From Tales to Memes: Traditional Narratives in Digital Culture

Teaching Language

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Although the course is planned to be taught in English, if all enrolled students demonstrate proficiency in the Portuguese language and there is no need for the use of English, the course will be taught in Portuguese.

Objectives

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This course introduces participants to the fundamental concepts of traditional narratives, focusing on their circulation and adaptation in contemporary media. Combining classical approaches from repertoire studies with contributions from media studies and digital culture, it promotes critical reflection on how these narratives shape cultural imaginaries in the twenty-first century. Participants will learn to identify dynamics of transmedia adaptation, analyse narratives in film, video games and digital platforms, and apply methods for collecting and analysing digital content, thereby developing analytical and practical skills for academic, pedagogical and professional contexts in communication and the social sciences.

Programme

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Session 1 – 07/07 (3h)
Content: Traditional Narratives: Concepts and Contexts. Folklore, folk tales and fairy tales;
narrative structures and motifs; definitions and concepts. Theoretical lecture.

Session 2 – 09/07 (3h)
Content: Traditional Narratives in the Media. Adaptation and remediation; transmedia
storytelling; convergence culture. Theoretical lecture.

Session 3 – 14/07 (3h)
Content: Film, Video Games and Digital Storytelling. Film adaptations; narrative worlds;
interactive storytelling. Guided discussion and case study analysis.

Session 4 – 16/07 (3h)
Content: Digital Folklore and Participatory Culture. Online narratives; digital communities; blogs
and digital projects linked to narrative repertoires. Guided discussion and case study analysis.

Session 5 – 21/07 (3h)
Content: Methods of Digital Collection and Analysis. Observation and documentation of online
content; archiving and cultural analysis; ethics. Practical introduction to digital collection
methods.

Session 6 – 23/07 (3h)
Content: Project Workshop. Development and supervision of final project; discussion of
methodologies. Guided discussion and individual project supervision.

Session 7 – 28/07 (3h)
Content: Project Workshop. Development and supervision of final project; discussion of
methodologies. Guided discussion and individual project supervision.

Session 8 – 30/07 (4h)
Content: Presentation and discussion of projects; course conclusion. Student presentations and closing session.

Bibliography

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• Bacchilega, C. (2013). Fairy tales transformed? Twenty-first-century adaptations and the politics of wonder. Wayne State University Press.
• Blank, T. J. (Ed.). (2009). Folklore and the internet: Vernacular expression in a digital world. Utah State University Press.
• Bronner, S. J. (2012). Digitizing folklore. Indiana University Press.
• Greenhill, P., Rudy, J. T., Hamer, N., & Bosc, L. (Eds.). (2018). The Routledge companion to media and fairy-tale cultures. Routledge.
• Zipes, J. (2012). The irresistible fairy tale. Princeton University Press.

language of instruction

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The course will be taught in English and may also be taught in Portuguese.

Prerequisites

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Yes, the course will be conducted entirely in English; therefore, an intermediate level of proficiency in the English language is required. The course also assumes basic knowledge of computer use.

tuition fee

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See the fee table under “Useful Information.”

teaching staff

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Maria Isabel Lemos – PhD in Anthropology: Politics and Images of Culture and Museology from NOVA University Lisbon. She works in the fields of oral tradition and its contemporary circulation, the heritagisation of intangible culture, and the relationship between different types of archives and corpora. Her academic training includes a Master’s in Anthropology – Visual Cultures and a postgraduate qualification in Heritage, Memory and Cultural Management from the POIESIS Institute (São Paulo, Brazil). Throughout her career, she has combined ethnographic practices—including digital ethnography—with discourse analysis and literary collection. She is a collaborator of IELT and a member of the SIEF “Narrative Cultures” research group. She has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil, Cabo Verde and Portugal, and works as a researcher and consultant on applied anthropology projects focused on the relationship between culture and heritage processes, notably in partnership with RHE Initiatives.

Teresa Araújo – Full Professor at NOVA FCSH and Scientific Coordinator of IELT. Her teaching and research focus on Portuguese Literature, particularly the period of literary bilingualism and traditional literature. She has taught courses at universities such as Carlos III (Madrid), Salamanca, Lyon 2, and Agostinho Neto (Luanda). Among her publications in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Brazil, Mexico and the United States are, for example, “Silvestre or the game of (in)subordination: cinema & ethnography”, Boletín de Literatura Oral, 2023, and “The emergence of Portuguese in the early ballad tradition and the testimony of the Chronicle of D. João I”, in Romanceiro | Essays, I. Intersections and Canon, 2024.