American Folklore Society's Annual Meeting 2011

Tomorrow, August 31, is the last day to preregister for the American Folklore Society's Annual Meeting on October 12-15 in Bloomington Indiana. I am planning to attend it myself and hope to see some of you there.

Here are some of the panels that may be of most interest to SurLaLune readers from the current schedule:

Thursday, October 13, 8:00--10:00 AM
01-09
Fairy Tale Films and Realities: Four Views
Sponsored by the Folk Narrative Section
Oak
Pauline Greenhill, chair
Tracie Lukasiewicz (University of Miami), Neo-Magical Realism: A Study of
Reality and Fantasy in Pan's Labyrinth and Inception
Cristina Bacchilega (University of Hawai`i, Mānoa), Double Exposures:
Storytelling and Fairy-Tale Traumas
Pauline Greenhill (University of Winnipeg), "This is the North, Where We Do
What We Want”: Popular Green Criminology and the Red Riding Trilogy
Brian Ray (University of North Carolina, Greensboro), "I Can Recite, Therefore I
Am": Reinscriptions of Gender in Alice in Wonderland


01-10
War and Peace
Persimmon
Marilyn F. Motz, chair
Marilyn F. Motz (Bowling Green State University), Legends of Civil War
Insurgency in Western Missouri
Cherry P. Levin (Louisiana State University), “I Don't Care if the Yankees are
Coming! We Have a Wedding Dress to Make!”: Southern Women's Folklore and the
Changing Nature of Wedding Ritual during the American Civil War
Brittany Warman (George Mason University), Fairy Tales at War: Retelling Fairy
Tales as War Narratives in Young Adult Literature
Gary Hicks (Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library), Antonio Gramsci's Concept of
"Common Sense" as Applied to Issues of War and Peace


01-13
Narratives
Poplars
Phillip McArthur, chair
Theresa A. Vaughan (University of Central Oklahoma), Folklore and Medieval
Women's Sexuality: An Analysis of The Distaff Gospels
Julie Koehler (Wayne State University), If the Shoe Fits: A Search for Cinderella's
Oral Tradition
Phillip McArthur (Brigham Young University, Hawai`i), Narrative Battles in the
Post-Independent Marshall Islands State
John D. Galuska (Indiana University), Creative Process Narratives and
Individualized Workscapes in the Jamaican Dub Poetry Context


Thursday, October 13, 10:15 AM—12:15 PM
02-09
Fantasies of War: Cross-Dressing and Identity in the Fairy Tale
Sponsored by the Folk Narrative Section
Oak
Donald Haase (Wayne State University), chair
Christine A. Jones (University of Utah), G.I. Jeanne: Hero(in)ism and War in the
French Fairy Tale
Anne E. Duggan (Wayne State University), The Revolutionary Undoing of the
Maiden Warrior in Riyoko Ikeda's The Rose of Versailles and Jacques Demy's Lady
Oscar
Jennifer Schacker (University of Guelph), Slaying Blunderboer: Cross-Dressed
Heroes, National Identities and Wartime Pantomime


Friday, October 14, 1:30--3:30 PM
12-12
Fairy Animals, Demonic Beasts, and Fantastic Creatures in International
Tradition I
Walnut
Adam Grydehøj, chair
Jeremy Harte (Folklore Society, UK), Animals with Human Faces
Fumihiko Kobayashi (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), A Study of Japanese
Animal-Spouse Lore: Gender Favoritism in Japanese Narrative Traditions
Benjamin Radford (Center for Inquiry), The Chupacabra and Folklore
Mark Bender (The Ohio State University), Dragon Blood: Eco-Genealogy, Para-
Humans, and Animal Allies in a Nuosu Epic


Friday, October 14, 3:45—5:45 PM
13-04
Diamond Session: Digital and Computational Approaches to Folklore II
Georgian
Timothy R. Tangherlini (University of California, Los Angeles), chair
Jeana Jorgensen (Indiana University), A Quantitative Folkloristic Approach to
European Fairy Tales
Carrie Roy (University of Wisconsin), Narrative Knot: Threads in Stories and
Circles of Thought
Bandari Roja (University of California, Los Angeles), If a Protester Tweets in
Egypt and No One Retweets Her, Has She Tweeted?
Robert Glenn Howard (University of Wisconsin), VAX CON: A Computational
Approach to Online Rumor about Vaccines
Peter Leonard (University of California, Los Angeles), Modeling Folklore in the
Google Books Corpus


13-11
Fairy Animals, Demonic Beasts, and Fantastic Creatures in International
Tradition II
Sassafras
Fumihiko Kobayashi (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), chair
Adam Grydehøj (Island Dynamics), Protective Spirits or Fluffy Agents of Doom?:
The Role Transition of Phantom Sheep, Undead Dogs, and Church Pigs in Danish
Tradition
Noriko Reider (Miami University, Ohio), Earth Spider: "Tsuchigumo Sôshi" and a
Killer Female Spider
Amber Slaven (Western Kentucky University), Seal-Folk: Exploring Gender and
Family Constructions in Traditional Narratives and Popular Media
Thomas A. DuBois (University of Wisconsin, Madison), discussant


13-13
"Strange Things Happening in the Land”: Current Trends in Lomax Studies
Poplars
Todd D. Harvey, chair
Todd D. Harvey (American Folklife Center), Accessing the Alan Lomax Collection Nathan Salsburg (Association for Cultural Equity), “We of the Jets, the Wireless,and the Atom Blast": Cultural Equity in the Digital Age
Judith R. Cohen (York University), "Facebooking” the Village: A Decade of
Fieldwork Following Alan Lomax's Spanish Fieldwork
Miriam Phillips (University of Maryland), Resurrecting Beauty and the Beast:Choreometrics in the 21st Century


Saturday, October 15, 10:15 AM—12:15 PM
18-14
Beyond Provenance: Rethinking Literature in Folklore
Distinguished Alumni
Adam D. Zolkover, chair
Adam D. Zolkover (Indiana University), The Literary Lens: Books as Community
Foci
K. Elizabeth Spillman (University of Pennsylvania), The Genre Gap: Bridging
Fiction and Folktale
Linda J. Lee (University of Pennsylvania), Whose Cinderella? Tale Types as Emic
Markers in Popular Romance
David Elton Gay (Independent), Medieval Romance and Folklore Theory

More Medical Disorders With Fairy Tale/Folklore Names

SurLaLune reader Meghan sent me an email yesterday in follow-up to my post about the Sleeping Beauty sleeping disorder.

Here is what she sent, slightly edited. Thanks Meghan for answering my call for a list like this!

I recently read your blog post about Sleeping Beauty syndrome, and I actually have a short list of medical conditions with fairy tale names.

1. Rapunzel syndrome--a rare condition where sufferers consume their own hair (Trichophagia). Because the human body cannot digest hair, it collects in the stomach/bowels/colon as a ball, known as a trichobezoar. The syndrome sometimes occurs alongside trichotillomania (the compulsion to pull out one's hair).

2. Cinderella complex--Ascribed to women who have a fear of independence, and a desire to be taken care of by others. This is not wildly accepted as a complex, but is used as an explanation as to why some women stay in dysfunctional relationships. To be honest, I'm not sure why it's called Cinderella syndrome.

3. Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, also called Todd's syndrome "is a disorienting neurological condition that affects human perception. Sufferers may experience micropsia, macropsia, or size distortion of other sensory modalities." Read more on Wikipedia.

4. Ondine's Syndrome, or Ondine's Curse--People stop breathing when they sleep, it's a rare and very dangerous form of sleep apnea. Read more on Wikipedia.

I can add one more--Sirenomelia, commonly known as Mermaid syndrome, "a very rare congenital deformity in which the legs are fused together, giving them the appearance of a mermaid's tail." More on Wikipedia.

Anyone have any more?

Just Desserts Fairy Tales: Pictures of the Showpieces

I finally remembered to go check the Just Desserts site to see if still photos had been added of last week's fairy tale desserts challenge. They were! The challenge included both a showpiece and accompanying desserts and only the showpieces are pictured because they are the most visually interesting. So which one was the winner for you? I was myself was partial to the Jack and the Beanstalk one.

Kleine-Levin Syndrome: Real-life Sleeping Beauties

From Real-life Sleeping Beauties by Robert Williams:

Nicole Delien, a 14-years-old resident of Scott Township, admits that she is sometimes afraid of falling asleep. At times, she can fall into a deep slumber for many weeks, and this makes her miss out on everything—school, family events and fun. Her mom, Vicki, expressed her fear that her daughter might just sleep through her high school years. Presently, she goes to school but takes extra care not to do anything else outside her home as she might just fall asleep suddenly and fall into an accident.

Fifteen-year-old Louisa Ball, an English girl, can remain asleep for days or even weeks. Her prolonged sleeping spells often put her parents in a dilemma. They have a hard time maintaining good nutrition for her because Louisa herself does not eat or drink anything during this time. This condition started in October 2008 after she recovered from a week-long flu. Whenever she wakes up from her bouts of “hibernation,” she goes straight to the kitchen to feed her famished body.

Lily Clarke, 21-years-old, can sleep for almost two months and cannot be woken up. She missed out on her own 18th birthday because she fell asleep a few days before that. This condition started in 2007 and it has greatly impeded her life, as she had already slept through her University exams and Christmas holidays. Her mom, Adele, reported that Lily’s extended naps can stretch as long as 7 months and she is very worried about this.

These girls share the same nickname of Sleeping Beauty in real life. Fairytale-like as the name sounds, their lives are far from being a princess. They all suffer from a rare condition called Kleine-Levin Syndrome (KLS), also known as Sleeping Beauty Syndrome or Rip Van Winkle Disease. It is a neurological disorder characterized by altered behavior and excessive amounts of sleep.

The article is longer so click through to read the rest. It also has an entry on Wikipedia and a foundation website and a page on the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke site.

I really should have a list of science and medical concepts/conditions that use fairy tale names because there are several...Somebody get right on that for me, okay?

E! Online: Fall Shows We Love: Once Upon a Time Is Magic. Period

E! Online is the latest--and one of the bigger names now--to chime in with praise for ABC's upcoming "Once Upon a Time."

From Fall Shows We Love: Once Upon a Time Is Magic. Period. by Christina Dowling and Kristin Dos Santos:

Snow White, Prince Charming, the Evil Queen, blah blah blah. It all sounds like your typical Disney story, and a wholly unoriginal concept, but surprise! ABC's new fairy-tales-with-a-twist series Once Upon a Time is hands down the most mind-blowingly unique new show coming out this fall, perhaps because it's penned by two of the dudes responsible for Lost. (Unless you were one of the people who hated Lost's ending. Then forget we ever said it.)

But is Once Upon a Time really worth your precious time?

Find out as our 2011 Fall TV Preview launches today with the new drama we're (spoiler alert!) most excited about...

Once Upon a Time (ABC)

Premieres: Sunday, Oct. 23, 8 p.m.
Time-Slot Competition: The Amazing Race (CBS), The Simpsons (Fox), Sunday Night Football (NBC)
Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Morrison, Robert Carlyle, Lana Parrilla, Jamie Dornan, Jared Gilmore, Josh Dallas, Raphael Sbarge
Status: We've seen the pilot episode.

While many of ABC's new comedies are are, um, lackluster at best (stand by for the cringe-worthy deets on that when we release all our 2011 Fall TV reviews), the Alphabet net has certainly taken a chance with Once Upon a Time. With cross dimensions that could only be pulled off by former Lost writers, this enchanting show shifts between Fairy Tale Land and the dreary (plus magically cursed) town of Storybrooke and tackles what happens beyond the "happily ever after" of the stories we love. Viewers will discover what happens when the happy ending goes to hell in a hand basket.

There's much more on the article page but overall an exuberantly positive review of the pilot. The site also has this short video that was embeddable, so here it is:

Fairyland Lustre by Wedgwood, Part 2

Yesterday, I shared part 1 of 2 posts on Fairyland Lustre by Wedgwood. Today is part two. As I mentioned yesterday, the best book about the Fairyland Lustre is rare and expensive although obtaining it through interlibrary load should be possible. The book is Wedgwood Fairyland Lustre - The Work of Daisy Makeig-Jones.

Besides the line's unique quality, another aspect that endears it to me is that a woman designed it at a time when women were not as easily accepted in these fields.

From Wikipedia:

Susannah Margaretta "Daisy" Makeig-Jones (1881-1945) was a pottery designer for Wedgwood. She is best known for her range of "Fairyland Lustre" pottery.

She was born in Wath-upon-Dearne near Rotherham in Yorkshire. She was the eldest of seven children. Her father, K. Geoffrey Makeig-Jones, was of Welsh origin and was a medical doctor; her mother was the daughter of Thomas Reeder, a solicitor, in Yorkshire. Both families were of the 'gentry' origin and of a professional class background. She was taught by a governess at home, then attended a boarding school near Rugby. After her family moved to Torquay she entered the Torquay School of Art. She joined Wedgwood in 1909, after gaining an introduction to the managing director Cecil Wedgwood through a relative. One of Cecil's daughters, Doris Audrey Wedgwood, married her brother Thomas Geoffrey Rowland Makeig-Jones in 1928. She retired in 1931.

From The Wedgwood Museum:

In 1916, Susannah Margeretta ‘Daisy’ Makeig-Jones, introduced an extensive range of some of the most extraordinary ware ever produced by Wedgwood. It was called Fairyland lustre and adorned a large number of shapes, some of which were made especially for the purpose. Daisy’s fairies came from many cultural backgrounds and the articles they decorate often tell complex tales. Here, on the chalice cup, we simply see elves against a sunset sky enjoying a game of leapfrog. However, the simple antics of the fairies belie the technical expertise needed to make each piece of Fairyland lustre – some of which needed as many as six firings. Daisy’s Fairyland remained popular until well into the 1920s when the Wall Street crash and a change in taste saw that it was gradually discontinued. According to factory history, Daisy was asked to leave in 1930 but flatly refused to do so. She felt like a member of the family. Not long afterwards, she herself decided to leave, making the dramatic gesture of smashing her pots as she went.

From The Victoria and Albert Museum:

Daisy Makeig-Jones's fascination with fairies, following such illustrators as Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac and the Danish artist, Kay Nielsen, proved very popular in the 1920s. Wedgwood have always produced a huge range of styles to capture different market tastes. The cosy drawing room and nursery atmosphere of the decoration of these works, and the monumental forms, contrast sharply with the modernist works being produced at Wedgwood's in the same period.

Targeting the luxury end of the market with these pieces, they represent one of Wedgwood's most extraordinary technical achievements in the ceramic industry. The richly coloured ornament of Fairyland Lustre was extremely popular throughout the 1920s as expensive collector's pieces. But by the 1930s the appeal of lustre was waning and the collapse of the American market had a noticable effect on the demand for ornamental wares. Fairyland was gradually phased out in the 1930s as Keith Murray and Norman Wilson were taken up. Fairyland was considered too expensive and old-fashioned.
[Susan McCormack, 'British Design at Home', p.113]

From Antique Marks (which has one of the most informative webpages about the line):

Wedgwood's rise to prominence in the 18th century was based on innovation in manufacture and designs that, despite being adaptations of classical motifs from the antique, were presented in a new form, which had broad based appeal.

However, during the 19th century Wedgwood lacked the innovation and energy provided by its founder Josiah I, and its wares became for the most part derivative, concentrating almost exclusively on production of its traditional basalt and jasper wares.

By the early 20th century, the factory was nearly bankrupt. The key to its survival to a very large extent was the development, in the early 1900s, of a dazzling range of new glazing techniques, particularly one which produced a finish of multi-coloured iridescence. The catalyst for change at the company's Etruria works in Stoke-on-Trent was Daisy Makeig-Jones fairies. They were loved by some and hated by others, indeed, some thought she was mad, but without doubt, they helped Wedgwood return to profitability after the First World War.

Daisy's art school training helped Wedgwood grow and by 1914, she was considered good enough to be given her own studio.

Fairies bring good luck, they say. Daisy's run of luck began when she was paced in the studio next to the one where trials of new glazes were taking place. Glazes that were to add so much to her inspired designs. There, she was able to watch the paintresses at work and pass to them watercolour drawings of her Fairyland ideas so that, in effect, they became part of the experiments.

In fact, Daisy carried out her own test firings with glazes of different colours and lustres that were later adopted when production began, just nine months after being taken on as a staff designer.

***

Rich blues, purple, orange (her favourite colour) yellow, green and gold, were all worked together with pixies, elves and sprites in ways reminiscent of book illustrations by Edmund Dulac and Arthur Rackham.

And, like all clever, well constructed pictures, the harder you look, the more you see: elves playing leapfrog; spiders spinning evil webs; gaudy rainbows over romantic castles; ghostly woods and apparitions in the Land of Illusion.

Interestingly, rather than being figments of an over active imagination, many Fairyland Lustre designs have strong links with folklore, legend and tradition, though clearly, Daisy's fairy people did things their way.

From The Walters Art Museum:

The Wedgwood factory gave Susannah Margaretta (Daisy) Makeig-Jones (1881-1945) her own design studio in 1915. Drawing on her early love of fairy stories, she introduced an imaginative line of decorative wares that remained popular throughout the 1920s. This particular design was introduced in 1924. Engravers transferred Makeig-Jones's designs to copper plates for printing onto paper sheets known as pottery tissues. While the ink was still wet on the pottery tissues, the images were rubbed onto the ceramic surfaces. Women painters then applied the colors to these designs on the ceramics, a process that necessitated several firings, and then added the colorful glazes. The gold details were added last.

So the Fairyland Lustre saved the company (which is struggling again today) and has remained a highly collectible item. I highly recommend hunting for a piece the next time you visit a museum. They are fun to look at and study with their details and colors.

These images came primarily from M. S. Rau Antiques and James D. Julia Auctions, not the referenced museums. The idea to pull materials from several museum sites was abetted by The Lion and the Cardinal where many of the links were compiled previously. (I usually do that anyway as readers here know, but The Lion and the Cardinal made my job easier.)

Fairy Tale Weddings by Debbie Macomber

Fairy Tale Weddings by Debbie Macomber is temporarily $1.24 in ebook edition on Amazon and is actually two of Macomber's early books combined in one volume, one inspired by Cinderella and the other by Beauty and the Beast.

True confessions time: I read this last fall when I was deathly ill with high fevers and could barely manage anything but holding up my Kindle and trying desperately to stay well enough to avoid hospitalization. I don't remember the stories very well, but they were perfect books for when I was really sick and needed just enough content to distract me from my woes but couldn't focus on anything with too much weight. I ended up glomming a bunch of Macomber titles during those weeks after reading this one since almost anything else contributed to strange fever-induced nightmares. Macomber helped keep me from going crazy since reading is my best medicine. Strange but true. Consequently, she will always have an affectionate spot in my reading history. So buy this and save it up for your next bout with the flu or other feverish illness. (No, I didn't have the flu, but it was similar, just much, much worse with several weeks of fever and other ailments.)

Description from the publisher:

Fairy Tales Can Come True

Cindy and the Prince

Thorndike Prince--handsome, levelheaded, successful--is a high-ranking New York City executive. Cindy Territo is the janitor who cleans his office after hours. There's no reason they'd ever meet, no reason he'd even notice her--until, on a whim and a dare, Cindy crashes his company's Christmas ball. She dances with her Prince and then, like a proper Cinderella, flees at midnight, leaving her heart behind....

Some Kind of Wonderful

Beautiful inside and out, New York socialite Judy Lovin values family over fortune and fame. So when her father's business collapses and his most powerful enemy offers to help--in exchange for Judy's company--she agrees to join John McFarland on his remote Caribbean island. It isn't long before she discovers that John's far from the beast he seems to be!

About the Author

Debbie Macomber, the author of Hannah’s List, 1022 Evergreen Place, Summer on Blossom Street, 92 Pacific Boulevard, and Twenty Wishes, is a leading voice in women’s fiction. Three of her novels have scored the #1 slot on the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. Debbie Macomber's Mrs. Miracle was Hallmark Channel's top-watched movie for 2009. Winner of the 2005 Quill Award for Best Romance, the prolific author has more than 140 million copies of her books in print worldwide.