Syllabus
* Syllabus/Themes:
1. What Is a Fairytale? What Is Interpretation? Folk tradition, features and borders of the genre.
2. Birth of European Fairytale. Ancient roots of fairytales. Historical, political, social and other influences shaping European fairytales.
3. Diffusion and expansion or parallel evolution? First research on fairytales. First classification, first theories of origin.
4. Sociohistorical approach to fairytales: Beliefs, practices, rituals. Rules and breaking the rules. Emancipatory and subversive aspect of fairytales.
5. Ritualistic Theory on Fairytales: Rites of passage, a shamanic aspect of fairytales.
6. Jungian Approach to fairytales: Jungian archetypes and collective unconscious. Individuation, amplification.
7. Freudian Look at Fairytales: Dreams, Drives and Desires; jealousy, rivalry, repression, regression.
8. Existential, religious, and spiritual relevance of fairytales. Anthroposophical interpretation.
9. Nurture or Nature I.: Feminist criticism on Fairytales. Gender stereotypes in fairytales. Contemporary perception of fairytales, historical and social aspects of fairytale messages.
10. Nurture or Nature II.: Darwinism and evolutionary psychology on fairytales. Beauty, conformity, passivity; strenght and power. Natural selection and struggle for reproduction.
11. Fairytale and Film. Political and ideological impact on film adaptations.
12.-13. Crossing of Perspectives. Analysis, synthesis, application.
Annotation
The course introduces the area of European fairytales as a genre within its broader historical, geographical, and cultural context, in relation to other European folk genres as myth or legends, with a closer focus on Czech fairytales and their specifics.
Furthermore, it describes and surveys the changes in the approach to fairytales within the development of scholarship about them. The course presents sociohistorical, psychological or anthropological interpretations as well as religious or philosophical types of theories, but also biologically based and gender or feminist methods of their interpretation. It touches upon the topics like ethical or moral principles in fairytales, gender and social roles, or historical and political influences to fairytale adaptation.
In this course, students will be encouraged to perceive, analyze, and experience fairytales in creative and inventive ways and to improve their ability to lead critical discourse both in oral and written form. All students need to read texts assigned prior to class to actively participate in class discussions.