On Tuesday 10 October, the annual Modern Languages Symposium took place and centred around the theme of fables, folklore and fairy tales.
The aim of the event was to create an interdisciplinary forum for all students interested in literature and the arts to celebrate the rich tradition of stories that shaped societies through the ages. Our guest speaker Marie Martine, DPhil student from Hertford College Oxford, opened the evening with a fascinating delve into the world of mermaids, their depiction through time, and their enduring symbolic significance. The programme also included breakout talks by staff members of NLCS on English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin and Russian literature, as well as music.
Students from five regional schools were able to reflect such topics as Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Chaucer’s narrative framing, reflections on the figure of Baba Yaga, Chinese, Hispanic and Northern Irish legends, the influence of African folk tales in the development of literary movements among diaspora, folkloric features in German comics as well as Freudian reflections on the ‘uncanny’ in fairy tales. At the end, a panel discussion reflected on questions posed by the audience and there was further organic reflection on historical context, politics and influences, reception and how societies were and still are shaped by these genres. By the time we were on our commute back home, our minds were super stimulated by all we had heard!
Many thanks to all the staff from NLCS, as well as our colleague Jonathan Robinson from Dame Alice Owen’s for their brilliant lectures.
