{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"STRONGWILLED","title":"Interview with Maria Sachiko Cecire","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2858,"description":"Link to her biography and faculty page here.\nBuy her incredibly detailed, thoughtful, academic book Re-Enchanted: The Rise of Children’s Fantasy Literature in the Twentieth Century\nQuestions to consider when reading books like The Chronicles of Narnia:\nWhat are these stories, what are they doing, and how did they become so ingrained in American culture? How do these stories both aliant people and enchant them at the same time? How do we re-evaluate classics? How can we get better at interrogating what are classics?\nCecire on experiencing “the moment” when she realized she didn’t see herself represented in fantasy stories: “I looked in the mirror and it hit me like a ton of bricks: I would never be a blonde-haired blue-eyed fairy tale princess and that those stories were just not about me.”\nTolkein and Lewis were anti-modernists, and they were able to overhaul the English curriculum at Oxford to focus on the middle ages--choices that had ripple effects for generations. \nSecond wave of the oxford school of children’s literature includes people like Susan Cooper (Dark is Rising) Diana Wynn Jones (Howl’s Moving Castle), Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials), Kevin Crossly Holland (Arthur Trilogy)--and influenced people like J.K. Rowling. \nThanks to Lewis and his curriculum developed at Oxford we have seen a major push in Children’s Fantasy Writing-- all about Arthurian Legends, Medieval texts,and reworking them for the 20th writing. These books are serious about the magic, but incredibly Northern Euro-centric. \nPeoples of Africa descending from Ham. (28:00) -- this comes directly from Christianity\n“I am an academic so I think visiting, rereading, and thinking about books in general is a good thing . . . Remember that humans are complicated and our artistic productions are complicated.” (30:38)\nYou can identify pleasures or desires in your life that you would not like to carry forward.\nCecire references authors Nnedi Okorafor and the Binti series, N.K. Jemisin and...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/Sz_rwa4IWYSOblBBkYDv80Y8sDXbQzIxqsgegtcbTkk/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8wZWRj/MmM4ZGQwODUyNjc4/NWZmMDc2OTg1MjVm/ZGFjNS5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}