Seed Talks: Folklore & Women

The Power of Folklore in Reclaiming Female Stories

How have myths and fairytales shaped feminist thought? Explore the power of folklore, its symbols and role in today’s society. With Q&A.

For centuries, feminist writers and thinkers have turned to myths, legends, fairytales, religious stories, and cultural traditions to make sense of women’s experiences. All of these come under the umbrella of ‘folklore’. This session will explore the enduring relevance of folklore, asking how these stories can be reclaimed and reimagined for the 21st-century feminist.

We’ll trace figures like the witch, the shapeshifter, and the maiden across different traditions, examining the societal norms they were created to enforce and how feminist thinkers have reshaped them into symbols of resistance and possibility.

Finally, we will ask why we continually return to ancient stories to tell new ones – does this suggest that we’re out of new stories, or is it a part of a longstanding literary tradition in women’s writing, to look back, to subvert dominant myths, and to challenge the patriarchal ideas embedded in our society?

This talk is likely to contain mature themes, including references to historical cases of violence and sexual assault.

Speaker Bio:

Dr Shelby Judge is a Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Derby, where she researches digital feminist and popular feminist responses to Incels and the Manosphere. She recently completed her PhD in English Literature at the University of Glasgow, producing the thesis Contemporary Feminist Adaptations of Greek Myth, and her work in this field is ongoing due to the genre’s proliferating nature.

Shelby has published on topics including #MeToo and the Trojan War, 21st-century adaptations of Helen of Troy, transgender adaptations of Frankenstein, and transgender readings of Ovid. She has delivered public lectures on toxic masculinity in Greek myth and sea monsters in Scottish folklore, and is a regular contributor to the Literary Encyclopedia, where she has written on the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy and Margaret Atwood, as well as entries on Laura Bates and Janice Hallett. She also serves as a committee member for the Transatlantic Literary Women network, funded by the US Embassy and BAAS.