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Fairy tales (and other narratives) are used as therapeutic tools in therapy. Stories about witches and magic, including spells, mobilize the emotions and the mind of the patient and help them providing patterns and suggesting solutions. This interview is a dialog between an anthropologist specialized in the anthropology of witchcraft and magic and a psychotherapist trained in family and individual therapy using fairy tale therapy in combination with other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Morphology of the Folktale , Vladimir Propp sets out three major postulates for understanding his corpus of Russian fairy tales: the first is the concept of the character network; the second is that of the participant role; the third is the importance of character action. According to Propp, each separate character fills a particular participant role in a definite character network, where that character is defined not in terms of his or her character attributes, but rather in terms of the importance of his or her action for the outcome of the story. Nonetheless, if we attempt to apply Propp's plot genotype analysis to a number of fairy tales, including Charles Perrault's Cinderella , we are confronted by a number of potential anomalies, anomalies that suggest a potential contradiction between Propp's second and third postulates. In this paper, we aim to solve these anomalies by defining two new character concepts: the first is that of the Cipher Character; the second, that of the Lost Character. These modifications have some interesting repercussions within the wider realm of narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Markus Tauschek betonte einleitend, dass Narrativität nicht nur für die Erzählforschung ein zentraler Begriff sei, es gehe dabei vielmehr grundsätzlich um das Wechselspiel von Faktualität und Fiktionalität. Claudia Willms Beitrag I Narrative Herstellung von immanenter und transzendenter Ethik bei religiösen Antikapitalist*innen i befasste sich mit einem narrativen Milieu, das Erzählen oft als Handlungsmacht deutet, wobei die mehrdimensionalen Erzählungen den Leuten als Strukturierungshilfe dienen. Die nächste Tagung ist für 2023 in Regensburg geplant, das Thema und die Rahmendaten werden beim nächsten Kommissionstreffen besprochen. [Extracted from the article]

We present a cognitive semiotic case study of the narrative potential of the statue Den lille Havfrue ('the little mermaid') by Edvard Eriksen in Copenhagen. On the basis of theoretical analysis and a survey in which 20 European and 19 Chinese participants replied to questions concerning this statue we argue that it, and similar statues, may be considered as products of intersemiotic translation, but only if we dispense with any requirements of "equivalence" between source and target, since statues are necessarily semiotically highly reduced. While the source narratives constitute cases of primary narrativity, with narrations providing the audiences with stories, statues may partake only of secondary narrativity, where a prior story is needed for the statue to be understood as narration. In our study, this was reflected by correlations between reported prior knowledge and narrative (and possibly even non-narrative) interpretations of Den lille Havfrue. Finally, we relate the discussion to present-day cultural and political "settings", where many statues, including Den lille Havfrue, have become part of a global anti-racism narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What kind of multispecies story-scape may emerge if we make a library of multicultural fairy tales by classifying them according to the experiences of other-than-humans? When re-classified from a multispecies point of view, the same old stories may reveal hitherto unnoticed narratives that have been unfolding in the more-than-human world. In this essay, I will first point out the anthropocentric biases in the tale classification system known as the Aarne-Thompson-Uther tale type index, which has been used widely by international researchers working on folktales and other kinds of traditional narratives. I will then explore the possibilities of repurposing the existing classification system for designing a new framework that would better reflect other-than-human worldviews by shifting the focus from human-centred dramas to multispecies relationalities. Finally, I will explain my idea of making a Multispecies Fairy-Tale Library across different narrative traditions and suggest possible uses of this library for imagining a multispecies future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Little Match Group In this article we describe how a group from the Heidelberg Evening Clinic deals with the intrusion of destructive-aggressive material into the therapy process. The reference to shared social narratives, here a fairy tale, plays a special role for overcoming speechlessness and powerlessness in the face of traumatic experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the special issue and outlines the field of Gothic folklore and fairy tale, demonstrating how the emergence of the Gothic in the late eighteenth century was closely imbricated with the surge of folklore and fairy tale collecting in Britain and Europe. The article then begins a theorisation of Gothic folklore and fairy tale through the concept of negative nostalgia, in which gothic and folk narratives borrow from each other, presenting archaic elements in a dark, violent, monstrous mode that abjects and disavows features that conflict with modern progressivism, but remain nostalgically desired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We developed a game-based training system to analyse and improve the reading ability of children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). A fairy tale-based interactive narrative is used as an intervention strategy in the behaviour training system, which collects brainwaves and motion-sensing data during treatment. The system includes fairy tales as well as attention and behaviour-related tasks coupled with a brain-computer interface (BCI) and motion-sensing technology. The treatment for the children (N = 5) diagnosed with ADHD was performed for five weeks on a weekly basis, comprised of one 20-minute long adaptation session and four 40-minute long sessions. For the quantitative analysis of the treatment, pre- and post- KNISE-BAAT and general reading questionnaires were administered. Sensing data was also recorded. In-depth post-interviews were conducted after the completion of the treatment programme for qualitative analysis. The paired-samples t-test on both reading comprehension tests indicate improvement in both reading aloud and reading comprehension. The sensing data analysis shows improvements in attention span and decreases in hyperactive behaviour over time. The analysis on the interview data supports the quantitative test results. As such, the test results indicate that this approach helps children with ADHD improve their reading ability, increase their attention span, and support behavioural inhibition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the fairy-tale noir, a subgenre of fantasy-noir fiction that is particularly present in the work of Italian women writers, including Laura Pugno, Simona Vinci, Nicoletta Vallorani, and Alda Teodorani. This subgenre adopts fairy-tale topoi and characters to elaborate on the theme of vulnerability from feminist and environmental perspectives. Vulnerability is an intrinsic feature of fairy tales (texts that are continually performed and modified, but that remain "non-appropriable"); it is also a pivotal characteristic of the young protagonists of these fictional universes, who are often exposed to abuse. The twenty-first-century fairy-tale noir redeploys the discourse of bodily exposure typical of traditional fairy tales by engaging in an environmentalist reflection on the experience of exposure that human and nonhuman bodies share. The genre also adopts the theme of vulnerability as openness to change and uses the unconventional families of fairy tales to discuss recent social changes in Italian families. Finally, fantasy noir recasts vulnerability to violence as a potential space of empathy, or biophilia, with the broader, nonhuman "family." Exploring this overlooked genre ultimately shows how Italian women writers, who are still at the margins of the Nuovo Giallo Italiano, have successfully reinvented a male-dominated genre into a literary lens probing socioenvironmental concerns, first and foremost gender discriminations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper parallels the Victorian novel Jane Eyre (1847) and different fairy tales due to similar motifs and symbols. Our paper compares common themes between the two types of narratives; the emphasis falls on: miserable childhood, oppressive families, patriarchal societies, presence of an ally, the ultimate happy ending next to a Prince Charming. Later on, the focus shifts on the differences between them among which we can mention: the different interest in fashion and appearance, different types of Prince Charming, different expectations in life. And finally we were interested in portraying the Victorian epoch in which Charlotte Brontë's novel is set, as well as the influence of the patriarchal system on both Jane Eyre and certain fairy tales. The paper concludes with underlining the modernity of the fairy tale motifs as well as the emancipation of the young girl. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the uses of the ventive particle dd in Figuig Berber fairy tales (eastern Morocco) are studied. It is shown that the interpretation of this particle depends on the semantics of the verb it is associated with. While with most verbs the main meaning is 'towards the speaker' or a metaphorical extension of this, with some verbs, such as verbs of taking and holding, the meaning takes the subject of the verb into account rather than the speaker. In the second part of the article, I illustrate the way the ventive is used in the narrative portions of the tales as a stylistic device that provides something like a camera perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The story of King Herla (ATU 470) is characterized by three major narrative sequences: the journey to the beyond; the opposition between the subjective perception of time and its objective reality; and, finally, the violation of the prohibition with the return of the hero. This tale underwent multiple reappropriations in France and Great Britain, particularly in Wales, from the Middle Ages to the present. Reinvested by literary or folklore movements, the tale allows for a nationalist and political reading that is all the more resilient given its formal plasticity and its dreamlike richness, which guaranteed its wide European dissemination and a remarkable resistance to the test of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines three Victorian fairy tales (Anne Thackeray Ritchie's "Beauty and the Beast" [1867], Juliana Horatia Ewing's "The Ogre Courting" [1871], and Mary Louisa Molesworth's "The Brown Bull of Norrowa" [1877]) and looks at how the tales illuminate the fairy-tale discourse on civilization. Though these three fairy tales are very different, they were written at about the same period and testify to how Victorian women writers rebelled against traditional gender roles--even when some aspects of the narratives seem to confirm the conservative civilizing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: With regard to spontaneously produced speech and the oral production of a narrative, the content of the message(s) being conveyed by a person with Broca's aphasia with severe agrammatic sentence production must often be inferred from the telegraphic speech output. The clinician's inferences must often be revised to capture the intended meaning of a single utterance or sequence of utterances. When performing a formal analysis of such telegraphic utterances, researchers strive to provide an adequate reconstruction that approximates the speaker's intended meanings. Aims: In this single-case study, multiple oral (re)tellings of the fairy tale Cinderella are analysed in terms of the content of the produced narratives. The aim of this study is to trace and determine how the content of a person with aphasia's production of this fairy tale changes over time, and to tease apart the contribution of various linguistic domains in the production of a narrative. Methods & Procedures: Participant TH suffered a massive left hemisphere CVA at the age of 40 and was initially diagnosed as globally aphasic. By 36 months post onset his language impairment had evolved into Broca's aphasia characterised by agrammatic sentence production (oral and written language), mild apraxia of speech, and asyntactic auditory comprehension. He performed the task of orally (re)telling the fairy tale Cinderella eleven times over a 4½-year period, beginning 36 months post onset and extending to 93 months post onset of aphasia. His narratives were video- and audio-taped and the recordings were transcribed. The fairy tale Cinderella was interpreted in terms of its propositional content and its superstructure: orientation, development (episode 1, 2a, 2b, 3), complication ( = 4), solution (episode 5), coda, and evaluation of the narrative (Labov, 2000; Labov & Waletzky, 1967). The content of TH's narratives was evaluated independently by three clinicians. Outcomes & Results: A marked increase in the number of explicitly produced content units was observed across test times. Longitudinally, TH produced more informative narratives as evaluated in terms of propositional content units, elaborations, and evaluations. These changes in performance are attributed to TH's improved lexical retrieval for both nouns and verbs, and also to his improved syntactic skills. Conclusions: Qualitative and quantitative changes in producing the Cinderella narrative mirror TH's improved language processing, in particular his verb retrieval and oral sentence production skills. Longitudinally, analysis of the content of narratives provides insight into the evolution of text production with reference to the influence of several linguistic domains on narrative production. In summary, content analysis of orally produced narratives provides a departure point for examining the complex roles of various linguistic domains in the process of transforming ideas into articulated sentences and narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the use of time-bound in timeless narrative genre, the fairy tale. Through an extended reading of the Sleeping Beauty myth, the paper elucidates how the return to an old story allows an author, a culture, a reader, to meditate upon temporal boundaries and anxieties about progress. It notes that Beauty's suspension in a sleep that precludes her capacity to act and to create describes mid-Victorian cultural anxieties about stasis and determination.

The article focuses on Daria Dontsova's ironical detective fiction. Daria Dontsova is said to be one of the five most commercially successful Russian authors and her ironical detective novels are the most commercially successful publishing project. The author declares that Dontsova's novels abound in dark depictions of Russian's daily existence, or called "byt," such as impoverished prisoners, underpaid schoolteachers and beggars in the streets. Her stories also develop the theme of orphans finding their identity in a new family and portrays a transformed Russian individual identity. She also combines realistic narrative with elements of the fairy tale. Among her works include "Papa Karlo's Favorite Pasttimes," and "A Ticket to the Magic Helicopter."

Developmental models of supervision are well-established, yet are often abstract and difficult to apply. The use of stories as a heuristic device in counseling and counselor education is also well substantiated. This article explores how these areas may be combined to help supervisees make meaning of experience on a personal level. Suggestions for implementation are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]