JoAnn Conrad (Diablo Valley College)
The re-presentation Norwegian and Swedish folklore in American folktale collections, children’s books, films and other forms of popular culture, tends to portray old-world, fairy-tale landscapes of ice and snow in an imaginary, pre-modern past. Such a unified picture obscures a complex history of translation, selection, illustration, publication, remediation and distribution of texts from Scandinavia in circulation in America since the mid-1800s. Retracing the movements of texts, images and people from Norway and Sweden, this analysis surveys both textual and cultural translations, revealing the many intersecting influences that have formed the American re-presentation of folklore from these two countries.
Part of 06-15 Place, Folklore, and the Rooting of Identity, Friday, November 03, 2:30 pm–4:30 pm