Maria Tatar Explained

Maria Tatar
Birth Place:	Pressath, Germany
Nationality:	American
Citizenship:	US (naturalized 1956)
Occupation:	Academic, writer
Known For:	Books on mythology and folklore
Children:	Lauren Schuker (daughter) Daniel Schuker (son)

Maria Magdalene Tatar (born May 13, 1945) is an American academic whose expertise lies in children's literature, German literature, and folklore.^{[1] [2]} She is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, and Chair of the Committee on Degrees in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University.

^[3]

Biography

Maria Tatar was born in Pressath, Germany. Her family emigrated from Hungary to the United States in the 1950s when she was a child.^[4]

She grew up in Highland Park, Illinois and graduated from Highland Park High School in 1963.

Tatar earned an undergraduate degree from Denison University and a doctoral degree from Princeton University.^{[5] [6]} In 1971, after finishing her doctorate at Princeton University, Tatar joined the faculty of Harvard University. She received tenure in 1978.^[5] She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Selected works

• Spellbound: Studies on Mesmerism and Literature (Princeton University Press, 1978)
• The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales (Princeton, 1987)
• Off With Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood (Princeton, 1993)
• The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales (W. W. Norton & Company, 2002)
• The Annotated Brothers Grimm (W.W. Norton, 2004)
• The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen (W.W. Norton, 2008)
• Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood (W.W. Norton, April 2009)^[7]
• "From Bookworms to Enchanted Hunters: Why Children Read" (Journal of Aesthetic Education, Summer 2009, vol.43, no.2, p. 19-36) ISSN 0021-8510
• The Annotated Peter Pan, ed., (W.W. Norton, 2011)
• The Annotated African American Folktales, ed. with Henry Louis Gates Jr., (Liveright-W.W. Norton, 2017),
• The Fairest of Them All: Snow White and 21 Tales of Mothers and Daughters, (Harvard University Press, 2020)
• The Heroine with 1001 Faces (Liveright, 2021),

External links

• Maria Tatar at Harvard University
• Breezes from Wonderland – Tatar's blog on storytelling, folklore, and children's literature
• , 2008)
• "Tatar Discusses Development of Fairy Tales", The Harvard Crimson (April 8, 2012)

Notes and References

1. News: Love in fairytales . The Guardian . October 12, 2009 . A. S. Byatt . A. S. Byatt .
2. News: Once Upon a Time ... . Harvard University Gazette . April 10, 2003 . Beth Potier.
3. Book: Reading Them To Sleep, Storytelling and The Invention of Bedtime Reading. 60–61 . 978-0-393-24004-7. May 15, 2017. Tatar. Maria. 20 April 2009.
4. Amy Sutherland (October 27, 2012). "Maria Tatar: Professor and fairy-tale expert". The Boston Globe.
5. News: The Horror and Beauty . Harvard Magazine . November–December 2007. Craig Lambert.
6. News: In praise of bedtime stories . . Cindy Cantrell . April 27, 2009.
7. News: Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood by Maria Tatar . The Guardian . November 7, 2009 . A. S. Byatt.