Synopses & Reviews
In Unsettling Assumptions, editors Pauline Greenhill and Diane Tye examine how tradition and gender come together to unsettle assumptions about culture and its study.
Contributors explore the intersections of traditional expressive culture and sex/gender systems to question, investigate, or upset concepts like family, ethics, and authenticity. Individual essays consider myriad topics such as Thanksgiving turkeys, rockabilly and bar fights, Chinese tales of female ghosts, selkie stories, a noisy Mennonite New Yearand#8217;s celebration, the Distaff Gospels, Kentucky tobacco farmers, international adoptions, and more.
In Unsettling Assumptions, folkloric forms express but also counteract negative aspects of culture like misogyny, homophobia, and racism. But expressive culture also emerges as fundamental to our sense of belonging to a family, an occupation, or friendship group and, most notably, to identity performativity and the construction and negotiation of power.
Review
"This broad-ranging collection makes a significant and welcome contribution to the study and teaching of folklore; it also has an interdisciplinary reach into masculinity studies, queer theory, transgender studies, and cultural studies; and it succeeds in troubling certain assumptions in the discipline of folklore/ethnology as well as in gender studies and cultural studies.and#8221;
and#151;Cristina Bacchilega, University of Hawai'i
Review
andquot;The pieces are well-researched, provide insightful commentary and analysis,and#160;and are interesting and enjoyable to read.
Unsettling Assumptions isand#160;essential for academic libraries supporting social sciences andand#160;humanities. This book could be very useful for both undergraduate andand#160;graduate courses in anthropology, folklore, and gender/sexualityand#160;studies, among others.andquot;
andmdash;Charlie McNabb, Journal of Folklore Research
Review
andldquo;One of the most valuable accomplishments of the collection may be to familiarize a wider audience with the notion of andrsquo;ethnic dragandrsquo; and to expand the concept of drag beyond gender to a more general form of mimesis or play. And in its most fundamental ambitionandmdash;to unsettle not only gender categories but also genre and disciplinary onesandmdash;we should acknowledge the book as a success.andrdquo;andmdash;Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database
About the Author
Pauline Greenhill is professor of womenand#8217;s and gender studies at the University of Winnipeg. She was co-editor with Liz Locke and Theresa Vaughan of the Encyclopedia of Womenand#8217;s Folklore and Folklife. Her newest book is Channeling Wonder: Fairy Tales on Television (co-edited with Jill Terry Rudy). Her work has appeared in Signs, Marvels and Tales, Resources for Feminist Research, Journal of American Folklore, Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, and parallax, among others.and#160;Diane Tye is professor of folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She is author of Baking as Biography: A Life Story in Recipes and co-editor with Pauline Greenhill of Undisciplined Women: Tradition and Culture in Canada. Her articles have been published in Cuizine, Ethnologies, Womenand#8217;s Studies International Forum, and Food, Culture and Society among other journals.