Author: Our Mythical Childhood

The annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS) took place in Albuquerque this April and Dr. Krishni Burns, the participant in Our Mythical Hope stream of Our Mythical Childhood, took part in this important event! Here is her conference report.

CAMWS is one of the largest classical conferences in North America, and this year was no exception. Nearly 700 scholars gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to attend panels, workshops, and round tables. CAMWS’s welcoming intellectual atmosphere also makes it an excellent venue for new research that is “nontraditional” or interdisciplinary. In addition to the usual collection of academic papers, CAMWS has a long tradition of pedagogy presentations and innovative receptions studies work. There were several panels on pop culture this year; the standout panels were “Casting Die: Classical Reception in Gaming,” organized by Dr. William S. Duffy of St. Philip’s College and “Wonder Woman and Warrior Princesses,” a panel organized by Dr. Anise Strong of Western Michigan University.

I organized a panel devoted to classical reception in Children’s culture, entitled “Travels, Treasures, and the Locus Terribilis: Myth in Children’s Media.” It took place on Friday afternoon in the University of New Mexico’s small movie theater in the Student Union. (CAMWS traditionally holds its Friday afternoon panels on the campus of the hosting university.) The study of classical reception in children’s culture is considerably less well established in North America than it is elsewhere in the world, so I was pleased that a few dozen people attended the panel. The panel’s unifying theme was how versions of classical myth were adapted to instruct children’s psychological development and how those myths were in turn shaped to give their pedagogical function appeal to their intended audience.

Dr. Rebecca Resinski (Hendrix College) opened the panel with her paper, “Midas, Mixed Messages, and the ‘Museum’ of Dugald Steer’s Mythology.” Dugald’s Mythology is a multimedia book of mythological tales, set in a narrative frame about a 19^th-century antiquarian whose acquisitive tendencies lead him to become a modern day Midas. Dr. Resinski’s paper explored the contradiction of setting a cautionary tale about the greed for classical artifacts in a book that appeals to readers though interactive features that mimic the very antiquities that the main character searches for. Dr. Resinski proposed that Mythology functions as a miniature museum and that a readers’ navigation of its various content and messages contributes to the formation of cultural subjects.

In the panel’s second paper, “Fairy-Tale Landscapes in the D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths,” Dr. Alison Poe (Fairfield University) analyzed the use of fairy-tale motifs in the landscapes of North America’s most influential children’s collection of Greek mythology. Dr. Poe pointed out that while the illustrations of architecture, people, and monsters tended to draw on classical originals for inspiration. Where such originals were lacking, D’Aulaires engaged with Romantic imagery commonly found in illustrated fairytale collections. The phenomenon is particularly evident in D’Aulaires’ forest landscapes, which resemble the wild woods of northern European folklore.

Next, my paper, “Spiritual Odysseys in Children’s Television,” drew attention to common features that appeared in adaptations of the Odyssey for children’s animated television shows. I used a segment from the TV show Martha Speaks called “Truman and the Deep Blue Sea” as an example. Children’s Odysseys tend to replace or supplant Odysseus with a younger character, who can act as a stand-in for child viewers. As a result, Odysseus becomes a mentor figure to the young character, or is absent altogether. The monsters in TV Odysseys become manifestations for adverse circumstances in the child character’s normal life. In Truman’s case, the Cyclops represents Truman’s struggle with seasickness in a nightmare and Truman imagines Odysseus mentoring him through his efforts to overcome his condition. Since I had a captive audience, I took a few minutes out of my talk to introduce Our Mythical Childhood to the audience and encourage them to visit the Survey’s website.

The final paper in the panel was given in absentia by Dr. Amanda Potter (Open University), who is also a participant in the Our Mythical Childhood Survey. The paper, “Domesticating Classical Monsters on BBC Children’s Television: Gorgons, Minotaurs and Sirens in Doctor Who, the Sarah Jane Adventures and Atlantis,” examined how these television shows present classical monsters as misunderstood, even tragic figures, to encourage the viewer to reevaluate first impressions and institutional prejudices. Dr. Potter wasn’t able to be present in person, but she was able to answer questions via Skype after her paper was read.

All papers in the panel were well received and the question and answer period generated some good discussion. One of the most prominent features of the discussion was how much work there still is to do in this particular area of reception studies. For example, Dr. Poe pointed out that D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths is largely unstudied in spite of the work’s monumental impact on nearly every classicist in the room. The moment underlined how essential Our Mythical Childhood and its sister projects are to the future of classical studies.

Prepared by Dr. Krishni Burns (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign)

Although I came to the International Youth Library to work on my research project “Oczami dziecka. Zagłada w polskiej literaturze dziecięcej i młodzieżowej po roku 1989” [Through the Eyes of a Child. The Holocaust in Polish Children’s and Young Adult Literature after 1989] and work with both children’s literature from all around the world and the secondary literature, it is hard not to spot Classical Antiquity even in the least expected places.

Of course the most important things in the library are the books. There are a lot of secondary sources standing just near my desk in the reading room, so the first second I saw Swedish book “Pippi og Sokrates: Filosofiske vandringer i Astrid Lindgrens verden” by Jørgen Gaare and Øystein Sjaastad with famous Pippi Longstocking picking up Sokrates (just like horse in Lindgren’s story) on the cover. Right next to it another “philosophical” book – “Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts” (ed. by David Baggett and Shawn E. Klein).

Of course “our” Catalogue is also here!

What is worth noting the Internationale Jugendbibliothek is not only a library. One may visit permanent exhibitions in Michael Ende Museum, James Krüss Tower, and Erich Kästner Room. Besides temporal exhibitions are organised. In May/July three of them were open to visit.

The first is dedicated to the insects in children’s books, among others “Bienen” (“Pszczoły”) by Piotr Socha (already presented on “Our Mythical Childhood Blog”) is presented.

The second (recently closed) exhibition was dedicated to Scandinavian children’s books:

One can see there “Biblia Pauperum Nova” by controversial Danish author Oscar K. illustrated by Dorte Karrebæk:

The most recently opened exhibition is dedicated to the work of Rotraut Susanne Berner, bestselling illustrator and author of wimmel books, although the exhibition is mainly about the cats she is crazy about. There is even a huge cat house you can play with!

Very interesting way of promoting the IJB founder Jella Lepman’s idea of connecting children’s from all parts of the world is the IJB calendar: each week it presents a poem from different country (both in the original as well as in German version) illustrated by the artist of the same nationality. I was lucky to “celebrate” during my stay the Polish week with a poem by Małgorzata Strzałkowska illustrated by Katarzyna Bogucka:

The library itself is amazing, but the best thing is to meet different people: helpful and kind staff as well as other fellows from all around the world, including Japan, Brazil, Cameroon, and the USA. Work within international environment using many languages clearly shows that the field of children’s literature and its research connects different cultures, languages, and perspectives as well as provides a great deal of fun!

More on how to apply for the fellowship here: https://www.ijb.de/en/fellowship-programme.html

Krzysztof Rybak

Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw

(currently at the Internationale Jugendbibliothek in Munich)

“GODs’ School” is a personal project of animations, created by Gaylord Cuvillier Libessart. The series (25 episodes are planned) will be talking about the teenage life of the (among others) famous Olympic Gods and Goddesses, and the mythical monsters, who are attending the “Mount Olympus” school.

The “Divine Students” will be: Eris, Hera, Sfiga, Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Aphrodite, Hades, Persephone, Demeter, Artemis, Apollo, Paris, Medusa, Ares, Hephaestus, Amphirite, Dionysus, Hestia, Nike, Hermes, Hecate, Eos, Iris, Khione, Tyche, Hygieia, Morpheus, and Cassandra.

On the Internet we can already find the official introduction to the “GODs’ School”:

We can also meet some of the characters that will appear in the episodes.

Recently, the “GOD’s School Wiki” was also created – there we find out, that Eris will be the main character of the animation.

If you are interested in how the work on the “GODs’ School” series looks like and who will dubbing the main characters, we recommend you to follow their social media. 🙂

Found & elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• “GODs’ School” on YouTube – link
• “GODs’ School” on Instagram- link
• “GODs’ School” on Tumblr – link
• “GODs’ School” on Facebook – link

“Ready Player One” is a new movie directed by Steven Spielberg (worldwide premiere: March 2018), based on the science-fiction novel by Ernest Cline (2011):

The movie talks about the vision of the world in the future, in 2045, where people use a massive virtual reality called “OASIS” to escape from the real life. The author of the “OASIS” – James Halliday, before his death decides to announce a contest for the players and give his entire property to the first person who will find the “Easter Egg” hidden in virtual reality.  Then the whole world throws itself into the challenge:

The creators of the film decided to put into it many references to well-known pop-culture works, such as (inter alia) “Back to the Future”, “Batman”, or “Robocop”, but they also took some inspirations from the Greek mythology. One of the movie characters was named after the Greek Goddess of the hunt – Artemis. It is Samantha Evelyn Cook, a 19-year-old girl,  who as a player of “OASIS” is called Art3mis. As we can already guess, the girl is hunting for the “Easter Egg” – she is also very brave, independent, and intelligent character.

The Funko company – creators of licensed vinyl pop-figures, produced a doll inspired by the Art3mis character (see below):

Elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• The Official Movie Site – link
• “Ready Player One” in IMDb – link
• “Ready Player One” on Twitter – @readyplayerone, link
• The Official Website of Fanko – link
• “Ready Player One: 138 Easter Eggs and References in the Movie”:

“Zwierzokracja” [“Animalocracy”] is a recently (April 2018) published Polish non-fiction big format illustrated book. It was designed by Ola Woldańska-Płocińska, a Polish illustrator and designer.

The book presents the animal rights, the history of human-animal relations and so on. On two spreadsheets we can see the classical elements: the first one is dedicated to the cult of cats in ancient Egypt, the other – to the Greek philosophers’ approach towards eating meat. Living in the 6th century BC Pythagoras was a vegetarian, but Aristotle (4th century BC) said that animals were to be used – and eaten – by man. That is why he is depicted by the author with a big sausage! The part in question is entitled “The Philosophers’ Duel” and the winner is clearly indicated by the author. Although Aristotle is chronologically later, it is Pythagoras the vegetarian whose “environmental” view concludes the section and leaves the young readers with the lasting and animal-friendly message.

Found by Krzysztof Rybak

Elaborated by Krzysztof Rybak

All the photos of the book were taken by the author of this post.

See more:

• About “Zwierzokracja” on Publicat publisher website [POLISH] – link
• “Zwierzokracja” on Strefa Psotnika – link
• Ola Woldańska-Płocińska’s Official website [ENGLISH]- link
• Interview with Ola Woldańska-Płocińska on Culture.pl [ENGLISH] – link

A new series about mermaids has appeared on Freeform TV on March 29, 2018 – it is called “Siren”, and it talks about the relations between people and sirens, that has a very long history in a coastal town called Bristol Cove.

The main character of the series – Ben Pownall, is a marine biologist from a rich local family, who had an opportunity to meet the sirens already in the past. In one of the episodes Ben meets Ryn – a siren swimming to the shore, looking for her sister that was trapped into the fishing nets. It comes out that the lost siren was taken into the military laboratory and became an object of experiments.

Thus, mythology combines with an animal protection theme, and we see a lot of beautiful underwater views and amazing mermaids who – however – may behave like predators at some circumstances. And yes, they do sing, and they are very attractive for sailors. 🙂

Found by Dr. Hanna Paulouskaya

Elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• Read about “Siren” in the IMDb – link.
• “Siren” on Freeform – link.
• Austern, Linda; Naroditskaya, Inna, “Music of the Sirens”, Indiana University Press, United States, 2006.
• Peraino, Judith, “Listening to the Sirens: Musical Technologies of Queer Identity from Homer to Hedwig”, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 2005.
• Ventura, Varla, “Among the Mermaids: Facts, Myths, and Enchantments from the Sirens of the Sea”, Weiser Books, San Francisco, 2013.

THE UNIVERSAL SEA – PURE OR PLASTIC?! is an exhibition opened on 22nd of April, 2018, at the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko (curator: Nicole F. Loeser; coordinators: Weronika Elertowska, Leszek Golec).

The exhibition is aimed on publicising the problem of pollution of the seas and presents the artworks of the top five winners of the international competition organised by the Centre.

The artists show that not only animals are in danger, but the pollution harms mythical creatures living under the water. We can see sirens-sculptures made from rubbish or for example a beautiful transparent plastic Aphrodite coming from the sea.

Found by Dr. Hanna Paulouskaya

Elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• [1] Sarah Julig, “Sirens Net – by Sarah Julig”, 02.02.2018 – link
• Deep Femme Futures, “OGYGIA – by deep femme futures”, 17.02.2018 – link (1), link(2)
• Noel Kassewitz, “Children’s Book: The Ocean Adventures of Pinni, Tursi, and Mydas: Plastic Danger”, 09.02.2018 – link
• Ella Schofield Lak, “The Myth of the Mermaid – Greed VS Sacrifice – by Ella Schofield Lake”, 09.02.2018 – link
• Aleksandra Ławicka Cuper, “VENUS – by Alex Lawicka Cuper & Alain Lapicoré”, 01.02.2018 – link
• The Official Website of the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko – link
• The Official Press Release about the exhibition – link
• The Universal Sea on Twitter: @universal_sea
• The Universal Sea on Facebook: @theuniversalsea

This week we want to present you another book created by Piotr Dobry & Łukasz Majewski, titled “Była sobie dziewczynka” [“There Was a Girl”]. The book was recently (March 2018) published in Poland by Wydawnictwo Tadam. The official age range of the publication is 8+.

This time, the authors decided to talk about the life of women all over the centuries. The book has 25 chapters devoted to the fate of women and girls from different ages, cultures and countries. In the book we can read (among other matters) about the life of women in Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome (chapters from 3-5).

The last, twenty-sixth chapter of “Była sobie dziewczynka” is titled “Ty” [“You”], and its aims is to show to the young readers, that now their future should lie in their hands.

Found by Dorota Bazylczyk

Elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• About  “Była sobie dziewczynka” on Strefa Psotnika – link 
• About  “Była sobie dziewczynka” on Zaczytana – link
• About  “Była sobie dziewczynka” on Enter the Room –  link
• About  “Była sobie dziewczynka” on Magiczny Świat Książki – link 
• A few sources about Women in Antiquity:
  • Richard Hawley, Barbara Levick, “Women in Antiquity: New Assessments”, Routledge, 1995.
  • Stephanie Lynn Budin, Jean Macintosh Turfa, “Women in Antiquity: Real Women across the Ancient World”, Routledge, 2016.
  • Janet H. Tulloch, “A Cultural History of Women in Antiquity”, Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.

Robin Kaplan, known as The Gorgonist, is an illustrator dealing with children’s books, games, and comics. The artist has just finished creating her first book with Penguin USA [1]. Recently, she also lent her illustration, titled “The Lonely Gorgon”, for the cover of upcoming anthology “Making Monsters”, dedicated to new literary works inspired by the ancient monsters (prepared by the Institute of Classical Studies & Futurefire.net).

On Kaplan’s website, titled “The Gorgonist – Monstrously Charming Comics & Illustration” , we can find many interesting works related to Classical Antiquity and mythology. We encourage you to have a look at them! 🙂

Here are just a few examples:

• Hydra
• Pegasus
• Phoenix
• Nymphs
• Dryad

Found by Katarzyna Marciniak (debt to Twitter:) )

Elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• [1] Read more about The Gorgonist – link
• “The Gorgonist – Monstrously Charming Comics & Illustration” Website
• Read more about the upcoming anthology “Making Monsters” – link 
• Publication titled “Accessing the Future – A Disability-Themed Speculative Fiction Anthology” (Lulu.com, 2015) by Djibril al-Ayad & Kathryn Allan, with the cover of The Gorgonist – link
• “Stuff We Love: The Gorgonist’s monstrous, nerdy, and charming art” by Lisa Granshaw (Oct 6, 2017) – link
• The Gorgonist‘s illustrations for children’s books – link
• “Ushala” comic by The Gorgonist – link
• The Gorgonist‘s Blog – link
• The Gorgonist on Facebook – link
• The Gorgonist on Twitter – link