Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies

Preface

PREFACE THIS BOOK BEGAN a number of years ago (inexplicablyto her, even before Bruna was conceived) and I am grateful for the many institutional, textual, and personal encounters which transformed both me and the book on my long wayto writing it. I want to acknowledge the National Endowment for the Humanities for its financialsupport; the Enzyklopddie desMarchens for the competence and generosity with which it makes folktale materials accessible; the University of Indiana for access to its collections ; the University of Hawai'i for its travel grants; and the University of Hawai'i at Manoa English Department for its instructional support, research reductions, and collegiality. I greatly benefited from reading groups, especiallywomen's. I owe the deepening of my interest in feminist studies to long, passionate discussions within the interdisciplinary Feminist Theory Group at the University of Hawai'i in the mid-eighties.And the intensity and integrity of the group experience which Aili Nenola generated in a wonderful "Rituals and Women's Studies" seminar during the 1993 Folklore Fellows' Summer School in Turku, Finland , was inspirational. I thank her; participants Sile De Cleir, Satu Grondahl, Marja-Liisa Keinanen, and Mwikali Kieti; and Barbara Babcock, visiting faculty. Responses, challenges, arid questions I encountered in my teaching were invaluable. In particular, I thank Lori Arny, Linda Middle-ton, Cheryl Renfroe, and Russell Shitabata, now scholars in their own right; those who participated in my "Postmodern Wonders : Gender and Narrativity" seminar for the 1991 International Summer Institute for Semiotic and Structural Studies; Honors and graduate students at the Universityof Hawai'i whose growing enthusiasm over the years led me further into the uncanny territory of postmodern fairy tales; and the exceptionally engaged group of x Preface graduate students in my 1996 "Folklore and Literature" seminar. My profound thanks to those who nurtured in its incipil my interest in the fairy tale's relation to modern literature: Mario Materassi , Paola Cabibbo, Susan Strehle, William Spanos, arid especially W.F.H. Nicolaisen, whose interdisciplinary operi-mindedriess , intellectual rigor, arid personal warmth inspired me to stick with folkloristics. Later on, organi/ed panels and informal discussions at the meetings of the American Folklore Society and the International Society for Folk Research provided me with the much-needed opportunity for intellectual exchange in the specific area of folklore and literature. Ruth S. Bottigheimer, Lee Haring, Galit Hasan-Rokem, Steven Swarin Jones, Kathleen Manley , Ulrich Marzolph, Margaret A. Mills, Cathy Lynn Preston, Danielle Roemer, Mark Workman, andJack Zipes have been especially challenging interlocutors over the years through correspondence , collaboration and discussion at conferences, and most of all their own scholarship. Nell Altizer, Mieke Bal, Morgan Blair, members of the Bamboo Ridge Study Group, the late Joseph K. Chadwick, Luisa Del Giudice , Arnold Edelstein, Miriam Fuchs, Candace Fujikane, Donatella Izzo, Judith Kellogg, Glenn Man, Kristin McAndrews, Marisa Milani, Kathy Phillips, John Rieder, Susan Schultz, Ravi Palat, Stefano Tani, Valerie Wayne, Garmen Wickramagamage and Rob Wilson offered references, useful comments, and encouragement at various stages of the project. John Rieder, really, at every stage. I am particularly indebted to Graig Howes for his careful reading of a complete draft of the book and to the anonymous readers of the manuscript for their generous assessment and helpful suggestions. I also thank Patricia Smith, Alison Anderson, and Kym Silvasy at the University of Pennsylvania Press for their guidance and efficiency, so splendidly combined with caring, and the copyeditor, Christina Sharpe, for her minute attention to the text. Last but not least, Corinna Sargood for the "Little Red Riding Hood" illustration which visually embodies the transformative core of my argument in this book and also performs personal magic for me. When I wasvery young, four or five, my favorite story was "Little Red Riding Hood": I would ask for it over and over again; protest when my mother would skip a detail in her retelling or change a Preface xi word; and wear my bright red coat and hat with an air of self-possession . Mymother and I did not know at the time that we were reenacting the well-known scene of storytelling, both of us predictably and yet with unintentional effects remaking the tale. I do not recall the ending of this fairy tale as told to me then, but the image of the girl has stayed with me and has taken different forms. I wish to thank my mother, Shanta, who cultivated a passion for words and...