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Course Info for FYSM - 115 - 01, Spring 2023
Class number: 3327 Title: The World of Fairytales Department: First Year Sem & Colloq
Career: Undergraduate Component: Seminar Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: Yes Grading Basis: Graded Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 15 Current enrollment: 6 Available seats: 9
Start date: Wednesday, January 25, 2023 End date: Friday, May 12, 2023 Mode of Instruction: In Person
Schedule: TR: 9:25AM-10:40AM, LIB - 174 Instructor(s): Assaiante, Julia
Prerequisite(s): Only first-year students are eligible to enroll in this class.
Distribution Requirement: Meets FirstYr Seminar Requirement
Course Description:
For centuries fairytales have served as powerful cultural currency, transmitting ideas about morality, gender, identity, nationalism, and childhood. Running the risk that it will ruin fairytales for you, this course will approach the genre of fairytales from a critical perspective, taking into account historical context, psychological and philosophical interpretations, and how certain fairytales have changed over time and cultural context. Over the course of the semester we will develop critical interpretative skills by interrogating what fears, dreams, and prescriptive codes of conduct fairytales reveal about their cultural “moment,” eventually taking on the task of creating our own, modern fairytale. We will focus on a selection of popular fairytales (Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast), tracing out how these canonical stories appear in various guises throughout the Eastern (Chinese), Arabic, and European contexts. Julia Goesser Assaiante was raised on the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm and enjoys bringing her background in philosophy and textual interpretation to bear on these classic texts of her childhood. She is looking forward to working with students taking largely familiar texts (whether through books or films, these fairytales are very “present,” culturally) and revealing their deeper meanings and mechanisms.