Introducing New MSP Blogger: Jeana Jorgensen

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Hi all! I’m Jeana (pronounced like Jean-a or Gina for the curious), and I’m thrilled to be part of the MSP blogging team.

Thanks to Sam Jorgensen for the image.

I’m a Ph.D. candidate in Folklore and Gender Studies at Indiana University, and I’m currently working on my dissertation on gender and the body in European fairy tales (don’t worry, you’ll hear a lot about it as I write the thing!). I got my BA in Interdisciplinary Studies (with an emphasis on narrative folklore) at UC Berkeley. My research interests include feminist approaches to fairy tales, other folk narrative—such as personal narratives, urban legends, and jokes—women’s expressive culture, dance subcultures, body art, feminist speculative fiction, vernacular concepts about sex and sexuality, the historical dimensions of gender and sexuality, and alternative sexualities such as non-monogamy and kink.

In addition to my academic life, I am a professional belly dancer, meaning I constantly negotiate popular preconceptions about the erotic elements of this art form. I also run, rock climb, hula hoop, and practice other forms of dance, from African to modern, so I’m very interested in how gender and embodiment shape people’s experiences of health and fitness in different times and cultures. And I love to travel; I’ve been all over the States and Europe.

I’m a sex-positive feminist, a native Californian, an enthusiastic baker, a food and wine snob, an avid writer, a neurotic list-maker, and a bookworm/nerd who’s curious enough about everything to get out in the world and explore.

Many of my posts here will be about aspects of folklore related to gender and sexuality, such as the sexy or dark aspects of fairy tales, but I’d love to hear suggestions about what you, the readers, want to learn from a folklorist (or a belly dancer, or a feminist, and so on).

My personal website will soon be up and running at http://jeanajorgensen.com/

My dance troupe’s website can be found at http://ddbd.org

Follow us on Twitter @mysexprofessor. Follow Jeana, the author of this post, @foxyfolklorist

About Jeana

Jeana

Jeana Jorgensen, PhD recently completed her doctoral degree in folklore and gender studies at Indiana University. She studies fairy tales and other narratives, dance, body art, feminist theory, digital humanities, and gender identity.

  • Kate McCombs

    Welcome to MSP Jeana! I can’t wait to read your posts:)

  • http://twitter.com/foxyfolklorist Jeana Jorgensen

    Hi Kate! I see you did your anthropology degree at UC Berkeley… did you ever take a class with Professor Dundes?

  • anonymoose

    European fairy tales?? I love those. And I also find ballet’s, which are often about fairy tales to be quite erotic. A young woman once asked to write an erotic Little Red Riding Hood, casting her as Little Red. If you like dark fairy tale movies you MUST be Snow White A Tale of Terror with Sigourney Weaver. I can’t wait to read your posts.

  • http://twitter.com/foxyfolklorist Jeana Jorgensen

    Cool, I’ll look forward to your comments on my fairy-tale posts! :)

    I haven’t actually seen the Snow White: A Tale of Terror film, but I’ve heard of it (and read a scholarly paper about it, go figure). I’ll keep an eye out for it as my research allows.

  • David

    A new and very sexy looking Red Riding Hood movie. YES! Sexy fairy tales.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NfwUkXQrHE&feature=player_embedded