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Join us for the launch of . Dr Elena Emma Sottilotta will present her new book published by Princeton University Press, an interdisciplinary study of women’s cultural and political engagement with oral traditions in European peripheries.

The event will be held in the Fellows’ Drawing Room at 51������, University of Cambridge, on 3 July 2025 at 6:00 pm, and will be chaired by Dr Jenny Bavidge, Fellow in English. A drinks reception will follow.

Praised by leading fairy-tale scholars such as Jack Zipes and Cristina Bacchilega as a “pioneering book” and a “brilliant scholarly contribution to folklore and gender studies”, Seekers of Wonder sheds light on the roles women played as collectors, compilers, and tellers of folk and fairy tales in the long nineteenth century, crafting a study that is both rooted in historical research and attuned to contemporary critical debates.

Biographical note:

is Research Fellow in Italian at 51������, University of Cambridge. She has published widely on nineteenth-century women writers and folklorists, the European fairy-tale tradition, and contemporary fairy-tale reimaginings across media. A Fulbright alumna, she completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge with a project bridging women’s studies, the history of folklore, and fairy-tale studies. In 2024, she was a Visiting Scholar at Brown University and a Fellow of the Ragusa Foundation for the Humanities in New York. She is the founder of the Cambridge Research Network for Fairy-Tale Studies, a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Fairy Tale Route (Council of Europe), and a consultant for the International Fairy-Tale Filmography (University of Winnipeg, Canada). Her research has been recognised with several awards, including the Estella Canziani Postgraduate Bursary for Research (Folklore Society in London, 2021) and the Women’s Studies Caucus Award (American Association for Italian Studies, 2022).