In-person Workshop - Telling it Otherwise: How Fairy Tales Foster Diversity in Children’s Literature
Location: Buckingham House Seminar Room, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, Huntingdon Rd, Cambridge CB3 0DF, United Kingdom
Organiser: Cambridge Fairy-Tale Network
The Cambridge Research Network for Fairy-Tale Studies warmly invites you to the in-person workshop Telling it Otherwise: How Fairy Tales Foster Diversity in Children’s Literature, led by Dr Anna Finozzi.
Mon 11 May 2026 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Buckingham House Seminar Room, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, Huntingdon Rd, Cambridge CB3 0DF, United Kingdom
Workshop description
This workshop takes fairy tales as a lens through which to examine how children’s literature shapes ideas of identity and difference, paying particular attention to the dynamics of visibility and invisibility: who is represented, who is excluded, and why. From canonical stories to contemporary retellings by authors of diasporic backgrounds, participants are invited to consider how storytelling can reinforce dominant cultural frameworks or, alternatively, open up more inclusive and transformative possibilities. Can storytelling do otherwise – and if so, how?
Biographical note
Anna Finozzi is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Italian literature at the Department of Romance Studies and Classics, University of Stockholm. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge. Her areas of interest are Italian postcolonial studies, feminist and posthuman studies, and children’s literature. She has published articles in international journals and edited several volumes. Latest publications include: “About Pigs and Girls: A Posthuman Reading of Bianca Pitzorno’s Children’s Novel Polissena del Porcello (1993)” (Italian Studies) and “Studies, personaggi e letteratura italiana per l’infanzia: una ricognizione” (Narrativa). She is co-founder of ICONICs – Italian Collective of Narratives in Interdisciplinary Children’s Studies.
Organiser: Dr Elena Sottilotta (Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge). For further details, please send an email to cambridgefairytalenetwork@gmail.com