Designing women: the unillustrated moral devices of Perrault’s Fairy Tales
Jennifer Taylor (Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing, University of Reading; & PhD, Art and Intellectual History, Warburg Institute, University of London) discusses how Perrault's famous fairy tales are, indeed, devices without illustrations, and how their allegorical design helped shape female agency in Louis XIV France. Hybrid event -- in-person and on Zoom.
College of Arts School of Modern Languages and Cultures Stirling Maxwell Centre
Date: Thursday 19 February 2026
Time: 17:00 - 18:00
Venue: Archives and Special Collections Seminar Room (University of Glasgow Library, level 12)
Category: Public lectures
Speaker: Jennifer Taylor (University of Reading & Warburg Institute)
Jennifer Taylor discusses the visual and rhetorical aesthetics of Charles Perrault and suggests that the morals of his famous fairy tales are, indeed, devises without illustrations. The morals have two halves and conform to the idea of the two sides of a coin.
Focusing on his lesser-known poetic and artistic production under Louis XIV, the talk more broadly examines how allegorical design—on ceilings, in verse, and in rhetorical structures—helped shape cultural conceptions of female agency and moral authority in seventeenth-century France.
Drawing on interdisciplinary research in art history, literary studies, and embodied methods, the talk reveals how Perrault’s use of “design” operates on multiple levels: as artistic form, ideological framework, and gendered strategy.
A selection of works from Charles Perrault from Archives and Special Collections will be on display in the Seminar Room, courtesy of Archives and Special Collections.
Hybrid event, free and open to all. For online access, get your Zoom link from https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/meeting/register/h94mrxCSS02mfkQdhPGYkw