School of Arts Taster Session: Comparative Literature

We’ve all heard of Aladdin, Jafar, and the genie in a bottle. But where do these stories really come from? How did they make their way from classical Persia to Disneyland Florida, and how have they changed along the way? What can they teach us not only about the literatures of the Middle East, but also the birth of the European novel and the idea of literature itself? In this seminar we’ll compare versions of the different stories from the 1001 Nights, discussing their incredible global travels and the ways they changed fiction forever. And at the end, we’ll even come up with a new one of our own...

This session will be hosted by Dr Hannah Scott Deuchar, Lecturer in Comparative Literature.