Course description
Fairytales and adaptations
Using approaches from literature, history, film studies, and gender studies, this course conducts an examination of fairy tales to discover how these stories dramatize the construction of human and other-than-human identities. We will analyze classic tales and contemporary adaptations of them in order to explore representations of human/other-than-human relationships that will span conversations about gender, race, children, culture, the environment, the cosmos, etc.
Students will discover the historical contexts that produced classic European fairy tales, but they will also learn how contemporary cultural movements have utilized fairy tales in new and interesting ways. Organized around popular (i.e. well-known) fairy tales, plots and themes, this course has both historical and cross-cultural breadth: We will read English-language translations of non-western cultures that are fairy-tale like (although not necessarily considered fairy tales) along side western European stories. Through close readings of fairy-tale texts and films as well as scholarly studies of them, students will learn that these familiar stories contain multiple meanings and offer myriad possibilities for reinterpretation. Through close readings of fairy-tale texts, films, and other media as well as scholarly studies of them, students will learn that these familiar stories contain multiple meanings and offer myriad possibilities for reinterpretation.
Assignments will include: a media analysis paper, discussion leader presentation, creative project, journal writing, and class participation
Possible Course Texts:
Most readings will be available through our course site, the following list is tentative
- Murai, Mayako and Luciana Cardi. Re-Orienting the Fairy Tale: Contemporary Adaptations across Cultures. 2020
- Marzolph, Ulrich. 101 Middle Eastern Tales and Their Impact on Western Oral Tradition
- Gail Carson Levine, Fairest. 2006
- Tatar, Maria, ed. The Classic Fairy Tales. Norton, 2016
- Jones, Diana Wynne. Howl’s Moving Castle. HarperCollins, 2008.