The Origins of the Sandman
This event has ended.
Contact
Add to calendar
January’s Exploring the Past talk will also be Continuing and Professional Education’s Eileen Younghusband Memorial Lecture.
We’re excited to welcome Dr Juliette Wood (Cardiff University) to discuss the Origins of the Sandman.
The Sandman has recently emerged as a popular modern fantasy character. This eerie figure who brings dreams to good children can also be a threatening bogeyman. It has become a romantic and horror trope as well as a nursey figure. This talk examines some possible sources for this evocative and fascinating being.
The Eileen Younghusband Memorial Lecture is established in memory of Eileen Younghusband (1921-2016), who was a filter officer in the Women’s Auxiliary Airforce during Word War II, working on the assessment of radar reports and joining the team tasked with detecting the location of Hitler’s V2 rockets. In later life, she completed a degree with the Open University (aged 87), and shortly afterwards published her first book, Not An Ordinary Life. Further books were to follow, including for children Eileen’s War. Eileen was a committed supporter of the Centre for Lifelong Learning (now Continuing and Professional Education), and in 2013 she was awarded a British Empire Medal for campaigning against cuts in adult education in Cardiff.