The primary aim of this course is to introduce students to the practice and pleasure of critically reading literature. To do so, we will engage with contemporary re-tellings and re-imaginings of fairy tales in various genres including short story, music album, visual texts, and film.

Through the course of the quarter we will examine the enduring appeal of fairy tales and especially the irresistibility of telling and re-telling them to authors and artists of our own era. Course texts will include Philip Pullman’s new 'Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm', Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber', an anthology of contemporary re-interpretations of fairy tales, the rock-operaesque Decemberists album 'The Hazards of Love', and other interpretations of fairy tales in visual media such as visual art and film.

Texts:
Philip Pullman, 'Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm'
Angela Carter, 'The Bloody Chamber'
Kate Bernheimer, ed. 'My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales'