Dr. Derek Schaefer - Brother Grimm's Fairy Tales and Their Enduring Legacy
Program Date: January 31, 2018
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Assistant Professor Derek Schaefer, Ph.D., will discuss German fairy tales and their enduring legacy through the classic nineteenth-century works collected by the Brothers Grimm. Schaefer will explore their uses (and misuses) as vehicles of political and social expression. You will be invited to a journey into the world of German fairy tales, sagas, and legends. Castles and humble huts, enchanted forests and crumbling ruins are the topographies of the critical inquiry into bewitching, at times haunting tales of power struggles, family conflicts, the rise from "rags to riches," as well as cruel acts, punishments, and rewards.
Dr. Schaefer began German studies in the fall of 2008 at UW-Milwaukee where he began researching East Germany and the German Democratic Republic, specifically the often-obscured perspectives of East German writers in unified Germany. This interest continued as he began his PhD at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the fall of 2010 and culminated in his dissertation "East German Literature in the 21st Century: Minor Literature and Alternative Memory" defended in August 2016.
Dr. Schaefer began teaching as a lecturer at UW-Milwaukee in the fall of 2014 where he has taught language courses as well as contemporary literature and culture courses.
