About
Jacqueline Fulmer writes both fiction (novels and short stories) and non-fiction (literary and film criticism, Doll Studies/Material Culture Studies). She has spent her career pursuing answers to the question: How do people communicate what matters most to them when obstacles block their expression?
Her work addresses how people can speak past obstacles in multiple ways, such as through Popular Culture, Material Culture Studies, and Film. In turn, this has led her to write and speak on questions such as:
(1.) How to write a serious novel while making people laugh.
(2.) How a doll can tell you things you didn’t know about your family.
(3.) How mechanical dolls in the Renaissance anticipated the avatars of 21st century online gaming.
(4.) How a “charming little story” enables you to tell people things they do not want to hear–and how they will thank you for it.
In addition to teaching at the University of California at Berkeley for many years, Jacqueline Fulmer has been a guest speaker for Women in Toys (WIT), interviewed about Mattel’s Ken by _The Denver Post_, worked as a doll curator for the reopening of a toy museum in the Bay Area, and served as an acquisitions and material culture consultant to the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, CA.
She is available as both a fiction writer and as a researcher and consultant on Doll Studies.
Published Works:
Non-Fiction:
_Folk Women and Indirection in Morrison, Ní Dhuibhne, Hurston, and Lavin_. London: Routledge, 2019.
Recognition for _Folk Women and Indirection…_:
• Award of Recognition from the Toni Morrison Society, Paris, France, November, 2010.
At the Sixth Biennial Conference of the Toni Morrison Society.
• The 2008 Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize from the American Folklore Society Women's
Section, for feminist criticism in folklore studies.
• Notable book for 2008 in the “International Reviews” Issue, “Irish Studies Round the
World 2008” in Estudios Irelandeses.
Additional non-fiction publications listed at:
https://berkeley.academia.edu/JacquelineFulmer
Fiction:
_Moon Girl_ (novel; seeking representation).
“Laundry Change.” Short story. _The Amherst Review_, Vol. 21, 62-76.
“The Window Washer.” Short story. _Aldebaran_, 59-68.
“Slugbox Theatre.” Serial. _Issues Monthly_, 25-28.
More of my writing on Doll Studies/Material Culture Studies also featured on my website, EffigiPie:
https://effigipie.com/author/omnidoll/
Featured Work
Folk Women and Indirection in Morrison, Ní Dhuibhne, Hurston, and Lavin. London: Routledge 2007
Focusing on the lineage of pivotal African American and Irish women writers, the author argues that these authors often employ strategies of indirection, via folkloric expression, when exploring unpopular topics. This strategy holds the attention of readers who would otherwise reject the subject matter. The author traces the line of descent from Mary Lavin to Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and from Zora Neale Hurston to Toni Morrison, showing how obstacles to free expression, though varying from those Lavin and Hurston faced, are still encountered by Morrison and Ní Dhuibhne. The basis for comparing these authors lies in the strategies of indirection they use, as influenced by folklore. The folkloric characters these authors depict-wild denizens of the Otherworld and wise women of various traditions-help their creators insert controversy into fiction in ways that charm rather than alienate readers. Forms of rhetorical indirection that appear in the context of folklore, such as signifying practices, masking, sly civility, and the grotesque or bizarre, come out of the mouths and actions of these writers' magical and magisterial characters. Old traditions can offer new ways of discussing issues such as sexual expression, religious beliefs, or issues of reproduction. As differences between times and cultures affect what "can" and "cannot" be said, folkloric indirection may open up a vista to discourses of which we as readers may not even be aware. Finally, the folk women of Morrison, Ní Dhuibhne, Hurston, and Lavin open up new points of entry to the discussion of fiction, rhetoric, censorship, and folklore.
