Our ‘Once upon a Wednesday afternoon’ event offered staff, students and the community an engaging event with fairy tales!
Stimulated by common research interests and research-led co-teaching of modules on the MA Children’s Literature and Literacies and MA English Literature at Lincoln Bishop, the event coincided with the opening of a new exhibition at British Library on the genre entitled Fairy Tales – open from 27th March until the 23rd August.
The event was hosted by the University’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Units (RKEU) Literature and Literacies and Representing the Past: Cultures, Narratives, Legacies, and was received with great enthusiasm.
Chaired by Professor Claudia Capancioni, the event had two very special speakers: Dr Amy Webster, Senior Lecturer in Education Studies at Lincoln Bishop University, and Professor Keiko Kiriyama, Professor of English Literature at Doshisha University, in Kyoto, Japan, and Visiting Professor of English Literature at Lincoln Bishop University. They shared their current research projects and led an exciting Q&A session that ended with Japanese matcha cookies for the best questions and the most interested listeners.
“We had a really magical time”, Professor Capancioni commented, thanks to a relaxing, welcoming atmosphere in which going all in, to use the title of the National Year of Reading 2026 campaign, was encouraged.
‘Longing for Japan: Mrs. Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales’ was the title of Professor Kiriyama’s paper that presented her research on the work of fairy tales of Oscar Wilde’s wife, Constance, with particular attention to a tale that she set in Japan; hence, the title of her paper. Professor Capancioni continued: “We look forward to welcoming Professor Kiriyama back at the start of next academic year when she will spend longer with us and inspire more exciting, research-led public events!”
Our exploration of fairy tales continued with Dr Amy Webster who reflected on the popularity and prominent position of the fairy tales in today’s British children’s publishing industry, through series that focus solely on this genre, with a focus on the Ladybird series. Her paper was entitled ‘Once upon a time… in a series not so far away: The serialisation of fairy tales in contemporary British children’s publishing’. She presented the initial results of her research on the homogenisation of fairy tales in contemporary British series and their transformation into commercial products that impacts on their reception.
Dr Webster teaches on the MA in Children’s Literature and Literacies, and her book Serialization, Commercialization and the Children’s Classics was published last year in Bloomsbury’s Perspectives on Children's Literature series.
Dr Mary Louise Maynes, who leads the Literature and Literacies RKEU, praised the ways in which “the two talks worked so well together” and ensured there is a video that will be made available online soon, on our website.
