1 00:00:00,090 --> 00:00:05,610 [Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] Um, Angie. Um, I'm currently a postdoc at the University of Oslo. 2 00:00:06,060 --> 00:00:12,180 My current research focuses on. Well, I guess I'll have to kind of start with my PhD. 3 00:00:12,570 --> 00:00:20,220 My. What I think might be useful here in Oxford. Uh, um, my thesis was on werewolves, in my view, was on the literature. 4 00:00:20,790 --> 00:00:24,030 My current project. Kind of girls out of that. 5 00:00:24,090 --> 00:00:34,649 So I'm looking at, uh, she wolves in Icelandic literature, but in particular in relation to landscape, because during my research on the werewolves, 6 00:00:34,650 --> 00:00:41,550 I do discover a number of women who not necessarily transform into wolves, but are, 7 00:00:42,300 --> 00:00:46,320 uh, considered or call the she wolves, kind of in your Shakespearean sense. 8 00:00:46,890 --> 00:00:51,180 So, um, we kind of have a very small, but it's quite diversified. 9 00:00:51,180 --> 00:00:56,430 Some of she wolves. And I thought that could be a very interesting scent angle came to her. 10 00:00:56,950 --> 00:01:04,590 Yeah. And also quite complementary to to the werewolves, which obviously is much bigger, not just in medieval studies but also in pop culture. 11 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:11,410 I guess it's, uh. 12 00:01:12,340 --> 00:01:21,820 I guess the first thing is they are very different from what we think we know about werewolves, because a lot of that knowledge comes from. 13 00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:26,250 I guess horror films and also fantasy as well. 14 00:01:26,670 --> 00:01:36,180 Um, so we always have this, um, kind of image of a human being trapped in a ferocious beast. 15 00:01:36,810 --> 00:01:41,700 And normally the humans would lose control. So that cycle very horrible. 16 00:01:41,700 --> 00:01:47,070 Soon. But in medieval or in medieval literature, artists, in the chivalric literature, 17 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:52,439 the shape of the werewolves actually in our most control, they are in the wolf body. 18 00:01:52,440 --> 00:02:00,329 But then in most cases, they still retain their human land, which I think makes the story, uh, sadder in a way, because, 19 00:02:00,330 --> 00:02:07,170 you know, because you, you know, you are still you for the everybody else around who just doesn't recognise you. 20 00:02:07,530 --> 00:02:11,250 And even worse, they think you are a terrible beast and they want to kill you for that. 21 00:02:11,610 --> 00:02:20,660 So it's a kind of like it's it's more pathetic because the werewolf has lost their human voice on the court. 22 00:02:20,670 --> 00:02:27,600 Really? Well, they need to find other ways for people to understand that they are not what they look like. 23 00:02:28,200 --> 00:02:34,320 So, um. Yeah, so I just I'm just quite fascinated sort of by that kind of contrast. 24 00:02:34,740 --> 00:02:41,030 And also our found the world stories. I got sort of supernatural stories in general. 25 00:02:41,630 --> 00:02:45,650 It's kind of like a a fictional experiment. 26 00:02:46,280 --> 00:02:48,959 So it's like you're casting, you know, 27 00:02:48,960 --> 00:02:56,600 about very safe environment because obviously you have you can't just turn humans into something else that will be as equal. 28 00:02:56,750 --> 00:03:00,270 But with stories you can try different sense, which is quite safe. 29 00:03:00,290 --> 00:03:03,890 I'm quite I guess you can try very unrealistic things. 30 00:03:04,460 --> 00:03:10,190 Um, to see basically, if you take, for instance, you take away the human form. 31 00:03:10,190 --> 00:03:17,660 If you take away the human voice. Uh, does that still make the person human or perhaps like, as human? 32 00:03:18,410 --> 00:03:22,160 Or in what way? So that's that's a very kind of creative. 33 00:03:22,730 --> 00:03:32,710 Um. Unsafe. I got a literary experiment to cast what is human, which I think is the ultimate question for humankind. 34 00:03:39,310 --> 00:03:52,900 Oh, gosh. I think I think at the start, I guess because I got into fantasy as a genre, um, with the Lord of the rings. 35 00:03:53,620 --> 00:04:00,940 So I do kind of I do tend to think of fantasy if basically if I'm asking that question, what is fantasy? 36 00:04:01,510 --> 00:04:05,670 I do tend to think of the so-called high fantasies. 37 00:04:05,710 --> 00:04:13,360 So it's like you have to have a continent or a map with different races or different people. 38 00:04:13,660 --> 00:04:17,830 Normally you have like elves or elf like beings and dwarves and stuff. 39 00:04:18,370 --> 00:04:27,400 So I guess, um, so my first reaction would be something quite similar to the Lord of the rings, but then from there. 40 00:04:29,620 --> 00:04:33,310 It kind of expands because basically a reason. 41 00:04:34,450 --> 00:04:39,010 That's very imaginative. I guess that's not real. 42 00:04:39,280 --> 00:04:42,470 Can be counted. That's fantasy. Yeah. 43 00:04:42,490 --> 00:04:49,870 So I kind of uh, because, um, well, because in the past few years I have been, uh, researching on manga medievalism. 44 00:04:50,230 --> 00:04:57,670 That also kind of makes me wonder, uncle of mangas I have read, um, anime is I have watched it before. 45 00:04:57,700 --> 00:05:06,460 They are actually also fantasy in the sense that they are in a fictional world and they have almost like magical stuff. 46 00:05:06,940 --> 00:05:14,830 But then because they don't really fit the the runes candle pattern, I do not necessarily register them as fantasy. 47 00:05:15,370 --> 00:05:18,430 But now I was like, yeah, they are like fantastic. 48 00:05:18,670 --> 00:05:21,910 But then I don't really know where to put them. Yeah. So. 49 00:05:27,330 --> 00:05:30,780 Probably not anymore. Uh, I mean, it's, uh. 50 00:05:31,500 --> 00:05:36,090 I mean, it goes in my talk in the afternoon, I will be talking about truth. 51 00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:45,300 Or at least I won't mention the word. So I feel general in general is a very convenient kind of content garrison term. 52 00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:48,900 But then, well, basically we. 53 00:05:49,940 --> 00:05:57,830 I guess it's a very kind of humans. And to try to, uh, put on different criteria at different categories because we like to. 54 00:05:58,070 --> 00:06:07,280 Or maybe it's just me being a bit OCD, but. Yeah, but we like to put everything sort of very neatly in their category. 55 00:06:07,730 --> 00:06:11,450 But then in that sense it's quite helpful to have different criteria. 56 00:06:11,960 --> 00:06:18,920 But at the same time, we are also quite aware that there is no sort of set boundary. 57 00:06:19,280 --> 00:06:24,670 Yeah. I mean, it's like humans are the wolves, so there is like no boundary so one can go into the other. 58 00:06:24,710 --> 00:06:27,710 Yeah. So I think it kind of goes both ways. 59 00:06:27,860 --> 00:06:34,510 Yeah. I do thank. 60 00:06:35,620 --> 00:06:39,810 Token would be. Uh, yeah. Yeah. 61 00:06:40,530 --> 00:06:49,100 Yeah, that would be him. Uh, yeah. Because I, I actually, uh, well, I grew up in the 90s and 2000. 62 00:06:49,260 --> 00:06:55,320 China. Um, so I didn't really grow up reading foreign fantasies, and, uh, 63 00:06:55,860 --> 00:07:02,160 I think most of my generation, at least we got to know Tolkien because of the movies. 64 00:07:03,060 --> 00:07:12,420 Um, and it's quite funny because I think that was the only movie that I watched without knowing what it was about beforehand, 65 00:07:13,830 --> 00:07:22,020 because I, um, yeah, I grew up watching movies because my mom worked with, like, kind of movie distribution, so. 66 00:07:22,350 --> 00:07:32,310 Yeah. So, um, but then I always, uh, I always tended to check, you know, uh, the cast and also the director on what's the story and so on. 67 00:07:32,790 --> 00:07:33,209 Uh, 68 00:07:33,210 --> 00:07:43,080 so I somehow I very distinctly remember about The Fellowship of the ring was the first one that I just walked in without knowing what it was about, 69 00:07:43,650 --> 00:07:48,150 and I didn't even know it was a trilogy. Yeah. 70 00:07:48,150 --> 00:07:54,330 So, um. Yeah, I remember I went in with my best friends in an imaginary school. 71 00:07:55,170 --> 00:07:59,610 Uh. And it was a it was a three hour movie. 72 00:07:59,630 --> 00:08:02,690 Right. But somehow I didn't I didn't feel that goal. 73 00:08:03,110 --> 00:08:07,370 So we were kind of hoping it would continue on and continue until the end. 74 00:08:08,740 --> 00:08:14,180 Uh, the it just like solving it solves it. Just just when we thought the story was going to begin. 75 00:08:15,020 --> 00:08:20,060 Yeah. Until or just like we, I remember just sort of feeling pulled away and lost in the cinema. 76 00:08:20,540 --> 00:08:30,380 And we didn't want to leave after the movie because we cannot follow, like, this sense of lack of fulfilment. 77 00:08:30,950 --> 00:08:37,010 Uh, and we just sort of, I guess, slaughter around in the, you know, setting or trying to find some sort of cool. 78 00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:43,140 Uh, I remember I saw the small, uh, scripts under the Lord of the rings, sort of. 79 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:51,320 It felt that I was like, okay, so there are more to come, which is very sad because it means I need to wait for another year or two. 80 00:08:52,130 --> 00:08:56,140 Uh, yeah. So yeah. So definitely talking. 81 00:08:56,270 --> 00:08:59,770 I think that kind of. Yeah. 82 00:08:59,770 --> 00:09:08,140 As I said, I did, um. Read or watch stuff that's very similar to fantasy, but somehow it's not very well defined. 83 00:09:08,440 --> 00:09:16,930 So I didn't have that concept of fantasy. Yeah, but Tolkien was really kind of, I guess, prone to that structure in my head. 84 00:09:17,500 --> 00:09:23,040 And also, um. Well, that was yeah, I think I was early. 85 00:09:23,050 --> 00:09:31,210 Well, that was my early teenage year, so I didn't quite really I never really thought about what I would do in the future. 86 00:09:31,810 --> 00:09:39,310 Uh, so I feel like the whole difference also for the idea of the medieval sort of very vaguely into my head as well. 87 00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:50,700 Yeah. Honestly, I haven't really read any fantasy in recent years. 88 00:09:51,450 --> 00:09:55,200 I don't read a lot of fantasy manga. 89 00:09:56,100 --> 00:10:00,600 Um, yeah. For, well, partly for work reasons. 90 00:10:00,690 --> 00:10:06,990 I mean, now I say for work reasons, but they start here, though, so, uh, kind of as, as what I'm going to do. 91 00:10:07,350 --> 00:10:15,960 But then, you know, especially when you were a resource students, you felt bad for spending so much time on something outside of work. 92 00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:20,700 So I was like, if I can turn that into work, I don't need to feel bad anymore. 93 00:10:21,150 --> 00:10:25,250 Um, yeah. So that's yeah, that's basically about, weirdly enough, on the side. 94 00:10:25,260 --> 00:10:33,840 I read, uh, a lot of 19th century Gothic literature, which is also, I guess, fantastic in a way. 95 00:10:33,960 --> 00:10:41,840 Um, the sense that, you know, like, uh, involves supernatural and ghosts and vampires and werewolves. 96 00:10:41,850 --> 00:10:51,660 Yeah. So. So, yeah, more of that. Um, I guess most recently, I spent a lot of time on a very well manga series called berserk. 97 00:10:52,620 --> 00:10:56,530 Um, yeah. Which is actually here on my shirt. Yeah. 98 00:10:56,550 --> 00:11:04,140 Um, it's a very, uh, kind of hardcore medievalist fantasy, and I do recommend that it's, 99 00:11:04,140 --> 00:11:08,310 uh, it's going to be some commitment because it's very involved. 100 00:11:08,490 --> 00:11:15,450 It's been serialised for more than 30 years now and is still going up. 101 00:11:15,480 --> 00:11:22,230 And, uh, I guess spoilers alert. The author has died, so we don't really know the ending. 102 00:11:22,740 --> 00:11:30,150 Uh, it's still being continued by the studio, but then it's hard to tell if the ending would be what also are intended. 103 00:11:30,840 --> 00:11:38,580 Um, so. So, yeah. So if you do want to go into that, um, consider yourself warned, basically. 104 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:49,850 Uh, yeah. So I, I do think that's a really fantastic story because, um, it's, it's one of the few examples of a very kind of medieval. 105 00:11:49,860 --> 00:11:56,710 It's the high fantasy written, or it was created by a known European or European writer, the author of. 106 00:11:57,090 --> 00:11:59,820 Yeah. Um, the it's just fantastic art as well. 107 00:12:00,510 --> 00:12:10,350 Don't watch the anime because the anime was really bad because I, uh, yeah, they had, uh, they had two seasons in the 90s, which are good enough. 108 00:12:10,740 --> 00:12:14,820 But at that time, you and the author did not really know how the story would proceed. 109 00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:24,010 Uh, and the I think the anime sort of caught up with the manga at the time, so they didn't have any source material to go, uh, 110 00:12:24,060 --> 00:12:29,460 and they had to cut off a lot of things that turned out to be quite important, 111 00:12:29,850 --> 00:12:34,230 because they didn't want how they didn't want to have, like, many loose ends and stuff. 112 00:12:34,650 --> 00:12:39,450 Uh, but I think the ones in the 90s are fairly accurate and certainly well made. 113 00:12:39,960 --> 00:12:45,990 But then they made two others, uh, in the two sultans on and as in 20 tens. 114 00:12:46,170 --> 00:12:59,260 Uh, these are. Pretty, pretty bad. I would think it would be more diversified. 115 00:13:00,070 --> 00:13:06,100 And it would definitely. I think it's already, uh, gone out of that materialist framework. 116 00:13:06,520 --> 00:13:11,650 So it's no longer draws Tolkien. Um, yeah. 117 00:13:12,970 --> 00:13:17,520 And I would also think it would be. Kind of more. 118 00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:21,990 Well, more difficult to define the future because of. 119 00:13:22,740 --> 00:13:30,720 Yeah, as we said earlier and isn't that's not realistic or that's fantastic could be counted as fantasy. 120 00:13:31,860 --> 00:13:39,960 Yeah. So I guess in the future I feel the general trend is, um, boundaries tend to be broken down. 121 00:13:40,740 --> 00:13:45,470 Um, so I don't really know. So I. 122 00:13:45,650 --> 00:13:49,820 Well, I guess I don't really know because I don't really see. 123 00:13:50,790 --> 00:13:57,720 How a world, basically how arisen would be without a structure, because we do want to impose a structure. 124 00:13:58,110 --> 00:14:06,000 But then I do feel it's a very kind of, um, the trend is going towards, uh, the breaking down of that structure. 125 00:14:06,330 --> 00:14:14,100 Maybe we will have some new structures, but then I don't know that it's quite exciting to, to kind of to wait and see how I resolve you. 126 00:14:14,310 --> 00:14:14,530 Yeah.