, stranded on their isolated islands. Yet stories suggesting the entire Pacific (or indeed the entire Indian Ocean or the entire Atlantic) were once occupied by a single continent are demonstrably false. We’ve looked.</p>
<p>That said, there is plenty to stoke the imagination – and even a few disingenuous geoscientists happy to add fuel to the fire. Take the “sunken city” off the coast of Yonaguni Island in southwest Japan, which numerous people will assure you was once part of the continental empire of “Mu” that spanned the entire Pacific. There is no shred of real evidence of human structures off the Yonaguni coast (any more than there is of Mu), but for those untutored in the ways that sandstones and shales weather, it might appear there are giant “carved” steps and suchlike.</p>
<h2>True legends</h2>
<p>My involuntary introduction to geomythology came in mid-2000 when I was working at the international University of the South Pacific, based at its main teaching campus in Suva, Fiji. Having won some research funding and engaged three research assistants to accompany me to the Lau Islands of eastern Fiji, there was a coup; by far the nastiest of the four I have survived.</p>
<p>It seemed the wrong time to do fieldwork so I set the research assistants to work in the university library’s Pacific Collection, searching for any published stories about Pacific Islander traditions of memorable geological events. The haul they recovered astonished me and turned my attention to how oral traditions might illuminate the geological history of the Pacific.</p>
<p>One early example of this concerned myths about the formation of Nabukelevu (or Mt Washington), a striking volcano at the western end of Kadavu Island in Fiji. Long regarded by geologists as having last erupted tens of thousands of years ago, a legend from the people of nearby Ono Island suggested otherwise. Their story goes that the chief of Ono, who was accustomed to watching the sun set from a beach on the island, found one day a mountain (Nabukelevu) had appeared at the end of Kadavu to the west and blocked the view. </p>
<p>Livid, he flew to western Kadavu and battled the chief of Nabukelevu but was overwhelmed. The appearance of Nabukelevu suggests the growth of the volcano within human memory, which means about 3,000 years in Fiji. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198045/original/file-20171206-31532-qccdn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nabukelevu, or Mount Washington, a volcano in Fiji. Fijian legend suggested the volcano erupted in human history.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia/Jaejay77</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So did the legend invalidate the science? It seems it did at the time for, years later, when a road was cut around the foot of Nabukelevu, a section through the volcano’s flanks was exposed and showed buried soil with pottery fragments (a sure sign of human occupation) overlain by freshly deposited scoria. Clearly the legend was a more accurate indicator of the age of this volcano than science had once been.</p>
<p>Most Pacific Islanders who have shared such stories with me are surprisingly indifferent to the news that they may be true. It was never a concern to them that Western science might have once judged these stories to be fictional; they always knew otherwise. </p>
<p>In the last 15 years, my interest in geomythology and respect for many oral traditions have burgeoned. Moving from the Pacific Islands to Australia in 2010 inevitably led me to educate myself more about Australian Aboriginal stories. What I found was beyond my wildest dreams.</p>
<p>It began in the library of the University of New England where I read many works by linguists who had studied Australian Aboriginal languages. While focused on the structure of the languages, many of these linguists also recorded – generally as illustrations of how language was used in storytelling – ancillary details of the oral traditions of many tribes. </p>
<p>And for several of the coastal tribes, some of the most popular stories recalled times when the ocean surface – sea level – was far lower than it is today and coastal lands were consequently far more extensive. It now seems clear that Aboriginal groups in at least 22 locations all around the coast of Australia have preserved stories <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-aboriginal-stories-preserve-history-of-a-rise-in-sea-level-36010">for more than 7,000 years</a>; in a few cases, perhaps more than 10,000 years. That is 280 to 400 generations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198051/original/file-20171207-31521-1l37p21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aboriginal stories recall a time when Fitzroy Island in northern Queensland was connected to the mainland 10,000 years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now if Australian Aboriginal cultures were able to preserve stories so long, could not others of the world’s cultures also have done so? One <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/7805.html">well-documented example</a> is of the Klamath tribe in Oregon, USA, which seems to have successfully preserved a story about the eruption of Mt Mazama – the predecessor of Crater Lake – for some 7,700 years.</p>
<p>Still, there are not many examples, which suggests two things. One is that <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-bullin-shrieked-aboriginal-memories-of-volcanic-eruptions-thousands-of-years-ago-81986">Australian Aboriginal society was especially adept</a> at inter-generational knowledge transmission. Undoubtedly true. The other is that in other cultures perhaps we have been too quick to discount the lingering fragments of memory for what they really are. A bit more contentious.</p>
<h2>Cities drowned</h2>
<p>Yet from Gujarat to Tamil Nadu in India, and in Gaelic cultures from Brittany (France) to Cornwall and Wales (UK), there are stories about the consequences of the ocean rising across low-lying areas of coast. Many stories recall the “drowning” of iconic cities and narrate the very human causes to which inundation was attributed. </p>
<p>For instance, there are persistent stories in parts of northwest Europe about the city of Ys that once existed on the coast, efficiently defended against the sea, perhaps in the Baie de Douarnenez in Brittany. Dahut, daughter of the ruler of Ys, King Gradlon, became possessed by a demon and wilfully opened the tide gates when the sea was high, causing the city to be drowned. </p>
<p>It is possible that this story recalls a history of sea level rising across coastal lowlands, forcing coastal cities to build and manage sea defences. Then, as sea level continued its post-glacial rise, one day, perhaps several millennia ago, the defences gave way, the ocean rushed into the city, “drowning” it and condemning its history to myth.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198043/original/file-20171206-31525-rvky8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flight of King Gradlon, by E.V. Luminais, 1884, shows the ruler of the city of Ys fleeing from the encroaching sea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradlon#/media/File:Evariste-Vital_Luminais_-_Fuite_de_Gradlon.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such stories, celebrated in art and literature, are often regarded as integral to cultural identity. For this reason, attempts to explain them by science are sometimes resisted. </p>
<p>Yet, viewed dispassionately, it seems possible that stories from both sides of the English Channel (<em>La Manche</em>), for example, recall times when it was much narrower than today, as was indeed the case several millennia ago.</p>
<p>Not only are there stories like that of Ys from the north coast of Brittany and parallel stories from that of Cornwall, but also folk tales from the Channel Islands about how people were once able to walk, crossing a few streams, from there to the French mainland. This is exactly what you would expect a few millennia back, when sea level was 5-10 metres lower than it is today.</p>
<p>What research is showing is that knowledge can be transmitted orally and with a high degree of replication fidelity for thousands of years. Using phylogenetic analysis, <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0078871">Jamie Tehrani</a> has demonstrated that many popular folktales, like Little Red Riding Hood, are at least 2,000 years old. </p>
<p>This remarkable fact does not mean of course that all oral knowledge is that old, but it does open up opportunities for understanding the minds of our ancestors that we never dreamed possible. Or did we?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85596/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick D. Nunn receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research.</span></em></p>Old stories from around the world tell of drowned islands, volcanic eruptions and upheavals to the land around them. Increasingly we are realising these tales preserve actual memory, often from thousands of years ago.Patrick D. Nunn, Professor of Geography, Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine CoastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/646942016-09-01T09:09:15Z2016-09-01T09:09:15ZMany parents won’t read their children scary stories – but perhaps we shouldn’t blame them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136098/original/image-20160831-30768-19budnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gwoeii/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a children’s literature scholar, I’m filled with horror by the results of a <a href="https://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/blog/index.php/2016/08/09/the-baddest-book-characters/">recent survey</a> indicating that over a third of parents avoid reading frightening stories to their children. And as a parent of two small children, the study makes my heart sink and – in the manner of <a href="http://peterandjaneblog.blogspot.co.uk">blogging mother</a> Gill Sims – reach for the gin.</p>
<p>What exactly counts as frightening in a children’s book is a fairly moot point. Parents in the study named the Wicked Witch of the West and Red Riding Hood’s grandmother-gobbling wolf as fitting the bill.</p>
<p>Of course, it must vary from child to child. When I told my six-year-old what I was writing last night (i.e. this), he promptly decided against the poisonous animals section of Creaturepedia for fear of it giving him nightmares – we read about the spiky critters instead. Ernest the Moose, on the other hand, who is so large that his squirrel friend has to construct a fold-out page so that he can fit in his own book, is a source of huge amusement to my three-year-old – but possibly claustrophobia-inducing in another (more empathetic) child. Personally, I find the Cat In The Hat pretty sinister. And the Babar books are also deeply disturbing – in their representation of racial politics.</p>
<p>Fear is a moveable feast, temporally, geographically and culturally. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/alice-in-wonderland-14042">Alice of Wonderland fame</a> may be widely regarded as the epitome of innocence and delight but she almost never laughs, is fairly constantly belittled and berated, and spends a good deal of time more or less explicitly contemplating life after death. Reader after reader reports being scared out of their wits by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Tenniel">John Tenniel’s iconic illustrations</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136139/original/image-20160831-30790-1hv5sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136139/original/image-20160831-30790-1hv5sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136139/original/image-20160831-30790-1hv5sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136139/original/image-20160831-30790-1hv5sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136139/original/image-20160831-30790-1hv5sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136139/original/image-20160831-30790-1hv5sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136139/original/image-20160831-30790-1hv5sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136139/original/image-20160831-30790-1hv5sd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From John Tenniel’s Alice in Wonderland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Tenniel_-_Illustration_from_The_Nursery_Alice_(1890)_-_c06543_08.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All the (good) deaths and funerals that permeate 19th-century literature must be more troubling in today’s secular society than they would have been at the time. The classic example that does the rounds of the children’s literature world is Mary Martha Sherwood’s <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29725/29725-h/29725-h.htm">History of the Fairchild Family</a> (1818-1847), famously featuring a father escorting his children to a hanging in order to teach them about the consequences of fraternal discord. Today, even quite young Francophone children can read stories about <a href="http://www.ricochet-jeunes.org/livres/livre/3106-reves-amers">child slavery</a> and <a href="http://www.ricochet-jeunes.org/livres/livre/4171-alerte-au-cyclone">deathly hurricanes</a> and (in picture book form) <a href="http://www.leseditionsdelabagnole.com/fete-morts/dany-laferriere/livre/9782923342276">the day of the dead</a>.</p>
<p>There is certainly no shortage of dark and difficult material in children’s books, even for the very young. Having spent a good deal of my scholarly career on books for children featuring journeys to hell and back (not to mention slavery and sexualised treasure maps), and having recently examined a doctoral thesis on physical, sexual and psychological abuse in French children’s literature, I know that there are no taboos; that nothing is off–limits in books for the young.</p>
<p>And the scholar in me knows that it’s important for children to encounter difficult and challenging material, to confront their fears and anxieties in the space of the book. Quite apart from anything else, being afraid or horrified or disgusted can, in the closed, reassuring world of narrative, be a thrilling and deeply pleasurable experience. </p>
<p>Even when it’s not enjoyable, it’s still vitally important. The inevitable comparison is with forms of physical activity, and, in a health and safety obsessed, no blame no gain culture, the dangers of wrapping children up in cotton wool. Kids need to get stung and fall out of trees if they’re going to build the resources to deal with all the various bumps and knocks and traumas that their lives will throw at them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136145/original/image-20160831-30768-ccqrm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136145/original/image-20160831-30768-ccqrm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136145/original/image-20160831-30768-ccqrm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136145/original/image-20160831-30768-ccqrm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136145/original/image-20160831-30768-ccqrm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136145/original/image-20160831-30768-ccqrm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136145/original/image-20160831-30768-ccqrm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136145/original/image-20160831-30768-ccqrm9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gobbled grandmothers too much after an exhausting day?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WalterCrane-Little_Red_Riding_Hood-4.png">Walter Crane, Little Red Riding Hood.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And I know all this. But as a parent, and especially as a tired working one (what other kind is there?) I can’t help feeling that this study is yet another stick with which to beat already battered and bruised parents. At the end of a long day, having just seen the evening news with all the woes of the world on view, almost the last thing I want to do is deal with death and darkness and destruction when I read my children their bedtime stories. What I want is to be close to them and to share something stupid or funny or beautiful before they sleep. </p>
<p>Perhaps I’m putting my own needs before theirs. Perhaps it will be different when – if! – they read alone. But for the time being, it seems to me that what matters most is the intimacy that reading can generate. A sense of shared pleasure and contact and connection.</p>
<p>There are obviously plenty of other times in the day when books can be pored over. But I’d bet that few really frightening books for children are owned by parents today. Certainly, even in the fairly progressive, cosmopolitan and (I like to think) cultured world my children are growing up in, it’s fairly unimaginable to offer a “difficult” or frightening book to a child as a birthday or Christmas present. There are definitely books I’ve picked up and put back down again, shuddering at what Johnnie’s parents would think about marking their much-loved infant’s birthday with a picture book about the plight of child refugees.</p>
<p>Because of this, tons of ultra anodyne books are littering the homes of flustered and frenetic families today. Children’s books are big business and publishers both cater to and stoke parental anxieties and protectionism. Big companies take punts on “difficult” books less and less, and it’s left to small, imperilled independents to fill these crucial gaps.</p>
<p>And this is one of the many, many, reasons why we should support small publishing initiatives like <a href="http://towerblockbooks.com">Tower Block Books</a>, and why public libraries and independent reading in schools must, categorically, be protected. Books are certainly gifts to the next generation, but they’re not just for Christmas (or birthdays). Parents, publishers and politicians all have their part to play. Children need to encounter all manner of books from all manner of sources dealing with all of the multifarious experiences of life. Children need the books that parents like me can’t themselves always face.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64694/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kiera Vaclavik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A recent survey suggests that a third of UK parents avoid reading their children scary stories. Is this a worrying trend?Kiera Vaclavik, Professor of Children's Literature & Childhood Culture, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/621542016-07-14T22:30:48Z2016-07-14T22:30:48ZEnough with the spoiler alerts! Plot spoilers often increase enjoyment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129941/original/image-20160710-24079-1ag0we5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is it really worth all the effort to avoid spoilers?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-245162875/stock-photo-this-is-too-loud-frustrated-mature-man-in-shirt-holding-fingers-in-his-ears-and-keeping-eyes.html?src=8U7fdQm-nfRpu5dfFzxyeg-3-32">'Man' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last December, I had tickets to see “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” the night after the premiere. While I was at work that day, I was filled with anxiety. What if I overheard someone talking about the movie? What if I accidentally saw something online that gave away a major plot point? </p>
<p>Many can relate to the experience of avoiding spoilers: staying off social media, slipping away from coworkers who are discussing a recent plot development, quickly closing articles with revealing headlines. </p>
<p>The fear is that the experience of seeing it for the first time will be ruined – or, at least, the experience won’t be as good as it <em>could</em> be. It’s why spoiler alerts are everywhere these days (like <a href="http://www.cinemablend.com/news/1532819/the-role-dan-aykroyd-almost-played-in-the-new-ghostbusters">in</a> <a href="http://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment/ghostbusters-reboot-a-horrifying-mess/">these</a> <a href="http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/07/11/director-paul-feig-explains-ghostbusters-post-credit-sting">articles</a> about the new “Ghostbusters” movie), and why sharing unwanted spoilers is considered <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/game-of-thrones-spoiler-texts-automatically-2016-6">cruel</a>.</p>
<p>But sometimes, there’s little logic to our beliefs about our behavior. For example, if not knowing what’s going to happen is so crucial for enjoyment, why do we watch movies we like more than once? </p>
<p>Over the past few years, several studies have tested the effects of spoilers on people’s enjoyment of stories. Their findings might change the way you react the next time a plot is inadvertently leaked to you. </p>
<h2>A study with a surprising twist</h2>
<p>In <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/9/1152.extract">one study</a>, psychologists Jonathan Leavitt and Nicholas Christenfeld had 819 undergraduate students read short stories written by well-known authors like Roald Dahl and Anton Chekhov. </p>
<p>Before reading each story, some students first read a paragraph that appeared to inadvertently spoil the outcome of the story. Others read the same story without spoilers. After reading the stories, the students rated how much they enjoyed them. </p>
<p>The researchers found that, on average, students found the spoiled stories slightly <em>more</em> enjoyable than the unspoiled stories. After breaking down the results by story type, the results stayed the same even for mysteries and plots with surprising twists – stories where you might expect that much of the enjoyment comes from not knowing how the story ends. </p>
<h2>The satisfaction of knowing what to expect</h2>
<p>It may come as a surprise that being exposed to a spoiler could cause someone to enjoy a film even more. </p>
<p>One possible explanation has to do with the psychological concept of “fluency.” The more fluent something is – whether it’s a story, a song or a face – the easier it is to process and understand. And <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00008">many</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0601071103">psychology</a> <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/9/2p2/1/">studies</a> have shown that the easier something is to process, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect">the more likely people are to like it</a>. </p>
<p>One way that fluency can make a story more enjoyable is that it reduces the need to make (possibly incorrect) inferences about where the story is going or what a character is thinking or feeling. You’ve probably experienced this when listening to music. The first time you hear a song, you might not think it’s anything special. But after the song becomes more familiar and you can anticipate how it will unfold, you realize that you really like it. Because the song has become more fluent, you’ve found yourself enjoying it more. </p>
<p>In a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ssol.3.1.09lea">follow-up study</a>, Leavitt and Christenfeld tested this fluency explanation by repeating their experiment on a different group of 240 undergraduate students. This time, the researchers used stories written for junior or high school students that use common tropes and plot devices. They reasoned that, for these simple and fairly predictable stories, fluency should already be high, and spoilers would have no effect on enjoyment if fluency was truly at work. </p>
<p>As predicted, they found that students rated these stories equally enjoyable with or without spoilers.</p>
<h2>For some, spoilers really do spoil</h2>
<p>The results suggest that obsessive avoidance of anything with the potential to reveal a plot twist is probably unwarranted. You’ll probably enjoy the movie, book or TV show either way. </p>
<p>But what if you’re convinced you’ve been exposed to a spoiler before and it really did ruin your reading or viewing experience? </p>
<p>It’s important to remember that Leavitt and Christenfeld’s results are average results. They don’t mean that everyone will enjoy a story more after it’s been spoiled. Indeed, <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2015-10440-001/">a recent study</a> by Judith Rosenbaum and Benjamin Johnson supports the idea that how you respond to spoilers might depend on your personality. </p>
<p>The researchers focused on two personality traits: “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_cognition">need for cognition</a>” and “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.694156">need for affect</a>.” People high in need for cognition like to think and tend to seek out cognitively demanding activities like crossword puzzles. Analogously, people high in need for affect like to feel and tend to seek out emotional activities like watching heartwarming videos on YouTube. Although these two personality traits seem like opposites, they are independent – it’s possible for someone to be high in one, both or neither. In a study of 368 undergraduate students, the researchers found that students high in need for affect did, on average, tend to enjoy unspoiled stories more than spoiled stories. This could be because people that enjoy emotional experiences benefit more from the uncertainty and anticipation of not knowing what will happen.</p>
<p>As part of their study, the researchers also presented the students with brief descriptions of several stories and asked the students how much they would like to read each one. Some of these descriptions contained spoilers and some didn’t. Interestingly, the researchers found that students low in need for cognition were, on average, more likely to want to read the spoiled stories. This could be because the students expected spoiled stories to be easier to process. However, these students later enjoyed reading spoiled and unspoiled stories about equally. In other words, these students’ intuitions about spoilers (in this case, that they would enjoy spoiled stories more) were wrong.</p>
<p>This is similar to my experience. When I saw “The Force Awakens” for the second time, the movie had at that point been “spoiled” for me – by me. To my surprise, I enjoyed it more. Research on spoilers suggests that my experience wasn’t unusual. And it’s a good reminder that we shouldn’t always trust our intuitions about our own behavior.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62154/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Jern does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Contrary to popular belief, several recent studies suggest that plot spoilers don’t always make us like a film or books less – and may even make us like it more.Alan Jern, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Rose-Hulman Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/588272016-05-20T01:06:03Z2016-05-20T01:06:03ZCan being a good storyteller lead to love?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123238/original/image-20160519-4478-3d12bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C71%2C1000%2C675&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-418984624/stock-photo-the-colored-illustration-of-two-people-talking-hand-made-with-the-different-paper-textures-and-ink.html?src=pd-same_artist-418984633-kkRyjW-gvMq-vgbw1zfdEA-1">'Story' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Everyone loves a good story, but can a good story lead to love? </p>
<p>Storytelling is a fundamental form of communication, and research has demonstrated the <a href="http://www.escpeurope.eu/nc/media-news/news-newsletter/news-single/article/the-extended-transportation-imagery-model-a-meta-analysis-of-the-antecedents-and-consequences-of-co/">power of narratives</a> to <a href="http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/the_role_of_transportation_in_the_persuasiveness_of_public_narratives.pdf">change minds and influence behavior</a>. </p>
<p>For example, personal narratives are often used in advertising and health campaigns, and have led to an <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/faculty/communication/sheila-murphy">increase in cancer screenings</a>. Even novels have led to societal change; Upton Sinclair’s fictional <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=IRYu81ugGloC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+jungle+upton+sinclair&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCgsqF9uHMAhUCcz4KHeEnDvIQ6AEIKTAC#v=onepage&q&f=false">“The Jungle”</a> prompted reforms in the meat-packing industry. </p>
<p>But as psychologists and experts in narrative persuasion, we wondered: how might stories influence the course of a romantic relationship? </p>
<p>We <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pere.12120/abstract">conducted three studies</a> to determine whether storytelling ability was advantageous in attracting short-term or long-term romantic partners. </p>
<p>We found that being able to tell a good tale does matter – especially for one gender. </p>
<h2>Commanding a crowd</h2>
<p>In the first of our three studies, undergraduates were asked to evaluate a potential romantic partner by looking at a picture of an individual of the opposite gender. They also received information about the individual’s storytelling ability, along with brief, neutral biographical information, such as the person’s hometown and the fact that he or she liked spaghetti. </p>
<p>There were four groups of participants in the study. Participants were either told that the individual in the picture was a good storyteller, moderate storyteller or poor storyteller. (Those in the control condition were given no information about storytelling ability.) </p>
<p>For example, in the “good storytelling” condition, participants read that the person “often tells really good stories at parties, partly due to an interesting variety of word choice.” </p>
<p>After reading these descriptions, participants rated the person’s physical attractiveness, as well as how attractive the person seemed for a date, a long-term relationship and as a friend. </p>
<p>Somewhat surprisingly, results from the first study showed storytelling skill does not result in across-the-board increases in attraction. </p>
<p>Instead, we found that men who are effective storytellers appear to have an advantage in attracting long-term mates. In contrast, a woman who was described as telling good stories was not better liked by men, and the man who told good stories was not better-liked for a short-term relationship. </p>
<p>In the second study, participants were provided with an actual story allegedly told by the potential mate. Half the participants read an effectively told story, and the other half received an ineffectively told story. We used a one-page humorous account of a father playing a game on a seesaw with his two sons, written in an informal, conversational style. Compared to the good story, the poor story used unimaginative vocabulary, used irrelevant details and added filler questions, such as “Oh wait, is that the way it happened? Yeah, I think so.”</p>
<p>The same pattern of results emerged: women rated good male storytellers as more attractive than poor storytellers as a long-term partner, and whether the story told by the female storyteller was good or poor didn’t matter to men. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123239/original/image-20160519-30585-jg2bxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123239/original/image-20160519-30585-jg2bxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123239/original/image-20160519-30585-jg2bxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123239/original/image-20160519-30585-jg2bxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123239/original/image-20160519-30585-jg2bxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123239/original/image-20160519-30585-jg2bxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123239/original/image-20160519-30585-jg2bxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A stilted story may lead to a missed connection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-418984633/stock-photo-the-colored-illustration-of-two-figures-standing-back-to-back-hand-made-with-the-different-paper.html?src=pp-same_artist-418984624-1&ws=1">'Bored' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We wanted to better understand why the gender difference existed, so we conducted a third study that was similar to the first study, but also included questions related to social status. </p>
<p>Items included: “To what extent do you think this person would…be popular, be admired, be a good leader, and be an inspiration for others to excel?” </p>
<p>Again, when it came to a potential long-term dating partner, women found good storytellers more attractive than poor storytellers. Storytelling ability had no effect on male participants. Importantly, women perceived men who were good storytellers as higher status: more likely to be a leader or be admired.</p>
<h2>Evolutionary explanations</h2>
<p>The gender differences in these findings can be interpreted in light of <a href="http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165805.pdf">evolutionary approaches to understanding mate selection</a>. </p>
<p>Theories in this field have highlighted the different evolutionary concerns of men versus women for passing on their genes. When it comes to reproduction, the theory goes, men are more likely to “invest widely,” while women are likely to “invest wisely.” </p>
<p>Specifically, when it comes to having children, men can provide a more minimal parental investment (even just a single sexual encounter), whereas women’s investment includes months of pregnancy and potentially nursing an infant. </p>
<p>According to this belief, men may devote more effort to short-term mating or relationships than women, focusing on fertility cues like age and physical attractiveness. Meanwhile, women try to identify a mate who can provide resources to any offspring. </p>
<p>Given that women are likely to value a “good dad” or provider more in long-term relationships, our findings suggest that male storytelling ability may suggest resource-gaining prowess to women – especially if good storytellers can gain higher social status.</p>
<p>Researchers haven’t yet tested whether or not good storytellers are <em>actually</em> able to attain higher social status or leadership positions. At the very least – based on our third study – the perception seems to exist that someone who can command the crowd with a compelling story is more likely to garner higher status in the group. </p>
<p>Evolutionary theorists have also attempted to explain the function of storytelling in social groups, and how it might be tied to status.</p>
<p>For example, according to the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Human_Legacy.html?id=mp4p62EKfbQC">“stories as explanatory tools hypothesis,”</a> in ancient societies, those who were best able to explain (what were considered) supernatural phenomena might have risen to positions of power. <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674057111">Another theory</a> argues that humans gained significant survival benefits through their ability to think flexibly, and that storytelling is a form of cognitive play that can train the mind in this way.</p>
<p>In the end, stories matter: not just for entertainment, not just for learning about the world, but for building relationships. The sizzle of mutual physical attraction might be all that is needed for a successful first date. But for long-term relationships, people often look for something more. And for some, an engrossing conversation that lasts for hours or a gripping story that brings someone’s past to life could lead to love.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58827/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Not everyone can weave a gripping tale. But for one gender, it matters more than the other.Melanie Green, Associate Professor of Communication, University at BuffaloJohn K. Donahue, Professor of Psychology, Columbus College of Art & DesignLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/521352016-01-05T11:10:35Z2016-01-05T11:10:35ZWhy stories matter for children’s learning<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106937/original/image-20151222-27897-nx53xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why stories matter</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/aidanmorgan/3537327425/in/photolist-6ozJcT-xWrxX-6JMMkb-tG4gRL-b5Lc92-9RX1o9-4x5S6R-8C14Qr-Bm4Np2-6TyShB-8hCzTj-4YDEcH-6vBxcw-4ZieiN-6FNVhp-5KghNz-hPLd6-dxyTt1-5wwMRG-bW6YMc-5z1gzy-nCTwnd-hy4VGu-cdEEG-85NwPp-56VbgT-nQDWFR-dpCzDh-5Jepfz-6gRciG-jM4E3-azjwr-jDoHiC-e6Wb1U-7oFEPR-83T1Le-roCJtM-65FZkH-pgXs4K-bi1o4M-nw2r65-6JAzcW-q9Kgqx-ysCqk-5rX1XM-5XDBLZ-fLnSt4-5XHYi7-8frxSf-Ej3H">PROJohn Morgan</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ever wondered why boys and girls choose particular toys, particular colors and particular stories? Why is it that girls want to dress in pink and to be princesses, or boys want to be Darth Vader, warriors and space adventurers? </p>
<p>Stories told to children can make a difference. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson1140/VM0103What.pdf">Scholars have found</a> that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272890739_Reading_difference_Picture_book_retellings_as_contexts_for_exploring_personal_meanings_of_race_and_culture">stories have a strong</a> influence on children’s understanding of cultural and gender roles. Stories do not just develop children’s literacy; <a href="http://global.wisc.edu/multiracial/docs/quintana1998.pdf">they convey values</a>, beliefs, attitudes and social norms which, in turn, shape children’s perceptions of reality. </p>
<p>I found <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249744249_Features_of_gender_An_analysis_of_the_visual_texts_of_third_grade_children">through my research</a> that children learn how to behave, think, and act through the characters that they meet through stories. </p>
<p>So, how do stories shape children’s perspectives?</p>
<h2>Why stories matter</h2>
<p>Stories – whether told through picture books, dance, images, math equations, songs or oral retellings – are one of the most fundamental ways in which we communicate. </p>
<p>Nearly 80 years ago, <a href="http://www.education.miami.edu/ep/rosenblatt/">Louise Rosenblatt</a>, a widely known scholar of literature, articulated that we understand ourselves through the lives of characters in stories. She <a href="https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/v32n3/karolides.pdf">argued</a> that stories help readers understand how authors and their characters think and why they act in the way they do. </p>
<p>Similarly, research conducted by <a href="https://www.coe.arizona.edu/faculty_profile/142/">Kathy Short</a>, a scholar of children’s literature, also shows that <a href="https://www.coe.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/children_taking_action_within_global_inquiries.pdf">children learn to develop</a> through stories a critical perspective about how to engage in social action. </p>
<p>Stories help children develop empathy and cultivate imaginative and divergent thinking – that is, thinking that generates a range of possible ideas and/or solutions around story events, rather than looking for single or literal responses. </p>
<h2>Impact of stories</h2>
<p>So, when and where do children develop perspectives about their world, and how do stories shape that?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249744249_Features_of_gender_An_analysis_of_the_visual_texts_of_third_grade_children">Studies</a> have shown that children develop their perspectives on aspects of identity such as gender and race before the age of five. </p>
<p>A key work by novelist John Berger suggests that very young children <a href="http://waysofseeingwaysofseeing.com/ways-of-seeing-john-berger-5.7.pdf">begin to recognize</a> patterns and visually read their worlds before they learn to speak, write or read printed language. The stories that they <a href="https://www.heinemann.com/shared/onlineresources/E00768/chapter5.pdf">read</a> <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/37611942_Damsels_in_Discourse_Girls_Consuming_and_Producing_Identity_Texts_Through_Disney_Princess_Play">or see</a> can have a strong influence on how they think and behave. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/2/3/d/23dfb9f090fa07f9/LanguageArts_2014_Research.pdf?c_id=7718947&expiration=1450746537&hwt=840a5a2c4352f3392e7d28728bc9a7e6">research</a> conducted by scholar <a href="http://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/vvasque.cfm">Vivian Vasquez</a> shows that young children play out or draw narratives in which they become part of the story. In her research, <a href="http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/2/3/d/23dfb9f090fa07f9/LanguageArts_2014_Research.pdf?c_id=7718947&expiration=1450746537&hwt=840a5a2c4352f3392e7d28728bc9a7e6">Vasquez</a> describes how four-year-old Hannah mixes reality with fiction in her drawings of Rudolph the reindeer. Hannah adds a person in the middle with a red X above him, alongside the reindeer. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106938/original/image-20151222-27894-608nee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106938/original/image-20151222-27894-608nee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106938/original/image-20151222-27894-608nee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106938/original/image-20151222-27894-608nee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106938/original/image-20151222-27894-608nee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106938/original/image-20151222-27894-608nee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106938/original/image-20151222-27894-608nee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children can mix reality and fiction in their interpretation of stories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nutmegdesigns/6549246967/in/photolist-aYJAXa-5JPkze-5LG86F-48qKZU-kgdnc-dD2i6m-94gADY-7q6QJ8-7q6PNx-5LE9iP-7riwJA-4y8ZXY-sFyUM-qih7PF-typUf-4m7UoQ-5GcwGi-dC9N2M-qayCXB-5HNA1M-qb2n7g-7qaSzE-5JwBd7-4Mz7jB-4yjbVC-96VSt1-i8vUSo-7CpAeX-4jqwok-4ehjaC-qeGMfr-5Kp9jB-4zwJs9-sCGDa-4f4UzW-b1D2dR-8YgM3u-8YgMoo-8SCxRE-aFDEBZ-aBruDR-49gvqj-93T25k-7qaRvS-2HDLtN-8SztGZ-7Jn4i-w8mKL-aBruCr-6SN63u">Margaret Almon</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Vasquez explains that Hannah had experienced bullying by the boys in the class and did not like seeing that Rudolph was called names and bullied by other reindeer when she read Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Vasquez suggests that Hannah’s picture conveyed her desire not to have the boys tease Rudolph, and more importantly, her. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249744249_Features_of_gender_An_analysis_of_the_visual_texts_of_third_grade_children">My own research</a> has yielded similar insights. I have found that children internalize the cultural and gender roles of characters in the stories. </p>
<p>In one such study that I conducted over a six-week period, third grade children read and discussed the role of male and female characters through a number of different stories. </p>
<p>Children then reenacted gender roles (eg, girls as passive; evil stepsisters). Later, children rewrote these stories as “fractured fairy tales.” That is, children rewrote characters and their roles into those that mirrored present-day roles that men and women take on. The roles for girls, for example, were rewritten to show they worked and played outside the home. </p>
<p>Subsequently, we asked the girls to draw what they thought boys were interested in and boys to draw what they thought girls were interested in. </p>
<p>We were surprised that nearly all children drew symbols, stories and settings that represented traditional perceptions of gendered roles. That is, boys drew girls as princesses in castles with a male about to save them from dragons. These images were adorned with rainbows, flowers and hearts. Girls drew boys in outdoor spaces, and as adventurers and athletes. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106936/original/image-20151222-27887-8dnqpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106936/original/image-20151222-27887-8dnqpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106936/original/image-20151222-27887-8dnqpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106936/original/image-20151222-27887-8dnqpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106936/original/image-20151222-27887-8dnqpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1037&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106936/original/image-20151222-27887-8dnqpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1037&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106936/original/image-20151222-27887-8dnqpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1037&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Drawing by an eight-year-old boy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, look at the image here, drawn by an eight-year-old boy. It depicts two things: First, the boy recreates a traditional storyline from his reading of fairy tales (princess needs saving by a prince). Second, he “remixes” his reading of fairy tales with his own real interest in space travel. </p>
<p>Even though he engaged in discussions on how gender should not determine particular roles in society (eg, women as caregivers; men as breadwinners), his image suggests that reading traditional stories, such as fairy tales, contributes to his understanding of gender roles. </p>
<p>Our findings are further corroborated by the work of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/37611942_Damsels_in_Discourse_Girls_Consuming_and_Producing_Identity_Texts_Through_Disney_Princess_Play">scholar Karen Wohlwend</a>, who found a strong influence of Disney stories on young children. In her research, she found that very young girls, influenced by the stories, are more likely to become “damsels in distress” during play. </p>
<p>However, it is not only the written word that has such influence on children. Before they begin to read written words, young children <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274407707_A_Kindergartner%27s_Emergent_Strategy_Use_During_Wordless_Picture_Book_Reading">depend on pictures</a> to read and understand stories. Another scholar, <a href="http://hilaryjanks.co.za/">Hilary Janks</a>, has <a href="http://www.uv.es/gimenez/Recursos/criticaldiscourse.pdf">shown</a> that children interpret and internalize perspectives through images – which is another type of storytelling. </p>
<h2>Stories for change</h2>
<p>Scholars have also shown how stories can be used to change children’s perspectives about their views on people in different parts of the world. And not just that; stories can also influence how children choose to act in the world. </p>
<p>For example, Hilary Janks <a href="http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ847267.pdf">works with children</a> and teachers on how images in stories on refugees influence how refugees are perceived. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.coe.arizona.edu/faculty_profile/142">Kathy Short</a> <a href="http://wowlit.org/Documents/LangandCultureKitDocs/22CriticallyReadingtheWorld.pdf">studied</a> children’s engagement with literature around human rights. In their work in a diverse K-5 school with 200 children, they found stories moved even such such young children to consider how they could bring change in their own local community and school.</p>
<p>These children were influenced by stories of child activists such as <a href="http://worldschildrensprize.org/iqbal-masih">Iqbal</a>, a real-life story of Iqbal Masih, a child activist who campaigned for laws against child labor. (He was murdered at age 12 for his activism.) Children read these stories along with learning about human rights violations and lack of food for many around the world. In this school, children were motivated to create a community garden to support a local food bank. </p>
<h2>Building intercultural perspectives</h2>
<p>Today’s classrooms represent a vast diversity. In Atlanta, where I teach and live, in one school cluster alone, children represent over 65 countries and speak over 75 languages. </p>
<p>Indeed, the diversity of the world is woven into our everyday lives through various forms of media. </p>
<p>When children read stories about other children from around the world, such as “Iqbal,” they learn new perspectives that both extend beyond beyond and also connect with their local contexts. </p>
<p>At a time when children are being exposed to negative narratives about an entire religious group from US presidential candidates and others, the need for children to read, see, and hear global stories that counter and challenge such narratives is, I would argue, even greater.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52135/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peggy Albers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What are your kids reading in the new year? What kids read has a strong impact on their perceptions of reality.Peggy Albers, Professor of Language and Literacy Education, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.