Why Stepmothers?

Abstract

The stepmother is a common figure in many of the most famous fairy tales. In fairy tales like Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, and Mother Holle, the villain is the stepmother and I wanted to know why. Although the stepmother is also a common figure in more recent media like TV shows or novels, I wanted to focus on stepmothers in fairy tales. I knew that many of these stepmothers had transformed from biological mothers to stepmothers, but I did not know when or why this change happened and I wanted to find out. I received a lot of help from Professor Jenny when searching for sources. I did most of my research in books from the college library with the one exception of a peer reviewed article. Each of these sources gave me different answers to my questions. So, I chose which answer worked the best for me.

Advice

 The number one piece of advice I can give is to go to the library as soon as you know what your topic is. Especially if there are others with similar topics, you'll want to get those books before them. I couldn't find half of the books that I wanted because they were already checked out and one book that I did manage to get I had to return in a few days because it was recalled. Articles can be a bit too specific or hard to find so I really recommend using books. And I also recommend looking for books or articles by any authors mentioned in the sources you find. It makes it much easier to connect your finding together that way. Good Luck!!

Sources

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Knopf, 1976. Print.

Franz, Marie-Luise Von. The Interpretation of Fairy Tales. New York: Random House, 1996. Print.

Heuscher, Julius E. A Psychiatric Study of Fairy Tales; Their Origin, Meaning and Usefulness. Springfield, IL: Thomas, 1963. Print.

Williams, Christy. "Who's Wicked Now? The Stepmother as Fairy-Tale Heroine." Marvels & Tales 24.2 (2010): 255-71. JSTOR. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.

Zipes, Jack David. Fairy Tale as Myth, Myth as Fairy Tale. Lexington (Kentucky): U of Kentucky, 1994. Print.

Aesop's Fables: Sources and Reflections

Aesop's Fables: Sources and Reflections

            For my research assignment, I chose to focus on the collection of fables known as Aesop’s Fables. Aesop, if we assume he was alive, lived in Greece in approximately the seventh and sixth century BCE. Despite the fact that they were told orally more than a thousand years ago, the texts of the fables remain ever-present in today’s society. In society today, the usage of fables is primarily linked to moral development and the inculcation of social values in children. I was interested in researching what the audience of the fables were way back then. How were the fables interpreted in ancient Greece? The answer to this question is something I did not expect – the fables were written by a slave (Aesop) and were originally a political commentary of society at that time period. The potential to educate children with the morals was unleased by John Locke in the eighteenth century, and a new purpose to the fables was born.

            Answering this question with a research process was somewhat difficult. I had a difficult time finding sources for this topic, so that is one thing I wish I had known earlier. I did not anticipate going to the library and having to use the Interlibrary Loan System (also known as ILLIAD) to get most of the books on the list below. I would recommend only using ILLIAD if you have the time, since it can be time consuming to wait for the materials to arrive and process them later (As a side note, ILLIAD works through an online request system that is viewed across other universities, who then ship the requested materials here if they have them.) However, I would recommend also making an appointment with multiple reference librarians, especially one that is a specialist in the department being explored. Like nearly everyone else who published to this blog post, I realize that starting early is the key (ASAP), and having as much time as possible to process the information, and synthesize it. This became a second challenge after finding sources – finding time to inventory everything I had gathered and making decisions as to the usefulness of the sources.

            The research paper can get done but it is going to take some time – the answer is not one click/push of a button away. The following is a list of sources that I used for this project. Again, most of these were accessed through ILLIAD, which you want to meet with a reference librarian to go further in depth with.

›  Cooper, Kenneth. "Aesop's Fables for Adults." Peabody Journal of Education 33.3 (1955): 143-47. JSTOR. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.

›  Clayton, Edward. "Aesop, Aristotle, and Animals: The Role of Fables in Human Life." Humanitas ` XXI.1,2 (2008): 179-200. 2008. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.

›  Holzberg, Niklas. The Ancient Fable: An Introduction. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2002. Print.

›  Zafiropoulos, Christos A. Ethics in Aesop's Fables: The Augustana Collection. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Print.

GG, WP.

Greetings summoner. I mean student. If you didn’t know, gg,wp is good game, well played. And if you haven’t already guessed by our usage of summoner, (in reference to League of Legends), we did a collaborative paper on video games! Wait, video games? Isn’t that too general? How does that relate to myth America? Those are the same exact questions we asked ourselves. At first, this topic seemed perfect to write about, however because video games is a large topic, we narrowed it down to how female gender roles/sexualization has changed since the inception of video games. Now, that may seem specific but after writing this research paper, we highly recommend narrowing the topic down even further. In our essay, we examined multiple factors that may have contributed to the increase of sexualization of women to current video games. For example, we examined how other factors, such as societal expectations and funding influenced video games to represent women in a certain way. There are many ways to explore this topic, not just capping it off at funding. It’s an interesting topic and the only advice we offer is to narrow your topic down even further so it’s easier to look at sources and pick out the information you need to support your argument, rather than just checking out random books and hoping to formulate even more arguments (Heh, we didn’t do that at all).

Speaking of sources! You’ll be glad to know that there are plentiful online articles on the debate of gender roles in video games. Also, you can really utilize the library’s database to find articles about feminism. It may seem like an easy paper to write with all the online sources, but we can’t forget about our good friends the books. Initially, we thought we would be able to find books concerning media in the 70’s (around the inception of video games) to be helpful, but rather than talking about women’s roles, a lot of the books explained women in the media as lesbians. So, we recommend finding books about feminism starting from the 70’s-2000’s to identify the change in feminism over time, which reflects how women were representative in video games in their respective time frames. Oh, and don’t forget to utilize your office hours with Jenny! She’ll straight up tell you if you’re on the right track and help you find some sources. (That’s how we found Miss Representation). GL, HF. (good luck, have fun!)















Sources:

1. Miss Representation. Dir. Jennifer S. Newsom. Prod. Julie Costanzo. By Jessica Congdon, Claire Dietrich, and Jenny Raskin. Oprah Winfrey Network, 2011. DVD.

2. Brenick, Alaina, UC Berkley, Michael Collins, University of Maryland, Alexandra Henning, Melanie Killen, and Alexander O'Connor. "Social Evaluations of Stereotypic Images in Video Games." Youth & Society 38.4 (2007): n. pag. SAGE Journals. Youth & Society, June 2007. Web. 7 Mar. 2015.

3. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=gender+role+stereotyping+in+video+games&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=emEGVfr1FIzsoASC14LABA&ved=0CBsQgQMwAA (Google Scholar links for on-going debate about gender roles in video games)

4. Matthews, Glenna. Just a Housewife: The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America. New York: Oxford UP, 1987. Print.


-Denise Perez & Carol Yoon

May the Force Be with You

Research Question: In what ways does Star Wars function as a modern day fairy tale?

Abstract:
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the Skywalkers finally brought balance to the Force, good triumphed over evil, and a foreseeable era of peace befell the galaxy. A long time ago in 1977, director George Lucas blessed the world with an American epic so grand it seemed to reignite a flame of wonder in the hearts of millions. At first glance not much in the Star Wars movies would suggest that there in them lie the typical elements of fairy tales and myths. How are droids, outer space, and lightsabers reminiscent of the classic tales we all grew up with? Unbeknownst to many, these films operate as a modern day myth because of a standard storytelling framework and consequent universal appeal. Star Wars immortalized itself history, but how exactly? In an era where movies have become the stories of modern day, it is fascinating to examine the interconnectedness of the past and present. Most notably, I was interested in the roots and foundations of the space opera Star Wars, and was driven by the question “in what ways does this saga function as a modern day fairy tale?” Almost immediately, it became obvious that Joseph Campbell and his idea of the monomyth heavily influenced Lucas in the creation of these films, as did the pop culture in his youth. The combination of the two guaranteed Lucas a saga that would appeal to all ages and demographics, and would fill the void of a shared contemporary myth. Ultimately, I learned that Star Wars is an old story for a new audience.

Advice:
Anyone taking this class is going to hear this repeatedly, so don't ignore it. Start your research early. Who cares if you don't feel like it or you think you're the master of getting things done at the last moment. You need all the time you can get with this assignment. Starting your research early allows you to sift through a bunch of useless sources in order to find what's perfect for your topic. Books take time to properly scavenge for information, and if you have a lot of books, it's better to have more time to examine them. Also, starting early gives you time to look for more sources in the event of your current sources not being as useful as you thought they would be. Furthermore, set up a schedule for your research and writing. This way you'll know exactly what you're looking for or writing about on x and y days, and this'll help you avoid procrastination. This isn't an assignment you should leave until the last minute if you want a finished product of good quality. Ensure that you have enough time for your work, and use it wisely. Both the library and the internet are your friends. If you choose a topic like mine that can't really be found in the school library, then take to the internet because there's a lot of great sources on there.

Sources:
Forbes, Bruce David. "Battling the Dark Side: Star Wars and Popular Understandings of Evil." Word and World 19.4 (1999) : 351-362. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.
Gordon, Andrew. "Star Wars: A Myth for Our Time." Literature Film Quarterly 6.4 (1978) 314-326. Print. 
Henderson, Mary. Star Wars: The Magic of Myth. New York: Bantam Spectra Books, 1997. Print.
Mann, Douglass. Understanding Society. Canada: Oxford University Press Canada, 2011. Print. 
Nusz, Aaron. "The Foundational Structures Behind Star Wars." Diss. University of Louisville, 2012. Web. 25 Feb. 2015. 
Peters, Timothy D. "‘The Force’ As Law: Mythology, Ideology And Order In George Lucas’s Star Wars." Special Issue: Law and Humanities Futures: Special Issue Editor, Marett Leiboff. Spec. Issue of The Australian Feminist Law Journal 36.1 (2012) : 125-143. Web. 26 Feb. 2015. 

Opening the Shoe Box

Rushabh Doshi

Jake Weisman

China and Shoes

Abstract:

Our entire lives revolve around what society implants and says is correct. But what does society say about shoes? We really wanted to focus on China and how the Chinese culture has affected fairy tales. We felt that exploring footbinding and the color red would help our overall perspective on the implications China has in fairy tales. We had known there was a connection for footbinding, but we did not know what it was. Due to the massive controversy of how red signifies a whole slew of different things, researching the implications it had in China brought us closer to our answer. Through research, almost entirely through the John F. Kennedy Library here at California State University, Los Angeles, as well as some Peer-reviewed articles and Ebooks, we were able to answer our question to the best of our ability. The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen and Cinderella (several different variants) served as focal points for us. In the end, our research has given us a broader understanding of the overall reasoning for foot-binding, and clearer view on the color red in Chinese culture, ultimately allowing us to answer our question to the fullest of our capacity.

1. We had actually started a bit late so it had become difficult. Although you may not take this advice just as we hadn’t, we know realized how much easier it would have been. We had to force ourselves to finish it quickly so we could get Professor Jenny’s input on our paper. The paper is not as hard as it may seem. What we did was we got a lot of evidence and then tried to string it all together. Some advice that could work: Just keep on writing as much as you can. The more sources you read, the more you’ll realize that everything can be strung together, no matter how difficult it is. A lot of times, we found some really cool evidence. However, don’t incoporate evidence just because it is “cool”. Only keep evidence that is relevant to your argument or conclusion. Also, don’t be afraid of changing your focus and broadening your narrowing your scope throughout the process. Good luck!

2. During the critical literacy assignment, we found a book called The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales Volume 3. We went and found this book in the library and took pictures of the pages that were important to us because it was a reference book and we could not check it out. The primary database we used was JSTOR, and we found most of our journal articles that way. We figured that since there probably are not a lot of books published on shoes and fairy tales, we right from the start concluded that journal articles would be our best bet. We also found a lot on google, however, make sure to focus on using academic sites as much as you can unless you have no other site.

Ko, Dorothy. Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet. Pp. 164-173. California.

Cheu, Johnson. Diversity in Disney Films: Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Disability, Maine, 2013, Print. Pp. 152-3

Namioka, Lensey. Ties that Bind, Ties that Break. New York. Laural Leef. 1999. Pp: 213-7 Print.

Andersen, Hans Christian. "The Red Shoes." (1845): n. pag. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.

Davidson, Hilary. "Sex and Sin: The Magic of Red Shoes." Sex and Sin: The Magic of Red Shoes. Academia.org, n.d. Web. 5 Mar. 2015.

Conspiracies: The Modern Myth

Wilson Lee
Genessis Huezo
Brett Cohen

Reflection/Advice

For this research paper, we began as separate members. However, because we were interested in similar topics and our original topics were too specific and difficult to research, we decided to collaborate and write a full length research essay to delve more into the unknowns of conspiracy theories. To future students, we wish that we had thought more clearly about our topic beforehand. Although finding sources was relatively simple for us, we wish we had known the library numbering system better before wandering inside aimlessly (If you are going to use the library look at the map that shows clearly where each section is, it will save you a lot of time and wandering). We suggest collaborating on this assignment, because while you might not do work on your own, you are much more likely to work on the different parts of this essay if you know that others are depending on you. Also, the other person(s) can encourage you to work when you don’t feel like it and help you if you get stuck.  It also helps to have someone to bounce ideas off of. Remember, that while this is a research paper, you should include a generous amount of “I say” in the essay.

Start researching early; I know people say this and you won’t listen, but this really was the most helpful advice we got. Because we started researching early we were able to complete Part 3 fairly easily, which was the hardest part, and we weren’t forced to rush. We know it gets boring hearing someone tell you to start early, but listen, because they know what they’re talking about. The worst thing that can happen is that you start doing research, and you realize that there are no academic sources for the topic you had in mind. Then, you have to start thinking of something else to write about, and before you know it, you’re up at 3 in the morning trying to get some sort of draft going. Don’t let that happen to you. The best piece of advice we can give you is to try to see if anyone wants to work together. It makes the workload bearable and the whole task more enjoyable; after all, many hands make light work.

Do what we did. Just write and write, even if there’s no format or structure. All that can be sorted out at a later time, but if the main ideas are on paper, then the paper starts to grow. Who cares if there’s no connection between the quote and the topic? Sort that out later. It’s easier to sort out excessive information then have to come up with some bullshit sentence that doesn't make sense to show Jenny that there is a connection between a random quote and the research topic. Our first draft had a lot of patchwriting, but we found it easy to correct this defect by adding more of our personal writing than it would have been to look up additional quotes at a later date. Jenny will tell you how and what to fix when you meet with her (yes you must ask for a conference with her). Worry about structure, grammar, all of that later. Focus on content, because that’s what she’s looking for; show that this assignment has real thought provoking ideas.

Our Topic

Our primary research topic was conspiracy theories, specifically:

“Why are conspiracies so widespread and believed by so many people?”

The most useful source we found was a compilation of different essays edited by David Brion Davis that gave many different perspectives and also included primary sources. No matter what subject you are researching, we would recommend getting a book with multiple essays because these essays are shorter and easier to read than whole books, and a single book can give you multiple viewpoints and ideas. We also found that journal articles were helpful when looking for research. We found journal articles by using the university library website. When you get to the website, click the tab labeled “Articles & Databases”. Then choose the database called Academic Search Complete. From there, you can pick keywords that the website will pop up with. And the best thing about this search engine is that you can look for scholarly (peer review) journals, and the best thing is being able to adjust the timeline to a certain time limit the professor assigns. This search engine provided us with mostly statistics, which is what a research paper needs. Yeah it’s great to be analyzing and connecting to real life, but what can help a research paper is evidence or surveys, or experiments done for the topic. It shows that people have an interest in the topic, and that can be something else to talk about. We didn’t really use any online websites and we would recommend not relying on them if you even use them at all.

Davis, David Brion, ed. The Fear of Conspiracy; Images of Un-American Subversion from the Revolution to the Present. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971. Print.

(This was found in the University Library)

Lobato E., Mendoza J., Sims V. and Chin M. (2014), “Examining the Relationship Between

Conspiracy Theories, Paranormal Beliefs, and Pseudoscience Acceptance Among a University Population”, Applied Cognitive Psychology 28. 5 (2014): pages 617–625. Web.

Newheiser, Anna-Kaisa, Miguel Farias, and Nicole Tausch. "The Functional Nature of Conspiracy Beliefs." Personality and Individual Differences 51.8 (2011): 1007-011. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.

Public Policy Polling.  Republicans More Likely to Subscribe to Government Conspiracy Theories.  Raleigh, NC 2 October 2013.  Web. (Survey).

Effects of Body Size

Erika Carrillo

Professor Hicks

Honors English 102

March 11, 2015

Effects of Body Size

The most important thing is to begin your research early there is a lot of information and so much to read.  I actually got stuck for a few hours going through books that were associated with my topic but not relevant.  I ended up with 15 books and could not read them all, since time was of essence.  It is imperative that you start early!  Putting your thoughts together, organizing your research material, and lastly get to it that is the writing part.  Ask for direction if you get stuck and go see Professor Jenny she is very helpful and will guide you with pleasure.  Really enjoyed her!

My research topic was a bit difficult in the begging since I wanted to focus on body image and the sexualization it portrays in fairy tales.  After talking and meeting with Professor Jenny she was able to help me narrow it down even further at the same time giving me some great resources.  I changed it to, Depiction of body size in fairy tales, films and TV shows and the effects they produce.  Overall I was able to find all the resources in our library and with Professor Jenny suggestions.

Arthurs, J., & Grimshaw, J. (1999). Women's bodies: Discipline and transgression. London: Cassell.

Douglas, S. J. (2010). Enlightened sexism: The seductive message that feminism's work is done. New York: Times Books.

Jhally, S., In Kilbourne, J., Rabinovitz, D., & Media Education Foundation. (2010).Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising's Image of Women.

Miss Representation documentary [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5pM1fW6hNs

Wolf, N. (1991). The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. New York: W. Morrow.