Events

The Trickster: From Oral History to Literature to Screen

Wednesday 28 January 2026
19:00 - 20:00
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Explore the rich and varied history of the Trickster.

Speaker

Dr Louise Child
Cardiff University

For January’s talk, we’re excited to welcome Dr Louise Child (Cardiff University) to speak on the theme: The Trickster: From Oral History to Literature to Screen.

This talk examines relationships between sacred traditional storytelling in indigenous Canada and America and indigenous literary and screen narratives. It focusses on the Trickster, an ambivalent character that takes many forms such as Coyote, Iktomi the Spider, and Trickster Raven. Traditional oral forms have specific ties to the landscape and persons authorized to tell them, while mythological scholarship, including psychological approaches, have focussed on ways that Tricksters from many different cultures can be related to transformative archetypes such as the Shadow. This talk examines some of those debates and explores how Native Americans and Canadians have drawn from their traditional stories to create indigenous literature and films with unique humour and powerful critiques of colonialism.

In the week of the talk, a Teams link will arrive via email from Dr Paul Webster. If you have not received a link by midday on Wednesday 28 January, email Paul [[email protected]] and he will send it on.