published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy

This thesis reexamines the purpose of fairy tales throughout history and explores the effectiveness of a modern alternative to classical methods of telling these stories. To increase interactivity as well as the agency of the female protagonist and players themselves, this thesis reimagines the popular classic, Cinderella, as a visual novel.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur pedagoger i förskolan arbetar med sagor som ett hjälpmedel till barns språkliga och emotionella utveckling. För att göra detta har jag använt kvalitativa intervjuer med fem pedagoger på tre olika förskolor. Jag har utgått från det sociokulturella perspektivet i mina intervjuer för att undersöka hur samarbetet mellan pedagoger och barn ser ut i sagoarbetet. Mitt resultat visar att pedagogerna är överens om att litteraturen är mycket viktig för barnens utveckling och att det finns många olika metoder som man kan använda sig av i arbetet med sagorna. Pedagogerna var överens om att man måste variera arbetssättet för att göra sagorna mer levande och därmed väcka barnens intresse för litteratur. / The purpose of this study is to examine how teachers in preschool are working with fairy tales as a tool for children's linguistic and emotional development. To do this, I used qualitative interviews with three preschool teachers in two different preschools. I have my base in the socio-cultural perspective in my interviews to examine how cooperation between educators and children appear in the story work.My results show that the teachers agree that literature is very important for children's development and that there are many different methods that you can use in the work of the tales. The teachers agreed on the need to vary the approach to make the stories more vivid and thereby arousechildren's interest in literature.

This essay examines Angela Carter’s feminist rewritings of classical fairy tales. By examining the original fairy tales and comparing them to what Angela Carter published I aim to highlight a feminism that is subtle and non-binary. In the analysis I draw on ideas presented by Hélène Cixous as well as Simone de Beauvoir. Furthermore, a pedagogical reflection is included to show ways in which these stories could be incorporated in the upper- secondary school.

This thesis traces Margaret Atwood's uses of three major elements of fairy tales in her novels. Atwood creates a passive, fairy-tale-like heroine, but not for the purpose of showing how passivity wins the prince as in the traditional tale. Atwood also uses the binary system, which provides a moralistic structure in the fairy tale, to show the necessity of moving beyond its rigidity. In addition, Atwood's novels focus on transformation as the breaking of a spell. However, the spell to be broken arises out of the fairy tales themselves, which create unrealistic expectations. Thus, Atwood not only presents these fairy tale elements in a new setting, but she also changes their significance.

This thesis interrogates the historical, philosophical, and existential implications of the Black Arts Movement and its major artists on the recurring themes of social injustice, Western hegemony, and the fight for aesthetic authenticity to reimagine fairy tales for the youth Black Aesthetic. As a personal reflection and foundational document for a larger project, this work weaves these implications through the practical application of the varied stages of program development for youth artists. This project also is a handbook that encompasses scholarly research, reflective analysis and anecdotal journal evidence. The subsequent chapters explore the theological and theatre pedagogical educational influences that informed the phases of inception through completion of the 2015 Courage Summer Workshop (a six-week devised theatre workshop for middle school students) to include its two-year program history, curriculum design, and weekly program overviews.

My Diploma Thesis has a theoretical character. I dealt with fairy tales as a genre. I worked only with the folkloric fairy tales that are different from the modern ones in the way of universality. In the first part I looked for characteristic features of these stories from the literary and psychological point of view. I focused on time and place expression and how the fairy tale deals with the identity of characters and typical phenomenon of the good and the bad. Through these principles children can easily identify with the heroes of stories and therefore they help to solve specific developmental crisis and also to reach individual autonomy and integrity. For me, the theoretical basis was psychoanalysis and thus I followed the fairy tales theory of Bruno Bettelheim. I used this theory in the second part of my thesis as well. The interpretation of four fairy tales: Litte Red Riding-hood (Červená Karkulka), Jack an Jill (Perníková chaloupka), The Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Sněhurka) and Hrnečku, vař! are given. It is about the determination of the main topic and the interpretation of individual motives. Besides the different options how to interpret it I also compared the different versions of these stories. At the end I tried to have a critical view on Bettelheim's approach and also to find...

This study investigates the responses of contemporary South African, Grade one children to threshold experiences in Grimm fairy tales and African Zulu folk tales. Thresholds involve an exciting or challenging experience, or a transformation in stories. Three stories from each genre were read over six sessions, to ten diverse black and white children, from one school. The children’s enjoyment was assessed, with focus on their backgrounds and previous knowledge, to help find beneficial reading for them. Results suggested that while gender of characters and story origins did not seem important, story length, humour, entertainment and educational ability, as well as personal involvement, were useful. The study supported the notion that stories are generally universal and could help bridge our cultural divide. Reader-Response theory was used and its principles helped to structure questions for the interviews, and to analyse data. Hopefully, the findings will help to select appropriate texts for all children beginning school in present-day South Africa.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T19:35:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 5 / Nenhuma / O estudo das manifestações psicossomáticas decorrentes de uma relação mãe-bebê conturbada vem despertando crescente interesse na comunidade científica. Conjugando a essa idéia à visão psicanalítica winnicottiana do potencial curativo existente na arte, a presente pesquisa objetivou desenvolver a oficina de contos de fadas como intervenção terapêutica com crianças asmáticas, tendo como enfoque as contribuições de Donald Winnicott em seus escritos sobre o desenvolvimento humano. Os dispositivos clínicos utilizados para o entendimento do funcionamento psicodinâmico das cinco crianças participantes foram: a realização de uma hora do jogo diagnóstica, a aplicação dos instrumentos projetivos H-T-P e o Teste das Fábulas, além da realização de entrevistas com os pais e professores. Após esse contato inicial com os protagonistas da pesquisa, foram desenvolvidas nove oficinas de contos de fadas com as crianças e uma oficina com os pais e o pediatra. A análise dos resultados, em sua dimensão qualitativa, focalizou os f / The study of psychosomatic manifestation due to a troublesome baby-mother relation is raising scientific community’s interest. Associating this idea to the Winnicotttian healing potential psychoanalytic view found in art, this survey’s objective is to develop the fairy tales workshops, as a therapeutic intervention for asthmatics children, focusing on Donald Winnicott’s writings about human development. The clinic device used to understand the five children taking part on a psychodynamic work were: carrying out one hour of diagnostic game, applying H-T-P projected instruments and the fable’s test, as well as interviewing parents and teachers. Following this initial contact with the survey’s protagonists were developed nine fairy tales workshops with the kids and one with the parents and pediatrician. The analyses result in a qualitative view, focused the clinic fragments taken out of these kids life’s story and the reports brought/ produced by them on the workshops. Those are added to the information collec

While fantasy as a genre is often dismissed as frivolous and inappropriate, it is highly relevant in representing and working through trauma. The fantasy genre presents spectators with images of the unsettled and unresolved, taking them on a journey through a world in which the familiar is rendered unfamiliar. It positions itself as an in-between, while the consequential disturbance of recognized world orders lends this genre to relating stories of trauma themselves characterized by hauntings, disputed memories, and irresolution. Through an examination of films from around the world and their depictions of individual and collective traumas through the fantastic, this thesis outlines how fantasy succeeds in representing and challenging histories of violence, silence, and irresolution. Further, it also examines how the genre itself is transformed in relating stories that are not yet resolved. While analysing the modes in which the fantasy genre mediates and intercedes trauma narratives, this research contributes to a wider recognition of an understudied and underestimated genre, as well as to discourses on how trauma is narrated and negotiated.