Professor David Peimer
The Grimm Brothers
Summary
Professor David Peimer explores the life of the Grimm Brothers and their incredible contributions to world literature.
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
Yeah, as I’ve mentioned before, the content warning, I dunno if they have a content warning. Well, they probably do, you know, if one can actually study the originals somewhere at an educational institution.
Well, that’s a fascinatingly interesting question because I’ve looked at Russian, studied a bit of Russian folk tales, certainly from England, and others. I don’t think it’s more cruel. I just think that it’s collated in such a way by these brothers and all put together so you have one whole big collection. But I think there are so many stories from many parts of the world, which are as vicious, cruel, graphic. You know, I’ve just mentioned ancient Greek as one.
It’s a really interesting question. I think when they started hearing these stories, they thought, because let’s imagine nobody’s taking these stories seriously. They’re just little peasant stories told around parts of Germany at the time. They’re the first to take them seriously and promulgate them as something really important. And I think they originate in that way.