31 Oct 2013 6:00pm - 7:30pm CRASSH

Description

Festival of Ideas 2013

BOOKING IS NOW CLOSED. THE EVENT IS NOW FULLY BOOKED. IF YOU ARRIVE ON THE DAY WE CANNOT ENSURE YOU A SEAT.

CRASSH presents Halloween with Jack Zipes (‘the undisputed 'king' of the literary criticism of fairy tales kingdom’ Choice) at the Festival of Ideas 2013.

Professor Zipes's talk explores the question why it is that we have so much difficulty realizing the meanings of stories we tell and receive. This is a question that raises a complex problem about how storytelling is managed and manipulated in contemporary America and the UK. Professor Zipes will discuss a few of the problematical aspects of storytelling in American and British society and argue for a reintroduction of storytelling into schools at all levels and in all languages. He argues against the grain of idiotic bureaucrats in America and the UK who are destroying education with their positivist and instrumentalized programs and ideas that cater to corporate capitalism. He ends his talk with a few concrete examples of why we must begin with the young in pre-schools and elementary schools before children are robbed of the ability to think and create for themselves.

About Jack Zipes

Jack Zipes is professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. In addition to his scholarly work, he is an active storyteller in public schools and has worked with children's theaters in Europe and the United States. Some of his major publications include Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales (1979), Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion (rev. ed. 2006), The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World (1988), Hans Christian Andersen: The Misunderstood Storyteller (2005) and Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre (2006). He has also edited The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (2000) and The Great Fairy Tale Tradition (2001) and is editor-in-chief of the series Oddly Modern Fairy Tales published by Princeton University Press. Most recently he has published The Enchanted Screen: the Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films (2010), The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre (2012), The Golden Age of Folk and Fairy Tales (2013). This year he received a Leverhulme Fellowship from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge (UK) and has been developing projects pertaining to children's literature and folklore.

Image 'Born' (2002) by Kiki Smith  

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