Wolves and Werewolves in History and Popular Culture

From the ancient world to contemporary popular culture, the wolf has held a special place in our storytelling and artistic traditions. What is it about wolves - and by extension, werewolves and animal shape-shifters - that we find alluring and frightening in equal measure? What does the wolf represent? Why do so many different cultures have their own version of the lycanthrope and their own stories of animal transformation? Why are we fascinated by tales of children raised by wolves?

In the 10 lectures of Wolves and Werewolves in History and Popular Culture, author and teacher Shannon Scott will take you around the world to explore the many ways humans have created and shared stories of wolves, shape-shifting, and lycanthropy. Through these many places and cultures, you will see why the wolf has represented different things to different people across time; whether the wolf is a symbol of fear or fascination - or a little bit of both - it has certainly had an impact on art, history, and more.

As you dig into the history of wolves and werewolves throughout the world, you will engage

Charles Perrault’s famous “Little Red Riding Hood”, and many of its later permutations across several centuries; The werewolf in Romance literature of the Medieval Period; American conceptions of the wolf in literature and its relationship to the treatment of wolves in the in reality; The werewolf as “femme fatale” in Victorian literature and beyond; “Real” lycanthropy and the stories of feral children, in both fiction and reality; Werewolves in film and contemporary literature, and more. As you will see, while our conceptions of the wolf and its close relative the werewolf have shifted over time, their stories still manage to sink their claws into our collective imagination.