Folklore beyond Heteronormativity: Overcoming Modern Design of Gender and Sexuality

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel brings together three scholars who explore traditional cultures beyond the naturalized framework of heteronormativity. They analyse issues related to “gender” and “sexuality” in traditional non-modern culture which are not complicit with the modern heteronormative regime of gender and sexuality. All three presentations are based on extensive fieldwork and firsthand interviews with culture bearers in Ukraine and Mongolia. Drawing on the decolonial perspective, Maria Mayerchyk seeks to explore how folklore and global regimes of sexuality are entangled. More particularly, she shows connections between the emergence of Slavic bawdy folklore and global regimes of sexuality in 19th century Europe and analyzes its implications. The paper by Alevtina Solovyeva studies perceptions of gender in folk narratives and practices connected to Mongolian shamans and regards these motifs in their relations to the international motif-types, analyse their meanings in specific Mongolian vernacular beliefs and ritual traditions, and in the wider frame of traditional and contemporary social relations. Alina Oprelianska studies social norms and beliefs about children in 19th and early 20th-century Ukrainian folklore and defines the meaning of (a)gendered rewards for the wonder tale plot.

Sub Unit

• Folklore Studies

Chair

• Maria Mayerchyk, National Academy of Sciences (Ukraine)

Papers

• Theorizing Slavic Bawdy Folklore: Sexuality and Coloniality of Knowledge - Maria Mayerchyk, National Academy of Sciences (Ukraine)

• Perceptions of Gender in Mongolian Shamanic Narratives and Practices - Alevtina Solovyeva, U of Tartu (Estonia)

• The Hero and the (A)gendered Reward: Social and Beliefs ‘Othering’ of Children in Ukrainian Folk Wonder Tales - Alina Oprelianska, U of Tartu (Estonia)

Discussant

• Olga Plakhotnik, U of Greifswald (Germany)