[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] Um, Angie. Um, I'm currently a postdoc at the University of Oslo.
My current research focuses on. Well, I guess I'll have to kind of start with my PhD.
My. What I think might be useful here in Oxford. Uh, um, my thesis was on werewolves, in my view, was on the literature.
My current project. Kind of girls out of that.
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,
I do discover a number of women who not necessarily transform into wolves, but are,
uh, considered or call the she wolves, kind of in your Shakespearean sense.
So, um, we kind of have a very small, but it's quite diversified.
Some of she wolves. And I thought that could be a very interesting scent angle came to her.
Yeah. And also quite complementary to to the werewolves, which obviously is much bigger, not just in medieval studies but also in pop culture.
I guess it's, uh.
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.
I guess horror films and also fantasy as well.
Um, so we always have this, um, kind of image of a human being trapped in a ferocious beast.
And normally the humans would lose control. So that cycle very horrible.
Soon. But in medieval or in medieval literature, artists, in the chivalric literature,
the shape of the werewolves actually in our most control, they are in the wolf body.
But then in most cases, they still retain their human land, which I think makes the story, uh, sadder in a way, because,
you know, because you, you know, you are still you for the everybody else around who just doesn't recognise you.
And even worse, they think you are a terrible beast and they want to kill you for that.
So it's a kind of like it's it's more pathetic because the werewolf has lost their human voice on the court.
Really? Well, they need to find other ways for people to understand that they are not what they look like.
So, um. Yeah, so I just I'm just quite fascinated sort of by that kind of contrast.
And also our found the world stories. I got sort of supernatural stories in general.
It's kind of like a a fictional experiment.
So it's like you're casting, you know,
about very safe environment because obviously you have you can't just turn humans into something else that will be as equal.
But with stories you can try different sense, which is quite safe.
I'm quite I guess you can try very unrealistic things.
Um, to see basically, if you take, for instance, you take away the human form.
If you take away the human voice. Uh, does that still make the person human or perhaps like, as human?
Or in what way? So that's that's a very kind of creative.
Um. Unsafe. I got a literary experiment to cast what is human, which I think is the ultimate question for humankind.
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.
So I do kind of I do tend to think of fantasy if basically if I'm asking that question, what is fantasy?
I do tend to think of the so-called high fantasies.
So it's like you have to have a continent or a map with different races or different people.
Normally you have like elves or elf like beings and dwarves and stuff.
So I guess, um, so my first reaction would be something quite similar to the Lord of the rings, but then from there.
It kind of expands because basically a reason.
That's very imaginative. I guess that's not real.
Can be counted. That's fantasy. Yeah.
So I kind of uh, because, um, well, because in the past few years I have been, uh, researching on manga medievalism.
That also kind of makes me wonder, uncle of mangas I have read, um, anime is I have watched it before.
They are actually also fantasy in the sense that they are in a fictional world and they have almost like magical stuff.
But then because they don't really fit the the runes candle pattern, I do not necessarily register them as fantasy.
But now I was like, yeah, they are like fantastic.
But then I don't really know where to put them. Yeah. So.
Probably not anymore. Uh, I mean, it's, uh.
I mean, it goes in my talk in the afternoon, I will be talking about truth.
Or at least I won't mention the word. So I feel general in general is a very convenient kind of content garrison term.
But then, well, basically we.
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.
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.
But then in that sense it's quite helpful to have different criteria.
But at the same time, we are also quite aware that there is no sort of set boundary.
Yeah. I mean, it's like humans are the wolves, so there is like no boundary so one can go into the other.
Yeah. So I think it kind of goes both ways.
Yeah. I do thank.
Token would be. Uh, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, that would be him. Uh, yeah. Because I, I actually, uh, well, I grew up in the 90s and 2000.
China. Um, so I didn't really grow up reading foreign fantasies, and, uh,
I think most of my generation, at least we got to know Tolkien because of the movies.
Um, and it's quite funny because I think that was the only movie that I watched without knowing what it was about beforehand,
because I, um, yeah, I grew up watching movies because my mom worked with, like, kind of movie distribution, so.
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.
Uh,
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,
and I didn't even know it was a trilogy. Yeah.
So, um. Yeah, I remember I went in with my best friends in an imaginary school.
Uh. And it was a it was a three hour movie.
Right. But somehow I didn't I didn't feel that goal.
So we were kind of hoping it would continue on and continue until the end.
Uh, the it just like solving it solves it. Just just when we thought the story was going to begin.
Yeah. Until or just like we, I remember just sort of feeling pulled away and lost in the cinema.
And we didn't want to leave after the movie because we cannot follow, like, this sense of lack of fulfilment.
Uh, and we just sort of, I guess, slaughter around in the, you know, setting or trying to find some sort of cool.
Uh, I remember I saw the small, uh, scripts under the Lord of the rings, sort of.
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.
Uh, yeah. So yeah. So definitely talking.
I think that kind of. Yeah.
As I said, I did, um. Read or watch stuff that's very similar to fantasy, but somehow it's not very well defined.
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.
And also, um. Well, that was yeah, I think I was early.
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.
Uh, so I feel like the whole difference also for the idea of the medieval sort of very vaguely into my head as well.
Yeah. Honestly, I haven't really read any fantasy in recent years.
I don't read a lot of fantasy manga.
Um, yeah. For, well, partly for work reasons.
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.
But then, you know, especially when you were a resource students, you felt bad for spending so much time on something outside of work.
So I was like, if I can turn that into work, I don't need to feel bad anymore.
Um, yeah. So that's yeah, that's basically about, weirdly enough, on the side.
I read, uh, a lot of 19th century Gothic literature, which is also, I guess, fantastic in a way.
Um, the sense that, you know, like, uh, involves supernatural and ghosts and vampires and werewolves.
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.
Um, yeah. Which is actually here on my shirt. Yeah.
Um, it's a very, uh, kind of hardcore medievalist fantasy, and I do recommend that it's,
uh, it's going to be some commitment because it's very involved.
It's been serialised for more than 30 years now and is still going up.
And, uh, I guess spoilers alert. The author has died, so we don't really know the ending.
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.
Um, so. So, yeah. So if you do want to go into that, um, consider yourself warned, basically.
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.
It's the high fantasy written, or it was created by a known European or European writer, the author of.
Yeah. Um, the it's just fantastic art as well.
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.
But at that time, you and the author did not really know how the story would proceed.
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,
and they had to cut off a lot of things that turned out to be quite important,
because they didn't want how they didn't want to have, like, many loose ends and stuff.
Uh, but I think the ones in the 90s are fairly accurate and certainly well made.
But then they made two others, uh, in the two sultans on and as in 20 tens.
Uh, these are. Pretty, pretty bad. I would think it would be more diversified.
And it would definitely. I think it's already, uh, gone out of that materialist framework.
So it's no longer draws Tolkien. Um, yeah.
And I would also think it would be. Kind of more.
Well, more difficult to define the future because of.
Yeah, as we said earlier and isn't that's not realistic or that's fantastic could be counted as fantasy.
Yeah. So I guess in the future I feel the general trend is, um, boundaries tend to be broken down.
Um, so I don't really know. So I.
Well, I guess I don't really know because I don't really see.
How a world, basically how arisen would be without a structure, because we do want to impose a structure.
But then I do feel it's a very kind of, um, the trend is going towards, uh, the breaking down of that structure.
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.
Yeah.