In a fast paced, digital world, why do these stories survive? Why do they appeal to us as children and why do they follow us in to adulthood? Bringing together the literary with the social sciences, this event explored why we just can’t stop telling tales.

Chaired by Julia Eccleshare, Children’s Books Editor, Guardian

Speakers:

Peter Brooks FBA, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, Yale University and Andrew W Mellon Foundation Scholar in the University Center for Human Values and the Department of Comparative Literature, Princeton University. Peter works across English and French literature, specialising in the novel and its analysis, psychoanalysis and literary study, and identity in modern culture.

Jack Zipes, Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature, University of Minnesota. Jack is a world renowned literary scholar specialising in fairy tale and folk tale. In his 2014 work Grimm Legacies: The Magic Spell of the Grimms’ Folk and Fairy Tales he reveals how the Grimms came to play a pivotal role in the evolution of Western folklore and in the history of the fairy tale.

Nicholas Tucker, academic and writer, is a specialist in educational psychology and cultural studies and was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sussex. He is a regular broadcaster and has written for The Independent and the Times Literary Supplement. His publications include The Child and the Book: A Psychological and Literary Exploration.  

Sally Gardner, children's writer and illustrator, has won both the Costa Children's Book Award and the Carnegie Medal. Her 2013 novel Tinder was inspired by the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, The Tinderbox. 

Tuesday 12 May 2015, 6-7.30pm
The British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH
Part of the British Academy Literature Week 2015

The Golden Age of Retelling

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