Marina Warner: The Voice of the Toy: Writing Magic and Enchanted States

Presidential Lecturer

Her talk included bottle imps, genies in lamps, flying carpets, speaking fruits, toys, and severed heads. Touching on the influence of "Arabian Nights" and other Eastern narratives on western European fictions, Warner discussed the changing uses of enchantment in contemporary imagination, the different states of belief and disbelief that are developing, and the experience of the "digital uncanny." Warner is a writer of fiction, criticism, and history, whose explorations of mythology, symbolism, and fairy tales emphasize their contemporary meanings. Her most recent publications include "The Leto Bundle" (2001) and "Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors and Media" (2006).