Course syllabus

 

COMPLIT 202/303: Interpreting Folktales (15 pts)

               Comparative Literature     

          Semester 2, 2017

 

 

Comparative Literature             Semester 2                  2017

 

COMPLIT 202/303: Interpreting Folktales (15 pts)

 

Every society has its stock of traditional stories, passed on orally from one generation to the next, sometimes committed to writing, painting, video, or other semi-permanent media. These narratives may be roughly divided into ‘myths’, sacred narratives purporting to express truths about the creation of the world, the origins of human mortality, etc., and ‘folktales’, regarded even by members of the social group in which they are told as playful products of collective fantasy yet having 'truth value'. Tales such as “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Sleeping Beauty,” best known as children's stories through the Grimm Brothers and Walt Disney, derive from folktales which have been recounted in various versions by oral tellers to audiences of all ages across Eurasia for hundreds (in some cases, thousands) of years. These stories also use motifs and narrative devices (such as the transformation of humans into animals and back again, magical gestures, and sassy resistance) similar to those found in folktales from cultures elsewhere in the world -- China, Japan, the Caribbean, the Americas, South Asia, West Africa, and Polynesia.

 

This course explores the international and regional aspects of folktales and fairy tales. Are such stories products of culturally specific ways of knowing and feeling, or do they express universal human preoccupations present in the collective unconscious? What are the relations between folktales and other popular narrative forms, e.g. fairy tales, tall tales, ballads, and myths? Are these tales formal constructions which are given different meanings by the particular cultures that make, reuse, or preserve them? What are the relations between the rich oral traditions of tale telling and literary or media narratives which sometimes rely on folktale motifs and forms, for example Superheroes? What do folktale narratives as cultural forms tell us about the making and uses of stories in general?

 

Convenor and Lecturer:       

Associate Professor Mark Amsler (Comparative Literature, ELL)

Email: m.amsler@auckland.ac.nz

Phone: 923 5559

Office: ARTS 2-517

Office Hours: TBA, or by appointment

 

Additional Lecturers:

                   Associate Professor Neal Curtis (Media Studies)

                        Dr. Melissa Inouye (Chinese, Asian Studies)

                        Dr. Sabina Rehman (Comparative Literature, ELL)

                        Dr. Lawrence Marceau (Japanese, Asian Studies)

                       

Tutor:

                        NAME

Email:

                        Phone:

                        Office:

Office Hours:

 

Timetable:

        Lectures:

COMPLIT 202/303:  Wednesdays, 1400-1600 (Place TBA)

 

Tutorials:

• COMPLIT 202: Thursdays, 1400

• COMPLIT 303: Thursdays, 0900
• Please check SSO for updated room allocations.

 

Students are expected to attend all lectures and tutorials and complete weekly readings as assigned by the course convenor, lecturers, and tutor. To receive a final grade, students must complete and submit all assignments for marking.

 

 

Eligibility:       

COMPLIT 202: completed at least 60 points in any BA subjects

COMPLIT 303, completed at least 30 points at Stage II (not necessarily in Comparative Literature).

 

Texts:        1) The Classic Fairy Tales. Ed. Maria Tatar. NY/London: W. W. Norton, 1999. ISBN 0-393-97277-1 (pbk).

 

2) Additional course readings containing folktales from different cultures and periods and some secondary material, posted to the CANVAS course website or distributed as a single Course Reader.

 

All course texts are available in hard copy through UBS.

 

 

Assessments:

 

COMPLIT 202:

• 30% In-class test (1 hour/@1000 words, Week 7): critical analysis of a tale not assigned for course reading.
• 25% Essay 1 (@1500-words, due Week 6) on a comparative topic assigned.
• 36% Essay 2 (@ 2000 words; due Week 12) on a comparative topic assigned.
• 9% Quizzes (three during tutorial meetings, based on assigned readings, each worth 3 points).

 

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COMPLIT 303:

• 25% Essay One on critical folktale interpretation (@1750 words; due Week 6).

OR

• 25% Creative Writing project – making an “original” or explicitly “reversioned” tale and adding a reflective commentary (tale max. 1500 words, commentary max. 1000 words; due Week 6).

 

AND

• 35% Essay Two on critical folktale reading/interpretation (@2000 words, Week 12).
• 15% Quizzes (three) on assigned readings in Weeks 4, 6, 8 (5 points each).
• 25% Group Research Project on a comparative topic presented as PPT (max. 20 slides):
  • Proposal (150 words, due Tuesday, DATE, in tutorials)
  • Group presentations (PPT + discussion/questions, in tutorials Weeks 10-11-12)