Justice in 21st-Century Fairy Tales and the Power of Wonder

Cristina Bacchilega, Professor Emerita, English, University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa

and Pauline Greenhill, Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Winnipeg

Regardless of medium, fairy tales are conventionally seen as demanding suspension of disbelief—a sense that what they offer is literally impossible. But we contend instead that the fairy tale’s “what if?” and its invitation to imagine via its storyworlds signal wanting to believe that just alternatives to consensus reality are possible.

Wonder as activated by the normalized coexistence of multiple dimensions and relations in fairy tales and other fantastic stories invites creators, re-creators, and audiences to redefine reality as more than what is commonly perceived and as other than what is expected. Wonder also allows creators, re-creators, and audiences to glimpse the possibilities for justice that this thinking and seeing otherwise make available. We explore these ideas and the decolonial genre trouble they make by drawing on examples from our new book, Justice in 21st-Century Fairy Tales and the Power of Wonder.

Co-presented with UW’s Comparative Literature Program

April 11, 2025

12:30-1:30pm

In person in 3C25 or join on Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89866616544