On Wellington Boots: Re-entangling through Rereading Winnie-the-Pooh
Presenter Bio
Mary-Anne Potter is a senior lecturer in English Studies at the University of South Africa whose research focuses on myth, posthumanism, New Materialism, and Matrixial theory. Her work explores human and nonhuman entanglements in fantasy, speculative literature, film, and television, with publications in leading literary and interdisciplinary journals.
Session
Developmental (Re)Readings
Start Date
10-7-2026 11:00 AM
End Date
10-7-2026 12:15 PM
Abstract
Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh remain deeply entwined in childhood memory, yet rereading these stories across life stages reveals how memory functions not as an endpoint but as a site of renewed engagement. Drawing on Farah Mendlesohn’s concept of liminal fantasy alongside posthumanist and new materialist theory, this paper examines Winnie-the-Pooh as a “fit-for-purpose” text whose meanings shift as readers develop. Using Christopher Robin’s Wellington boots as an extended metaphor, it argues that the text’s affordances evolve in relation to readers’ changing cognitive, emotional, and experiential positions. The Hundred Acre Wood exists at the threshold of ordinary and fantastic experience, inviting different interpretive possibilities over time. Episodes such as Pooh becoming stuck or Eeyore losing his tail acquire new significance through rereading, foregrounding themes of excess, melancholy, care, and entanglement. Ultimately, Winnie-the-Pooh demonstrates the productive instability of children’s literature, continually refitting itself to readers while revealing the transformative possibilities of rereading.
On Wellington Boots: Re-entangling through Rereading Winnie-the-Pooh
Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh remain deeply entwined in childhood memory, yet rereading these stories across life stages reveals how memory functions not as an endpoint but as a site of renewed engagement. Drawing on Farah Mendlesohn’s concept of liminal fantasy alongside posthumanist and new materialist theory, this paper examines Winnie-the-Pooh as a “fit-for-purpose” text whose meanings shift as readers develop. Using Christopher Robin’s Wellington boots as an extended metaphor, it argues that the text’s affordances evolve in relation to readers’ changing cognitive, emotional, and experiential positions. The Hundred Acre Wood exists at the threshold of ordinary and fantastic experience, inviting different interpretive possibilities over time. Episodes such as Pooh becoming stuck or Eeyore losing his tail acquire new significance through rereading, foregrounding themes of excess, melancholy, care, and entanglement. Ultimately, Winnie-the-Pooh demonstrates the productive instability of children’s literature, continually refitting itself to readers while revealing the transformative possibilities of rereading.