In a significant portion of feminist criticism in its populist interpretation, there is an ongoing sense of wanting to shape feminine characters from legends, folklore, and history into models for a kind of feminism and perceived empowerment more closely associated with twenty-first-century understandings of the feminine than those directly connected to social, historical, or cultural sources. This backcasting and interpretation changes these characters into ones that would better suit a modern set of beliefs through syncretism and the creation not of folkloric or cultural beliefs but of a folkloresque sense of the subject. The ideologic system this process creates replaces or effaces the original, in many cases with a postmodern simulacrum, which develops its own associative matrix and becomes a self-perpetuating set of ideologies and beliefs divorced from the original.

This collection would like to challenge this backcasting and territorialization, bringing forth feminine characters that have much to say in their own right, in their own texts, even if they seem to oppose the modern constructions that have developed around them. The editors would like to invite contributions to discuss the role of the feminine in history, folklore, culture, and media, as they are presented in the original texts or cultures and dialogic essays examining the impact of modern feminism on audience interpretations of these texts. Focusing on the texts themselves rather than modern interpretations, this collection hopes to reveal a different cadence to these women who have their own stories to tell. 

The editors are seeking chapter proposals (250-300 words, along with a brief biographical note) focused on the feminine–including its impact on masculinity–in historical, cultural, or folkloric contexts. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

Indigenous femininities and the folkloresque

Feminine Textual Identities Outside of Western Europe

The Feminine, the Masculine, and the Folkloresque

Please submit inquiries as well as proposals to Caitlyn Harris (harri175@nsuok.edu) and/or Christopher Flavin (flavin@nsuok.edu) no later than February 28, 2025. Contributors will be contacted by March 28, 2025 with the goal of completed chapters of 5,000-7,000 words being submitted on or before September 15, 2025 in order to publish the collection in 2026.