Profs & Pints Baltimore: Fairy Tales and the Body

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Fairy Tales and the Body,” an examination of the forms characters take in the Grimms’ stories and what they tell us about real life in those times, with Linda Lee, lecturer in folklore and fairy tales at the University of Pennsylvania.

[Doors open at 3. The talk starts at 4:30. The room is open seating.]

The bodies of fairy-tale characters are alternately magical and monstrous. Depending on the story, they might be transformed through curses or disenchantments, or they might endure incredible hardships and complete impossible tasks. They can be maimed by violent acts, they can be healed or harmed by medicinal potions, and they can manifest both punishments and rewards.

Consider the depictions of bodies in the Grimms tales—as well as what they convey about nineteenth-century understandings of medicine and how bodies work—with Linda Lee, a folklorist who has earned a loyal following among Profs and Pints fans by giving excellent talks in Baltimore and Philadelphia.

We’ll look at how beauty standards got conveyed through fairy tales and the sacrifices their characters were willing to make to achieve those standards. We’ll consider how those beauty standards marginalized bodies rendered grotesque by deformity or the effects of physical labor.

Lee will explore how fairy tales conveyed anxieties about pregnancy and childbirth, with wishes for children sometimes going unexpectedly wrong. She’ll some fairy tales that conveyed uncertainty about the boundary between life and death and others that blurred the difference between the bodies of animals and humans.

Overall, we’ll consider how fairy tales’ treatment of bodies contribute to our understanding of what it means to be human. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)