ENGH 526: Special Topics in the History and Criticism of Children's Literature

ENGH 526-001: Gender in Children's Literature
(Spring 2012)

07:20 PM to 10:00 PM M

Innovation Hall 207

Section Information for Spring 2012

"The mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are."

As Wendy Darling's explanation of the color-coded gender system of Neverland's fairies suggests, examining the place of gender in the history and criticism of children's literature raises as many questions as it answers. This course will consider both what focusing on the construction of gender can tell us about children's literature, and what focusing on the construction of children's literature can tell us about gender. Here are some of the questions we will examine: How deeply (and how differently) gendered is the idea of the child at different moments in the history of children's literature, from the 18th century to today? When is it useful to think of "children's literature," or of books for girls or boys? In valuing the soul over the body, do Puritan and Evangelical stories for children offer an escape from the gendered constraints of the earth? In what constraining or enabling ways is the role of the children's writer gendered? Is contemporary children's literature required to imagine all children as at once both sexless and heterosexual? Primary texts will be mainly British and will include selected fairy tales, James Janeway, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Maria Edgeworth, Mary Wollstonecraft, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Thomas Hughes, James Barrie, E. Nesbit, Maurice Sendak, Phillip Pullman, Suzanne Collins, and J.K. Rowling. We will analyze these readings together with literary criticism that is now shaping children's literature as an academic field of inquiry. Students will write weekly reading responses, a short paper, an annotated bibliography, and a longer term paper.

Tags:

Course Information from the University Catalog

Credits: 3

Focuses on the history and criticism of children's literature by concentrating on selected historical periods and literary modes such as "Golden Age" children's literature, contemporary fantastic and children's literature, or Romantic and Victorian children's literature. Notes: May be repeated with permission of instructor. Offered by English. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Specialized Designation: Topic Varies
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment limited to students with a class of Advanced to Candidacy, Graduate, Junior Plus, Non-Degree or Senior Plus.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate, Non-Degree or Undergraduate level students.

Students in a Non-Degree Undergraduate degree may not enroll.

Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.

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