Journals Week: Fabula

Fabula: Journal of Folktale Studies is somewhat less accessible for the armchair enthusiast and student when compared to Marvels & Tales because it publishes articles in several languages: German, English, and French. I read English and can read French pretty well, but my German is almost nonexistent (ironic considering my very German name, I know).

However, this is my second favorite journal for fairy tale specific studies after Marvels & Tales, thanks to content that focuses on the folklore of European and European influenced countries, my primary focus of study. They also on occasion have special issues, such as Dec 2008: Volume 49, Number 3-4, which was devoted to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Aims & Scope:

Fabula is a medium of discussion for issues of all kinds which are of interest to international folk narrative research. The journal contains eight divisions: Articles, Minor Contributions, Research Reports and Conference Reports, News, Projects and Queries, Reviews, Bibliographical Notes, and Books Received. Principal themes of the article section are the study of popular narrative traditions in their various forms (fairy tales, legends, jokes and anecdotes, exempla, fables, ballads, etc.), the interrelationship between oral and literary traditions as well as the contemporary genres. Interest focuses on Europe and overseas countries which are influenced by European civilization, but still, there is quite a number of contributions from other culture areas.

Founded by Kurt Ranke and first published in 1958, this journal has been around for several years and has printed several wonderful articles. The positive is that issues are available online for perusing. The negative is that they don't come free and are cost prohibitive to many students and armchair enthusiasts. You can access the articles online as PDFs for 24 hours for $40 each. Makes the annual subscription of about $250 for two issues sound like a bargain. (That price is approximate to the Euro conversion and the rates offered through Amazon subscriptions as of the writing of this post.)

Here is a list of the volumes with links to their tables of contents from Reference Global. So these are usually out of necessity limited to those with free access through academic institutions, something I myself don't have at this time. To help in research (or to torture those of us without further access) the site also has abstracts for the articles, available in all three languages regardless of the article's language.

The journal is also abstracted and indexed in Academic OneFile (Gale/Cengage Learning); Arts and Humanities Citation Index; and Current Contents / Arts and Humanities.

I myself wish I had the full Snow White issue as well as some articles from other volumes...

Reminder: Please read Call for Contributions: Graduate Programs Information and send me an email if you have a contribution.

Journals Week: Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies

The past several weeks I have focused on many fun things, lighthearted posts on toys, puzzles, picture books and other fairy tale related items. However, school is resuming for several of you--and I still subconsciously block the calendar in semesters myself--so I also want to include the academic side of things in this blog.

This week I plan to highlight a few print journals that focus on fairy tales and folklore, great resources for student paper writing or just general interest reading if you happen to be me.

If your primary interest is specifically fairy tales, then Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies is the most important print journal for you to know about. Here's a description and history, lifted completely from the official website for the journal.

Marvels & Tales (ISSN: 1521-4281) was founded in 1987 by Jacques Barchilon at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Originally known as Merveilles & contes, the journal expressed its role as an international forum for folktale and fairy-tale scholarship through its various aliases: Wunder & Märchen, Maravillas & Cuentos, Meraviglie & Racconti, and Marvels & Tales. In 1997, the journal moved to Wayne State University Press and took the definitive title Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies.

From the start, Marvels & Tales has served as a central forum for the multidisciplinary study of fairy tales. In its pages, contributors from around the globe have published studies, texts, and translations of fairy-tales from Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa. The Editorial Policy of Marvels & Tales encourages scholarship that introduces new areas of fairy-tale scholarship, as well as research that considers the traditional fairy-tale canon from new perspectives.

The journal's special issues have been particularly popular and have focused on topics such as "Beauty and the Beast," "The Romantic Tale," "Charles Perrault," "Marriage Tests and Marriage Quest in African Oral Literature," "The Italian Tale," and "Angela Carter and the Literary Märchen."

The editorial board for Marvels & Tales is a veritable Who's Who in academic fairy tale studies, including Jack Zipes, Marina Warner, Maria Tatar, Donald Haase and many others. (If you do not recognize these names, you should also research their works, too.)

Each issue usually includes several articles, translations of tales, and reviews of recently published literature (nonfiction). While articles about European fairy tales are represented in most issues, the scope is worldwide and offers insight into more obscure tales from other parts of the globe, too. You can see the table of contents for a recent issue here.

The journal is published twice a year and the subscription rate is very reasonable for an academic journal, especially if you are a student.

Marvels & Tales is available on Project MUSE if you are affiliated with an institution that provides access.

Reminder: Please read Call for Contributions: Graduate Programs Information and send me an email if you have a contribution.