TALK: The History of Folklore and Feminism

For centuries, feminist writers and thinkers have turned to myths, legends, fairytales, religious stories, and cultural traditions to make sense of women’s experiences. All of these come under the umbrella of ‘folklore’. This talk will explore the enduring relevance of folklore, asking how these stories can be reclaimed and reimagined for the 21st-century feminist.

We’ll trace figures like the witch, the shapeshifter, and the maiden across different traditions, examining the societal norms they were created to enforce and how feminist thinkers have reshaped them into symbols of resistance and possibility.

Finally, we will ask why we continually return to ancient stories to tell new ones — does this suggest that we’re out of new stories, or is it a part of a longstanding literary tradition in women’s writing, to look back, to subvert dominant myths, and to challenge the patriarchal ideas embedded in our society?

Speaker Bio:

Dr Shelby Judge is a Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Derby,

where she researches digital feminist and popular feminist responses to Incels and the

Manosphere. She recently completed her PhD in English Literature at the University of

Glasgow, for which she produced the thesis Contemporary Feminist Adaptations of Greek

Myth. Due to the proliferating nature of this genre, Shelby’s work in this field is ongoing. She

has published work on #MeToo and the Trojan War, 21st Century adaptations of Helen of

Troy, transgender adaptations of Frankenstein, and transgender readings of Ovid. She has

previously given public lectures on toxic masculinity in Greek myth and sea monsters in Scottish folklore. She is a regular contributor to the Literary Encyclopedia, for which she has

written articles on the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy and Margaret Atwood, as well as entries on

Laura Bates and Janice Hallett. Shelby is a committee member for the Transatlantic Literary

Women network, funded by the US Embassy and BAAS.