Laura is a full-time online instructor at the University of Oklahoma, teaching courses in Folklore & Mythology, World Literature, and the Epics of Ancient India. She has published books on Aesop's fables, Latin proverbs, and the Vulgate Bible. Find out more about Laura by visiting her Bestiaria Latina Blog.
Laura looks at woodcut illustrations to Aesop's fables from 1479 to explore how artists can depict the plots of stories and how the illustrations themselves can become part of the storytelling tradition. Article »
Laura continues her series on religious uses of Aesopic material, looking at an anecdote that made its way into the writings of the Sufi mystical poet Rumi. Article »
Laura begins a series on religious interpretations of Aesop's fables by looking at the fable of the lion's share in Rumi, a thirteenth-century Sufi master. Article »
Laura concludes her look at Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series with the third book, Prentice Alvin, in which Card confronts the horror of slavery and its consequences for American identity. Article »
Laura continues her series on the "ecology of magic" used by storytellers, looking at the balance and harmony of the "greensong" sung by the American land in Orson Scott Card's Red Prophet, the second volume of his Alvin Maker series. Article »
Laura begins her series on the "ecology of magic" that storytellers create for their imagined worlds, looking first at the alternate America imagined by Orson Scott Card in his Alvin Maker series, beginning with Seventh Son. Article »