War, Myths, and Fairy Tales

Sara Buttsworth is a Senior Tutor in the history department at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is primarily involved in the Tertiary Foundations Certificate programme, where she teaches an introduction to New Zealand history, and an interdisciplinary course on 'Monsters and Moral Panics'. Dr. Buttsworth's research and interests span popular culture, contemporary representations of fairy tales, and representations of war and gender.Maartje Abbenhuis is Associate Professor in Modern European History at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is historian of neutrality and internationalism, focusing notably on the period 1815 to 1919.

• Introduction Tales of War and Wonder: Reflecting on War, Myths, and Fairytales, and the Breadcrumb Trails Between.- And They Lived Happily Ever After? The Fable as Search for Meaning in Holocaust Cinema.- “The Boy with the Bread”: Consuming Hansel and Gretel in the Twenty-First Century.- Abelardo Díaz Alfaro’s tales: The Tragicomedy of the Dawn of United States Intervention in Puerto Rico.- Once Upon a Nation: Fables and Fairy Tales in Canadian Plays about War.- Flying Home: Aestheticizing and Americanizing Experiences of Exile and Migration in the Second World War as Fairy Tales of Return and Restoration.- Child Soldiers in Medieval(esque) Cinema.- “A Trap of Our Own Making”: Mark Twain and the Mechanized Warfare of King Arthur’s Court.- “Life Was a State in Which a War Was On”: A. S. Byatt’s Portrayal of War and Norse Mythology in Ragnarok: The End of the Gods.- War and the Ruby Tree. The Motif of the Unborn Generations in Jewish Women's Story-Telling.

“This is a finely curated volume and the attention to the presentation and ordering of the essays is evident. Buttsworth and Abbenhuis have taken great care to ensure that these essays dovetail with one another thematically, making the book an enjoyable read. … the essays would—individually, or in many cases, in conjunction—serve as excellent case studies for research or in the classroom and scholars interested in the complex relationship between fairy tale … should take note.” (Derek J. Thiess, Marvels & Tales, Vol.36 (1), 2022)“This volume provides so many valuable and diverse resources about literature, film, and storytelling, particularly that which responds to World War II, that it will be a significant addition to any academic library. Moreover, the volume suggests possibilities for productive dialogue among scholars of children’s literature, film, and literature from around the world.” (Felicia Jean Steele, Mythlore, Vol. 38 (1), 2019)