Interview with a Storyteller: Dr. Emily Zobel Marshall

Tales from the Hearth

A spider, a rabbit and a raven walk into a bar...and all hell breaks loose. Well, what else do you expect when dealing with tricksters? The latest interview with a storyteller is a little more like an interview about storytellers. Specifically, the tricksters (and their stories) who have the power to shape our world.

Dr. Emily Zobel Marshall is a professor at Leeds Beckett University and has been a full-time Lecturer at the School of Cultural Studies there since 2007. Emily is an expert in the role of trickster figures in the literatures and cultures of Africa and its Diaspora and has published widely in this area, most recently "American Trickster: Trauma Tradition and Brer Rabbit"; and one that first brought me to her work -- "Anansi's Journey A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance." I highly recommend both.

In this interview, we also mention places where Anansi and Brer Rabbit show up in modern pop culture, including "American Gods" and the latest season of "Random Acts of Flyness", which I also highly recommend. If you know of other modern stories that feature these trickster figures, please reach out as Emily is currently researching this area! Transcript auto-generated via Descript. Episode edited and sound designed by Sarah Buchynski. Stay tuned for more interviews and modern folk tales by signing up to our newsletter, or wherever you find your digital hearth!