Lecture by Beate Zekorn-von Bebenburg (Struwwelpetermuseum Frankfurt) as part of the lecture series "Unruly Hair – From Disobedience to Agency. Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Children's Media".

Location: Technical University of Darmstadt, room: S101/A4, Karolinenplatz 5, 64289 Darmstadt
Online participation via Zoom: LINK
Language: German
 

Abstract:
In 1844, the Frankfurt-based doctor Dr Heinrich Hoffmann pioneered the modern narrative picture book with *Der Struwwelpeter*, which he created for his three-year-old son. Published in 1845, this global success inspired imitations, caricatures, satires, kitsch and art. Around 1846, the young readership themselves chose the ‘Struwwelpeter’ page as the book’s key story: Hoffmann reported how the children did not ask for the book with the cumbersome title *Funny Stories and Amusing Pictures*, but rather for ‘the Struwwelpeter book’. This lecture analyses the timeless narrative of ‘wild’ hair, which makes Struwwelpeter an anti-hero who continues to captivate new generations of children. Taking Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter character and his various hairstyles in their historical context as a starting point, I will analyse the ambivalence of hair symbolism – oscillating between rebellion and conformity – using selected examples from the series of ‘Struwwelpeter’ imitations, the so-called ‘Struwwelpetriaden’.

About the lecture series: 

From dust-free shoes to a neatly combed head, the “well-groomed” child becomes the focal point of discursive negotiations surrounding contemporary ideals of hygiene education and virtue. Unruly (children’s) hair, on the other hand, reflects a tension between praiseworthy cleanliness and reprehensible vanity, a tension that is culturally, historically, and regionally coded. In contemporary art and literature, unruly hair can be portrayed as a symbol of self-empowerment, but also of exclusion. These depictions continue to reflect social taboos, particularly when (female) body hair is addressed. When unruly hair is portrayed as untamed, diverse, and independent, viewers are invited to rethink beauty: as something that is linked to diversity, texture, and resistance itself. In this lecture series, national and international experts will shed light on the multifaceted aesthetics and semantics of (children’s and adolescents’) hair as depicted in stories and artistic imagery from the perspectives of cultural studies and literary studies.

Participants are expected to productively and critically engage with the subject matter and to be willing to actively participate in the discussions.

The lecture series will take place during the 2026/27 winter semester and is open to students from all disciplines at TU Darmstadt, Goethe University Frankfurt, and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, as well as to the interested public. 

The lecture series is part of the Strategic Alliance of the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) and is funded by the RMU Teaching Funding for Teaching.