Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
Accepted Paper
"Parks, trees, animals in the modern city. Their transformation into 'sources of fear' within contemporary urban legends (Athens, Greece).
Georgios Kouzas
(National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)
This paper examines how nature (environment and animal) becomes a source of fear in contemporary urban legends. While traditionally linked to rural folktales, similar patterns emerge in the city, where parks function as symbolic forests and urban animals (large birds or feral cats) evoke fear.
Paper long abstract
This paper explores the ways in which nature—both the physical environment and animals—operates as a source of fear in contemporary urban legends. While we are accustomed to seeing the natural environment and animals function as loci of fear primarily in folktales set within rural contexts, similar dynamics can also be observed in urban settings. The issue of adaptation is crucial: how the forest is reimagined within the city, how the urban park becomes a symbolic ‘other’ forest, and how and why urban animals (large birds, feral cats, or wild creatures released into peri-urban areas) may evoke fear among city inhabitants.
The study draws on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Athens, focusing both on the collection of legends and on the emotional responses of those who narrate and listen to them.