ThoughtGallery.org > St. Jordi in New York: “Beauty and the Beast”

St. Jordi in New York: “Beauty and the Beast”

As part of the festival St. Jordi in New York: Love & Books & Roses, Deutsches Haus at NYU and the Department of German at NYU present a conversation between Maria Tatar and Christopher Wood on Maria Tatar’s latest book, Beauty and the Beast: Classic Tales About Animal Brides and Grooms from Around the World, published by Penguin Random House. The discussion will focus on the perennial fascination of Beauty and the Beast, as seen in France, Sweden, Greece, Lithuania, India, Iran, Bolivia, West Indies, Japan, Ghana, Myanmar, the Philippines, and many other countries.

Maria Tatar is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. Professor Tatar received her Ph.D. from Princeton University. Her teaching and research interests include Weimar Germany, German Romanticism, folklore, children’s literature, and cultural studies. She serves on degree committees in Folklore and Mythology as well as in History and Literature. The author of books on the Brothers Grimm and on fairy tales (The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Off with Their Heads, Secrets beyond the Door), she has also published Spellbound: Studies on Mesmerism and Literature and Lustmord, which explores sexual violence in the literature, film, and art of the Weimar period in Germany. She is the editor of Classic Fairy Tales, as well as of The Annotated Brothers Grimm and The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen. Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood was published in 2009 with W.W. Norton.  She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Society of Fellows.

Christopher Wood is Professor and Chair of the German Department, New York University.  His research and writing addresses European art and culture from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries.  Wood has also taught at Yale University, and as a visitor at the University of California (Berkeley), Vassar College, and the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.  He has been a fellow at the Society of Fellows, Harvard University; the American Academy in Rome; the American Academy in Berlin; the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; and the Internationales Forschungszentrum für Kulturwissenschaften, Vienna.  In 2002 he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In Beauty and the Beast, preeminent fairy tale scholar Maria Tatar brings together tales from ancient times to the present and from a wide variety of cultures, highlighting the continuities and the range of themes in a fairy tale that has been used both to keep young women in their place and to encourage them to rebel, and that has entertained adults and children alike. With fresh commentary, she shows us what animals and monsters, both male and female, tell us about ourselves, and about the transformative power of empathy.

St. Jordi in New York:
According to legend, St. Jordi, known in English as St. George, slayed a dragon that menaced a village and threatened to devour the daughter of a medieval king. From the drops of blood that spilled to the ground a rose bush sprang up. In Catalonia, on St. Jordi’s Day, lovers exchange roses and books in celebration of the legend. Bookstalls and flower stands spring up all over Barcelona and the cities and towns of Catalonia, in a gorgeous celebration of love and reading. The celebration of the Feast of St. Jordi in New York will be devoted to world literature, literature in translation, and cultural diversity.

Events at Deutsches Haus are free of charge. If you would like to attend this event, please send us an email to [email protected]. Space at Deutsches Haus is limited; please arrive ten minutes prior to the event. Thank you!

St. Jordi in New York: Dragons & Books & Roses is organized by The Farragut Fund for Catalan Culture in the U.S. and the Catalan Institute of America with the support of DiploCat as part of their #BooksAndRoses campaign, and with the additional support of the Institut Ramon Llull.

St. Jordi in New York: “Beauty and the Beast.” is co-presented by St. Jordi in New York and Penguin Random House.











When: Tue., Apr. 18, 2017 at 6:30 pm
Where: Deutsches Haus at NYU
42 Washington Mews
212-998-8660
Price: Free
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As part of the festival St. Jordi in New York: Love & Books & Roses, Deutsches Haus at NYU and the Department of German at NYU present a conversation between Maria Tatar and Christopher Wood on Maria Tatar’s latest book, Beauty and the Beast: Classic Tales About Animal Brides and Grooms from Around the World, published by Penguin Random House. The discussion will focus on the perennial fascination of Beauty and the Beast, as seen in France, Sweden, Greece, Lithuania, India, Iran, Bolivia, West Indies, Japan, Ghana, Myanmar, the Philippines, and many other countries.

Maria Tatar is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. Professor Tatar received her Ph.D. from Princeton University. Her teaching and research interests include Weimar Germany, German Romanticism, folklore, children’s literature, and cultural studies. She serves on degree committees in Folklore and Mythology as well as in History and Literature. The author of books on the Brothers Grimm and on fairy tales (The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Off with Their Heads, Secrets beyond the Door), she has also published Spellbound: Studies on Mesmerism and Literature and Lustmord, which explores sexual violence in the literature, film, and art of the Weimar period in Germany. She is the editor of Classic Fairy Tales, as well as of The Annotated Brothers Grimm and The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen. Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood was published in 2009 with W.W. Norton.  She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Society of Fellows.

Christopher Wood is Professor and Chair of the German Department, New York University.  His research and writing addresses European art and culture from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries.  Wood has also taught at Yale University, and as a visitor at the University of California (Berkeley), Vassar College, and the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.  He has been a fellow at the Society of Fellows, Harvard University; the American Academy in Rome; the American Academy in Berlin; the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; and the Internationales Forschungszentrum für Kulturwissenschaften, Vienna.  In 2002 he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In Beauty and the Beast, preeminent fairy tale scholar Maria Tatar brings together tales from ancient times to the present and from a wide variety of cultures, highlighting the continuities and the range of themes in a fairy tale that has been used both to keep young women in their place and to encourage them to rebel, and that has entertained adults and children alike. With fresh commentary, she shows us what animals and monsters, both male and female, tell us about ourselves, and about the transformative power of empathy.

St. Jordi in New York:
According to legend, St. Jordi, known in English as St. George, slayed a dragon that menaced a village and threatened to devour the daughter of a medieval king. From the drops of blood that spilled to the ground a rose bush sprang up. In Catalonia, on St. Jordi’s Day, lovers exchange roses and books in celebration of the legend. Bookstalls and flower stands spring up all over Barcelona and the cities and towns of Catalonia, in a gorgeous celebration of love and reading. The celebration of the Feast of St. Jordi in New York will be devoted to world literature, literature in translation, and cultural diversity.

Events at Deutsches Haus are free of charge. If you would like to attend this event, please send us an email to [email protected]. Space at Deutsches Haus is limited; please arrive ten minutes prior to the event. Thank you!

St. Jordi in New York: Dragons & Books & Roses is organized by The Farragut Fund for Catalan Culture in the U.S. and the Catalan Institute of America with the support of DiploCat as part of their #BooksAndRoses campaign, and with the additional support of the Institut Ramon Llull.

St. Jordi in New York: “Beauty and the Beast.” is co-presented by St. Jordi in New York and Penguin Random House.

Buy tickets/get more info now