NEH Summer Seminar for School Teachers
Golden Compasses as Moral Compasses: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Fairy Tales and Fantasy
June 25–July 20, 2012
Director: Maria Tatar, Harvard University
What happens to children when they read and immerse themselves in other worlds? In this seminar, we will investigate how imaginative literature leads children into possible worlds, enabling them to engage in mind reading and explore counterfactuals in ways that are impossible in real life.
Fairy tales
We will begin with the culture of the nursery, analyzing the primal power of fairy tales, their connection with myth, and their attractions for both adult and child.
Fantasy literature
Next, we will turn to fantasy literature, reading 2 works that introduced the power of fantasy and imagination into children’s literature:- Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland
- J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy
A more contemporary fantasy narrative will help us understand strategies writers employ to draw children into fantasy worlds:
- J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Reading the last volume of the Harry Potter series will lead to discussion of the possibilities for understanding and analyzing the effects of story on child readers.
Literature across cultures
We will broaden out into other cultures through the study of The Thousand and One Nights, investigating issues of translation, transformation, and transcultural communication. We will also draw on the experiences of participants in their encounters with different versions of the tale. The challenge will be to understand the cultural specificity of fairy tales, even as we recognize how fairy tales move across geographic and linguistic borders.
Our guides will include
- Bruno Bettelheim
- Robert Darnton
- Walter Benjamin
- Jack Zipes
- Donald Haase
- Marina Warner
Our analysis of ethics and aesthetics in other worlds will lead us to consider how gender figures both in the fictions of childhood, in the child’s reading experience, and in the real-world challenges of the classroom.
Continuing education units
The seminar will provide participants with a certificate of participation that can be used to obtain continuing education units. For participants desiring graduate academic credit, extra work in the form of three 5-page essays or 1 essay of 15 pages will be expected so that a letter grade can be assigned. There will be no extra charge for academic credit.
About Maria Tatar
The project director, Maria Tatar, is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and of Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. Professor Tatar has written extensively on folklore and children’s literature. Her most recent book, Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Childhood Reading, describes how we frame childhood reading and seeks to assess the impact of stories read while we are young.
Professor Tatar’s research of the past decade has sought to establish children’s literature as a field of academic inquiry and aspires to find ways of drawing children to imaginative literature at a young age.
Download a letter from Professor Tatar that outlines the program.
Guest lecturers
Jerry Griswold is a specialist in American literature and culture and in children’s books. He is the author of the prize-winning Audacious Kids, Feeling Like a Kid, and The Meanings of Beauty and the Beast. He is currently director of the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at San Diego State University in California.
Donald Haase is associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Wayne State University. His publications include The Reception of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Fairy Tales and Feminism, and The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales. He is the editor of Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies.
Housing on campus
On-campus housing will be available at a reasonable cost. There will be no charge for meals taken in Annenberg Dining Hall.
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Questions?
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Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
