Lectures

Click here to find out all about our big winter event with Dr. Steve Winick on December 21st, 2021 at 7PM ET!

It's easy to think of fairy tales as something distinctly European or antiquated. After all, many of the most famous fairy-tale collectors and writers lived hundreds of years ago in...

The Star Wars film franchise has long been called a modern myth. The stories of the series are indebted to traditional narrative forms like myth, legend, and fairy tale. Entire...

Hans Christian Andersen is a name synonymous with fairy tales and a figure who has inspired much speculation and fascination in his readers. His stories have enchanted for more than...

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Goddess of Spring and the Underworld,” an introduction to the Greek goddess Persephone in her many incarnations, with Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman, former instructors...

Profs and Pints DC presents: “How Mad Scientists are Made,” a look at monstrous experiments and quests for forbidden knowledge in literature, folklore, and film, with Sara Cleto and Brittany...

Il était une fois… Once upon a time, fairy tales were not the short, simple children’s stories we all know. Instead, they often carried subtle messages or warnings, or ridiculed...

This year, we weren't quite ready to leave the Gothic behind after we finished up our Gothic Realms course... winter is just the perfect time for ghost stories, and -...

Everyone thinks they know what a fairy tale is. There are castles, a prince or two, maybe a curse to break or a talking cat to befriend. But what is...

You might have heard something like this: "I don't want my daughter reading fairy tales!" or "Fairy tales are so sexist. All these girls needing a prince to save them!"...

Whether they’re called fairy tales or something else, fantastical stories are found the world over. Like their Western fairy tale counterpart, Japan’s fantastical stories—otogi-banashi—are part of the body of stories...

Fairy tales have a reputation for being conventional, and many of the most famous fairy tales appear, on the surface at least, to be just that. Tales like Cinderella and...