Once Upon Our Time: Contemporary Retellings of Myths and Tales

In this course, we will consider recent fiction by British and American women writers that mine some of Western culture’s foundational myths and tales for insights into both historical and contemporary experience. Pat Barker and Madeline Miller shift the focus of the Iliad and Odyssey, respectively, to female characters given little voice in the original text. Kelly Link, Helen Oyeyemi, and GennaRose Nethercott change the time and place of German and Russian folk tales to contemporary America, illuminating our current silences and obsessions by making the mixing the familiar and the strange. In so doing, each writer explores themes of power, purpose, loss, and belonging that are both timeless and timely.

Notes

Online registration closes September 24 at 5 pm CT.

All Graham School courses use Canvas to distribute files and announcements. You will receive an invitation to join Canvas about a week before your course begins. Remote courses require you to login to Canvas to access the Zoom Classroom. Please visit the Liberal Arts Remote Learning Resources page to find step by step instructions for Canvas and Zoom.