New Books in Folklore

Feb 21 2025 170 ep. 55 mins 1.7k
New Books in Folklore Podcast artwork

Interviews with Scholars of Folklore about their New Books

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Audun Kjus et al., "Adventures in the Play-Ritual Continuum" (Utah State UP, 2024)

Feb 21 2025 51 mins  
Audun Kjus joins Jana Byars to talk about Adventures in the Play-Ritual Continuum (Utah State Press, 2025), eds. Audun Kjus, Jakob Löfgren, Cliona O’Carroll, Simon Poole & Ida Tolgensbakk. Utah State Press, 2025). The junctions between play and ritual are many and complex. Play is for fun and joy, but it also demands a total commitment and serious respect for rules. Rituals invo

Ann Schmiesing, "The Brothers Grimm: A Biography" (Yale UP, 2024)

Feb 04 2025 51 mins  
Ann Schmiesing, Ph.D. is Professor of German and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder, with research interests spanning 18th and 19th-century German and Norwegian literature and culture. In our interview we discuss her new book, The Brothers Grimm: A Biography (Yale UP, 2024), their first biography in over half a century. We talk about what led her to Germanic

Sara Burdorff, "Maternity, Monstrosity, and Heroic (Im)mortality from Homer to Shakespeare" (Amsterdam UP, 2025)

Feb 02 2025 38 mins  
Sara Burdorff joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Maternity, Monstrosity and Heroic (Im)mortality from Homer to Shakespeare (Amsterdam University Press, 2025). This work uses an adaptation of monster theory to rethink the foundations of epic-heroic immortality. Rather than focusing on a specific monster or monsters, the author identifies the "belly-monstrous" as a crucial

Veronica Strang, "Water Beings: From Nature Worship to the Environmental Crisis" (Reaktion, 2023)

Dec 20 2024 39 mins  
Jana Byars talks to Veronica Strang about her new book Water Beings: From Nature Worship to the Environmental Crisis (Reaktion, 2023). Looking to the vast human history of water worship, a crucial study of our broken relationship with all things aquatic—and how we might mend it. Early human relationships with water were expressed through beliefs in serpentine aquatic deities: rai

A. L. McClanan, "Griffinology: The Griffin's Place in Myth, History and Art" (Reaktion, 2024)

Dec 13 2024 46 mins  
A. L. McClanan's Griffinology: The Griffin's Place in Myth, History and Art (Reaktion, 2024) is a fascinating exploration of the mythical creature's many depictions in human culture. Drawing on a wealth of historical and literary sources, this book shows how the griffin has captured the imagination of people for over 5,000 years, representing power, transcendence and even divinity.

Ibn al-Muqaffaʿs "Kalīlah and Dimnah: Fables of Virtue and Vice"

Dec 02 2024 73 mins  
Kalīlah and Dimnah: Fables of Virtue and Vice by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, translated by Michael Fishbein and James E. Montgomery, with a foreword by Marina Warner (Library of Arabic Literature, NYU Press, 2022), is a vibrant new rendition of a literary classic that has captivated readers for centuries. Rooted in ancient Indian storytelling and adapted into Arabic literature, this collect

Vaughn Scribner, "Merpeople: A Human History" (Reaktion Books, 2020)

Nov 13 2024 50 mins  
Vaughn Scribner joins Jana Byars on the occasion of the paperback edition of Merpeople: A Human History (Reaktion, 2024) People have been fascinated by merpeople and merfolk since ancient times. From the sirens of Homer’s Odyssey to Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid and the film Splash, myths, stories, and legends of half-human, half-fish creatures abound. In modern

Sharonah Esther Fredrick, "An Unholy Rebellion, Killing the Gods: Political Ideology and Insurrection in the Mayan Popul Vuh and the Andean Huarochiri Manuscript" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)

Nov 10 2024 59 mins  
An Unholy Rebellion, Killing the Gods: Political Ideology and Insurrection in the Mayan Popul Vuh and the Andean Huarochiri Manuscript (University of Nebraska Press, 2024) is the first comprehensive comparison of two of the greatest epics of the Indigenous peoples of Latin America: the Popul Vuh of the Quiché Maya of Guatemala and the Huarochiri Manuscript of Peru's lower Andean r

Erika Engelhaupt, "Go to Hell: A Traveler's Guide to Earth's Most Otherworldly Destinations" (National Geographic, 2024)

Nov 01 2024 55 mins  
With Go to Hell: A Traveler's Guide to Earth's Most Otherworldly Destinations (National Geographic, 2024) by Erika Engelhaupt, you can go to hell and back with the help of this one-of-a-kind illustrated travel guide to real-life underworld destinations around the globe. Full of intrigue, lore, and plenty of brimstone and fire, each of the 54 destinations—from Antarctica's Blood F

Cami D. Agan, "Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth: Essays on the Habitations of Tolkien's Legendarium" (Mythopoeic Press, 2024)

Oct 12 2024 39 mins  
The 13 essays collected in Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth: Essays on the Habitations of Tolkien's Legendarium (Mythopoeic Press, 2024) foreground processes of making and constructing Arda -- either within the Secondary world or for readers/viewers -- and thus continually assert that the habitations form a vital part of the tales within that world. Because they assume a comp