Themes in Literature: Fairy Tales and Their Contemporary Adaptations

Fairy tales are everywhere: in pop songs, in movies, on cereal boxes. If you’ve kissed a frog, spun around three times, or thought your roommate has to be a werewolf, you might be living in one right now! But are they more complex, stranger, and more ubiquitous than popular culture acknowledges? How do writers use fairy tale motifs and figures to explore race, gender, violence, and fear? How might we use them to find wondrous elements in the images and stories around us? In this course, we’ll investigate these and other questions by reading across genres and historical periods, including classic examples like the Grimms’ Fairy Tales and non-Eurocentric narratives; fiction from Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link and Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi; nonfiction by Sabrina Orah Mark; and poetry by Sylvia Plath and Lucie Brock-Broido. We will apply fairy tale forms and language as a lens to think deeply about ourselves, what defines our culture, and how we relate to each other. Assignments include two short papers, one creative project, and informal assignments (reading journal, research prompts) to engage you in the readings and their contexts. Students will gain critical thinking and analytical skills, tools for close reading, discussing, and interpreting texts, the ability to ask questions about pressing issues, and greater appreciation for the (magical?) literatures we encounter every day.