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Social Science Folklore & Mythology

Just Wonder

Shifting Perspectives in Tradition

edited by Pauline Greenhill & Jennifer Orme

Publisher
Utah State University Press
Initial publish date
May 2024
Category
Folklore & Mythology, Activism & Social Justice, Indigenous Studies
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781646425839
    Publish Date
    May 2024
    List Price
    $119.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781646425846
    Publish Date
    May 2024
    List Price
    $38.95

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Description

Inspired by folklore, television, fairy tales, social media, novels, and films, Just Wonder addresses crucial themes in social and ecological justice efforts. Moving into the mid-twenty-first century, wonder—as a potentially critical sociocultural, ecological, and individual stance—will play a significant role in reconceptualizing the present to imagine a different and better world.

These essays examine fairy tales and other traditional forms of the fantastic and the real to offer alternative expressions of justice relevant to gender, sex, sexuality, environment, Indigeneity, class, ability, race, decolonizing, and human and nonhuman relations. By analyzing fairy tales and wonder texts from various media through an intersectional feminist lens, Pauline Greenhill and Jennifer Orme consider how wonder genres and forms blend with diverse conceptions of seeking and enacting justice. International collaborators—both established and emerging scholars who self-identify with different subjectivities, locations, and generations and come from an impressive range of inter/disciplines—engage with contemporary and historical texts from various languages and cultural contexts, including interventions, counterparts, and comparisons to the fairy tale. Just Wonder offers a critical look at how creative wondering can expand the ability to resist modes of oppression while fostering equity, as well as encourage curiosity and imagination.

In a world that can be overwhelming and precarious, this book presents scholarly, artistic, personal, and collective-action interventions to identify and respond to injustice while centering wonder and, thus, imagination, questioning, and hope. Just Wonder will appeal to fairy-tale scholars; folklorists; students and scholars of film, media studies, and cultural studies; as well as a general audience.

About the authors

 

Pauline Greenhill is a professor at the University of Winnipeg.

 

Pauline Greenhill's profile page

Jennifer Orme's profile page

Editorial Reviews

“Timely, relevant, and innovative. The diversity of perspectives makes this collection enjoyable and enlightening.”
—Anna Kérchy, University of Szeged

“A valuable contribution to the field and the growing research agendas revolving around activism, social justice, queer studies, disability studies, trauma studies, decolonization, and ecocriticism in fairy-tale studies.”
—Claudia Schwabe, Utah State University