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SUMMARY:Memory\, Miniaturization\, and the Transformative Energy of Fairy 
 Tales - Professor Maria Tatar\, The John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Lan
 guages and Literature\, Harvard University.  
DTSTART:20161201T170000Z
DTEND:20161201T183000Z
UID:TALK68717@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lucian Stephenson
DESCRIPTION:Fairy tales may be simple stories but they also give us the ex
 pression of complex thought.  On the one hand\, they offer up stark enactm
 ents of binary oppositions and cultural contradictions\, with encounters b
 etween predator and prey\, beauties and beasts\, or primal innocence and c
 annibalistic cruelty.  At the same time\, their surfaces conceal layers of
  cultural memory saturated with historical meaning.  This talk will draw o
 n Walter Benjamin’s essay on the storyteller to understanding the cultur
 al repetition compulsion that drives us to keep retelling “Little Red Ri
 ding Hood\,” “Beauty and the Beast\,” and other fairy tales.\n\n*Mar
 ia Tatar* is without doubt one of the world’s leading authorities on chi
 ldren’s literature\, fairy tales and folklore.  She was born in Hungary\
 , but her family moved to the USA in the 1950s\, when Maria was a child.  
 She grew up in Highland Park Illinois\, which she refers to in her 2014 Lo
 well Lecture for the Boston Public Library (https://www.youtube.com/watch?
 v=WR10oa8hq18). Maria went from Highland Park High School to Denison Unive
 rsity in Ohio\, and from there to graduate study at Princeton. On completi
 ng her doctoral work\, Maria joined the faculty of Harvard University wher
 e she is now the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatu
 res\, and Chair of the Committee on Degrees in Folklore and Mythology. She
  also shares her love of wonder tales and children’s literature with a w
 ider audience through her Breezes from Wonderland blog (http://blogs.harva
 rd.edu/tatar/). Her extensive list of publications includes _The Hard Fact
 s of the Grimms' Fairy Tales_ (1987)\, _Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales 
 and the Culture of Childhood_ (1992)\, _Enchanted Hunters_ (2009)\, and _S
 ecrets Beyond the Door: The Story of Bluebeard and His Wives_. (2004). \n
LOCATION:Faculty of Education\, 184 Hills Road\, Cambridge\, CB2 8PQ\, DMB
 \, Room GS5
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