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340 books match the query 'Folklore' and 4 start with j

cover of JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan’s Animal Life

JAPANimals

History and Culture in Japan’s Animal Life

Gregory M. Pflugfelder and Brett L. Walker, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 2005

From swift steeds to ritually slaughtered deer to symbolic serpents, nonhuman animals of every stripe have participated from the earliest of times in the construction of the cultural community that we know as Japan. Yet the historical accounts that have hitherto prevailed, claim the authors of this innovative volume, relegate our fellow animals to a silent and benign “nature” that lies beyond the realm of narrative and agency. What happens when we restore nonhuman creatures to the field of historical vision?
This book challenges many of the fundamental assumptions that have shaped contemporary scholarship on Japan, engaging from new perspectives questions of economic growth, isolation from and interaction with the outside world, the tools of conquest and empire, and the character of modernity. Essay by essay, this provocative collection compels readers to acknowledge the diversity of living beings who exist at the ragged edges of our human, as well as our historical, horizons.
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cover of Japanese Demon Lore: Oni from Ancient Times to the Present

Japanese Demon Lore

Oni from Ancient Times to the Present

Noriko Reider

Utah State University Press, 2010

Oni, ubiquitous supernatural figures in Japanese literature, lore, art, and religion, usually appear as demons or ogres. Characteristically threatening, monstrous creatures with ugly features and fearful habits, including cannibalism, they also can be harbingers of prosperity, beautiful and sexual, and especially in modern contexts, even cute and lovable. There has been much ambiguity in their character and identity over their long history. Usually male, their female manifestations convey distinctivly gendered social and cultural meanings.

Oni appear frequently in various arts and media, from Noh theater and picture scrolls to modern fiction and political propaganda, They remain common figures in popular Japanese anime, manga, and film and are becoming embedded in American and international popular culture through such media. Noriko Reiderýs book is the first in English devoted to oni. Reider fully examines their cultural history, multifaceted roles, and complex significance as "others" to the Japanese.

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cover of John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was

John Ringo

The Gunfighter Who Never Was

Jack Burrows

University of Arizona Press, 1987

He was the deadliest gun in the West. Or was he? Ringo: the very name has come to represent the archetypal Western gunfighter and has spawned any number of fictitious characters laying claim to authenticity. John Ringo's place in western lore is not without basis: he rode with outlaw gangs for thirteen of his thirty-two years, participated in Texas's Hoodoo War, and was part of the faction that opposed the Earp brothers in Tombstone, Arizona. Yet his life remains as mysterious as his grave, a bouldered cairn under a five-stemmed blackjack oak. Western historian Jack Burrows now challenges popular views of Ringo in this first full-length treatment of the myth and the man. Based on twenty years of research into historical archives and interviews with Ringo's family, it cuts through the misconceptions and legends to show just what kind of man Ringo really was.
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cover of Just Wonder: Shifting Perspectives in Tradition

Just Wonder

Shifting Perspectives in Tradition

Pauline Greenhill

Utah State University Press, 2024

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.
 
 
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