‘There Must Be More Than This Provincial Life:’ An Analysis of the Construction of Femininity of Princesses in Disney Animated Films

In this thesis, I analyze three eras of princesses in Disney animated films in terms of how gender and femininity are portrayed in each era, and investigate whether each era parallels the goals/issues addressed by the first, second, third, and/or fourth-wave feminism movements. I also investigate how increasing numbers of women in filmmaking roles have changed the ways female characters are portrayed in Disney films. I analyze Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Cinderella (1950), and Sleeping Beauty (1959) for the first era; The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and Aladdin (1992) for the second era; and Brave (2012), Frozen (2013), and Moana (2016) for the third era of Disney \u27princess\u27 movies. I analyze the ways in which gender, specifically femininity, is performed and portrayed in each of the princesses as those themes pertain to overdetermined femininity. I apply gender concepts and themes and examine how each theme is presented or not presented in each film. I also analyze how these themes change in each era of the Disney movies by looking at these carefully selected, representative films and investigate whether there is an increase of accepted diversity, in terms of gender, present in these three eras of films --Provided by author

Telling Fashionable Tales: The Form and Function of the Non- Fiction British Fashion Film

PhDThis thesis examines the promotion of the British fashion industry in the underexplored genre of non-fiction British fashion film. Whilst critical attention has been paid to the role of fashion within fiction film, and costume within historical drama, the significance of fashion in non-fiction, state-sponsored British film has passed largely without exploration. The threshold of fact and fiction is the site of investigation in this analysis of film and media materials, that draw on fairy tale narratives of transformation to produce fashion as the ‘integration of the two worlds of reality and imagination’ (Bettelheim, 1975). The main focus of my analysis is a body of texts ranging from the forties to the present day. The corpus of study consists of films produced by British Pathé and the Central Office of Information (COI), film, televisual, and DVD outputs of royal weddings, and the BBC’s live television broadcast of the 2012 Olympic Games. Fashion has a reputation for facilitating change and performing makeovers, and the texts studied here present three levels of transformation, powered by the magical fiction of fairy tales, the transformative potential of capitalism, and the renewing capabilities of the fashion industry. These texts demonstrate the way fashion stories are used to negotiate key historical junctures in British identity, finding in the structure of the fairy tale a way to articulate an economy of renewal that can be harnessed to a national, ideological state agenda aimed at women. This thesis argues that national events are commandeered as platforms for officially sponsored tales of Britain’s heritage, which testify to the importance of fashion to the British economy and its role in political strategy.Arts and Humanities Research Counci

‘Once my mam and dad have gone out of my room when it’s bedtime, I unlock my duvet cover on my bed, and I get inside and read’ Listening to Young Children’s Voices: Researching Children’s Experiences of Reading for Pleasure

Capturing children’s voices when they talk about their everyday experiences has long been a focus for practitioners, researchers, and policy makers. Yet, despite this desire to enable children’s voices to be heard, their voices are still seldom sought in decision making processes and practices. This also applies to young children’s views of reading for pleasure. In response, this research project adopted an emic approach, encouraging children to share their perspectives about how they experience reading, with participation at the heart of the project. To do this the research was anchored in the traditions of educational research, drawing from, and focusing on, the traditions of children’s rights and the sociology of childhood, creating a theoretical framework that utilises four distinct but complementary disciplinary domains: Children’s Literature, Education, Childhood Studies, and Children’s Geographies. The research asked questions about what, who and where of reading for these children, both now and in the past, in two phases, the first ethnographic immersion in the setting, the second participatory activities informed by the ethnographic phase, so I refer to it as ethnographically inflected. The second phase featured a Mosaic approach using creative methods including scrapbooking, child conferencing, object elicitation, literacy events and storytelling, to record the children participants’ individual experiences of reading. The data from the two phases are intertwined in the findings and discussion chapters. The findings represent the ‘children’s stories’ and are divided into three sections; ‘children’s choices, agency, and autonomy’, ‘the child and the reading environment’ and ‘communities of readers: sharing stories.’ The discussions surfaced a love of reading, but also an awareness of different kinds of reading. The emotional dimension of reading for pleasure proved central in discussion with the children as participants, teaching professionals and parents/guardians/carers. From these findings a Reading Spaces Framework was developed to represent the complex multivalent reading environments children operate within. The framework comprises of six key spaces, categorised as textual, imaginative, emotional, functional, metacognitive, and physical. The children not only changed and manipulated the boundaries of these spaces but also confidently navigated, blurred, and renegotiated all the spaces simultaneously. As a result of these findings the research recommends more ‘literacy events’ (Barton & Hamilton, 2000:8), reviews of classroom and home book collections, the co-creation of physical reading spaces in the classroom and the need for teaching professionals to share their enthusiasm and love of books in more explicit ways

Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales

This revised, expanded, and updated edition of the 1979 landmark Breaking the Magic Spell examines the enduring power of fairy tales and the ways they invade our subjective world. In seven provocative essays, Zipes discusses the importance of investigating oral folk tales in their socio-political context and traces their evolution into literary fairy tales, a metamorphosis that often diminished the ideology of the original narrative. Zipes also looks at how folk tales influence our popular beliefs and the ways they have been exploited by a corporate media network intent on regulating the mystical elements of the stories. He examines a range of authors, including the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Ernst Bloch, Tolkien, Bettelheim, and J.K. Rowling to demonstrate the continuing symbiotic relationship between folklore and literature. A stimulating contribution to the critical literature of folk and fairy tales. -- Children’s Literature Association Quarterly The name Jack Zipes is synonymous with highly regarded and widely read anthologies and critiques of fairy tales. -- Choice All libraries should acquire this new edition of one of the most influential texts in the field. -- Choice Fairy Tales are a highly fashionable study today for literary scholars as well as folklorists, and another new book shows what a range of interest can be evoked by them. This time in Jack Zipes’ interesting and vigorous study. -- Encounter Zipes reveals the extraordinary breadth of his acquaintance with both recent and classic literature in the field of folk and fairytale research. -- Fabula Zipes manages the impressive trick of communicating both detail and overview without simplifying either. . . the serious folklorist should should defnitely have this on his bookshelf. -- Fortean Times Zipes ably demonstrates that moral, political, religious, and other ideologies have shaped these apparently innocent narratives. -- Lore and Language This problematic, provocative study will undoubtedly provide stimulating reading for many audiences. -- Romantic Movement Zipes has written a stimulating and important contribution to the sociology of popular literature. -- Sociological Review Places traditional tales in their socio-political, economic and cultural contexts. -- Teacher Librarian Folklorists, educators and historians will particularly find this resource to be valuable. But educators and parents will also find Zipes’s ideas intriguing. -- Elizabeth Herron -- Folks and Fairies in Action (resourcecenterblog.wordpress.com)https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_folklore/1014/thumbnail.jp

Overtures - 1988

Contributers include: Edison Blake, Collette Armstead, Tom Hoberg, Barry Cassilly, Terry Jacobus, Laura Nilges-Matias, Douglas Leiva, Kat Meads, B.Z. Niditch, Dan Pearson, Rane Arroyo, Janet McCann, James Langlas, Gertrude Rubin, Julie Parson, Connie Deanovich, Andrea Potos, Glenna Holloway, Paul Weinman, Sherry L. Nelms, Constance Vogel, Alexandre L. Amprimoz, Jean C. Howard, John Dickson, John Grey, James P. Quinn, Bernard Hewitt, Lolita Hernandez-Gray, Bella Donnahttps://neiudc.neiu.edu/overtures/1010/thumbnail.jp

Gender Representation In American Made English Language Learning Textbooks: A Multi-Modal Study

Using Critical Discourse Analysis and computational linguistics in the present study, I investigated the discursive representations of gender in two series of English Language Development textbooks in the largest markets in the USA Texas and California. In addition, I examined the pictorial gender representations within images of these two series adhering to Critical Image Analysis. I also engaged in previously unnavigated realms of learning material study by examining the linguistic and pictorial gendering of non-human characters as well as examining types and tokens of gendered language. I also investigated the roles genre played in gendered messaging in both series. Finally, I investigated how diversity, design, and access give power to some and not to others in these two series, employing Janks Interdependent Theory of Critical Literacy as my framework. The results indicate that while overt sexism has been removed from current US texts, more subtle forms of bias exist linguistically and pictorially that place males in positions of supremacy and suppress the accomplishments of females. These texts promote traditional gender and family roles while overrepresenting males and underrepresenting females when compared to US Census Data. Stories place males in adventurous, aggressive, and competitive environments that are not open to female agents. Female agents are most often seen at home or going home and appear confident within domestic spheres. Females are materialist while males are pragmatic. Through an investigation of non-humans, I found that females are small, underestimated, and unintelligent while males are big, cunning, and drawn as the norm. Female non-humans often are othered pictorially through adornment, facial features, and coloring.In addition, these texts lack genuine diversity or design, giving power and supremacy to white males while suppressing the voices of females. The texts do present multiple hybrid identities which allow males and females to access several varieties of discourse. Implications at the school, institutional, and societal level are discussed, and recommendations for challenging gender bias in teacher training and classroom discourse are given as well as a discussion of future research

Conformity, transgression or transformation? A study of the impact of oral storytelling in three Warwickshire secondary schools.

This study investigated the following question, ‘What are the constraints and/or empowerments placed on the emotions and behaviour of young people from similar and different backgrounds?’ To address this question I investigated whether storytelling could be used to explore narratives of conformity, transgression and transformation in young people’s conversations. Data were obtained through an innovative research method I called “the storytelling space” in three Warwickshire schools (2013). Fairy tales were selected, from written and stable literary texts, for their emotional and behavioural themes relevant to young people’s situation. Storytellers told tales orally over five subsequent weeks to six groups of four young people of mixed gender, ethnicity, academic ability and socio-economic background. Young people aged 12-14, led subsequent focus group conversations guided by a facilitator, which were recorded and transcribed. To answer the questions posed above, storytelling was a valuable way to gather knowledge about young people’s experiences. A range of conformative, transgressive and transformative associations were formed between the stories and the students’ lives. The students discussed constraints placed on behaviour by legal and adult authority; raised transgressive concerns by refusing to accept fairy tales gender stereotypes; and discussed the transformation of emotion into socially appropriate displays. Education appeared to empower students where teachers were reactive to student needs, and seemed to disempower them when teachers were strict or used language which alienated pupils. Young people’s behaviour appeared conformative to adult-figures yet students gained power and justified transgressive acts, such as stealing, via their emotions, such as jealousy. A comparative analysis between schools demonstrated young people’s responses to oral storytelling were shaped by social processes, such as wider legislation and class inequality. Some responses to story were connected to the reproduction of inequality in educational practices illustrated in the way that rural-mixed students discussed and questioned the stories, experienced positive student-teacher interactions and, engaged with after-school or beyond school, activities. These were factors which enriched the students’ interpretations by providing additional experiences to relate to the stories. Some all-female and urban-mixed students had access to out-of-school experiences. The storytelling space offered those groups of young people flexible ways in which to broaden their perspectives, increase confidence and create friendships through the social discussion of story. Storytelling appeared adaptable to student needs, therefore more empowering than constraining, because groups constructed knowledge from the stories in relation to their own experiences. They also identified that the contrasting opinions of others’ were valid. There was more evidence of conformity, and transformation towards conformity, in student conversations than transgression. I conclude that there was a tendency in the discussions for young people to respond to storytelling with examples of conformative and transformative emotional and behavioural “norms” rather than transgressive acts

A Holmes and Doyle Bibliography, Volume 6: Periodical Articles, Subject Listing, By De Waal Category

This bibliography is a work in progress. It attempts to update Ronald B. De Waal’s comprehensive bibliography, The Universal Sherlock Holmes, but does not claim to be exhaustive in content. New works are continually discovered and added to this bibliography. Readers and researchers are invited to suggest additional content. Volume 6 presents the periodical literature arranged by subject categories (as originally devised for the De Waal bibliography and slightly modified here)

A Holmes and Doyle Bibliography, Volume 9: All Formats—Combined Alphabetical Listing

This bibliography is a work in progress. It attempts to update Ronald B. De Waal’s comprehensive bibliography, The Universal Sherlock Holmes, but does not claim to be exhaustive in content. New works are continually discovered and added to this bibliography. Readers and researchers are invited to suggest additional content. This volume contains all listings in all formats, arranged alphabetically by author or main entry. In other words, it combines the listings from Volume 1 (Monograph and Serial Titles), Volume 3 (Periodical Articles), and Volume 7 (Audio/Visual Materials) into a comprehensive bibliography. (There may be additional materials included in this list, e.g. duplicate items and items not yet fully edited.) As in the other volumes, coverage of this material begins around 1994, the final year covered by De Waal's bibliography, but may not yet be totally up-to-date (given the ongoing nature of this bibliography). It is hoped that other titles will be added at a later date. At present, this bibliography includes 12,594 items