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For those interested in applying for the Ph.D. or M.A. in childhood studies
applicants must satisfy several requirements. The online application can
be found at http://gradstudy.rutgers.edu/
Deadlines
For those applying for admission in the Ph.D. program applications
are due January 5 of the year preceding the fall semester in which
you wish to begin. For those applying for admission in the M.A.
program applications are due July 15 of the year preceding the fall
semester in which you wish to begin.
Admission Requirements
Admission to the Ph.D. Program is based on a combination of undergraduate
(and graduate, if applicable) transcripts with a minimum 3.2 GPA,
GRE scores, statement of purpose, and letters of recommendation.
Admissions decisions are based on a combination of the candidates'
academic qualifications and their match with areas of faculty expertise
(these areas are described on the faculty page).
Admission to the M.A. program is based on a combination of undergraduate
(and graduate, if applicable) transcripts with a minimum 3.0 GPA,
GRE scores, statement of purpose, and letters of recommendation.
Students who complete the M.A. program and who then wish to pursue
a Ph.D. must complete a separate application to the Ph.D. program.
Financial Aid
Teaching and research assistantships, which cover tuition costs and
provide stipends for living expenses, are available on a competitive
basis to students accepted into the Ph.D. Program. Compensation
and duties attached to the appointment are governed by a contract
negotiated between Rutgers University and the American Association
of University Professors. Responsibilities usually include serving
as a teaching assistant for two undergraduate classes per term,
or involvement in a research project. Compensation is approximately
$15,000 per year, plus tuition remission and full medical benefits.
Additional information financial aid can be found here http://studentaid.rutgers.edu/default.asp
Ph.D.
NOTE: These are general guidelines. Students should consult
the Gradate Student Handbook for detailed requirements or contact
the Graduate Studies Director.
Students in the Doctor of Philosophy in Childhood Studies degree
program enroll in a core set of courses in order to acquire the interdisciplinary,
theoretical, and methodological knowledge that is at the heart of
childhood studies. This interdisciplinary coursework is the foundation
for a series of investigations culminating in the dissertation through
which students develop their expertise as scholars in Childhood Studies.
Throughout their studies, students in the Ph.D. program work closely
with their advisors and other members of the faculty. Prospective
students are encouraged to discuss their plans for graduate study
with members of the faculty. The doctoral program prepares both scholars
capable of innovative interdisciplinary research in childhood studies
and leaders in child-related social practice and policy.
Core Requirements
All students in Ph.D. program follow the following program
of study, with most completing the courses in two or three years,
with the dissertation completed in the fourth and or fifth years. Although
the program is intended for full-time students, part-time students
are accepted into the program. Most classes will be offered in the
late afternoon and early evening. There are four major program elements.
Approaches, Methods, Applications
The nature of Childhood Studies requires that students be equipped
with the intellectual tools necessary to engage in interdisciplinary
research focusing on children. Towards this end, 15 credits are
required in classes that acquaint students with the approaches,
methods and applications characteristic of the social sciences and
the humanities.
Six of the credits for the study of interdisciplinary approaches,
methods, and applications are earned in the Proseminar in Childhood
Studies. This two-semester sequence is taken during each student's
first year. Different disciplines (psychology, sociology/criminal
justice, anthropology, history, religion, and English) serve as a
perspective for a section of the course. During each section, through
a combination of lectures, discussion and readings, students gain
knowledge of the substantive topic; they also gain a broad overview
of each discipline's methodology and an understanding of the strengths
and limitations of each discipline's approach to the problem. Toward
the end of the year, students will be guided toward an understanding
of how a given problem can be approached in an interdisciplinary manner.
Students also complete one course in quantitative social science (typically
a statistics class), qualitative social science (ethnography), and
methods in humanities (e.g., Introduction to Literary Studies).
Children in Ontogenetic, Historical, and Cultural Perspective
To provide for a solid footing for interdisciplinary research, all
students complete at least six credits in courses that examine children
in context. Typically, students fulfill this requirement by enrolling
in two or more of the following four classes.
Child Growth & Development (3 credits)
This course will cover children's physical, mental, and social development.
The goal of this course will be to provide students with an integrated
perspective on how typical children develop, beginning with the
milestones and developmental tasks of infancy and continuing through
the biological, social, and psychological changes of adolescence.
Children and Childhood in Cross-Cultural Perspective (3 credits)
The richness and diversity of children's development is best understood
by examining socialization norms and child-rearing practices of
the world's various societies. The course focuses on the rich anthropological
literature on children in different cultures, but considers as well
cross-cultural psychological and sociological investigations.
Literary and Cultural Constructions of Childhood (3 credits)
This course will examine changing concepts of childhood as reflected
in a range of literary and cultural texts from a variety of cultures
and periods. It will consider the representations of children and
childhood throughout literature and culture; the impact of the concept
of childhood on intellectual and aesthetic traditions; the role
of childhood in imagination and memory as well as in actuality;
and the notion of childhood as a discursive category useful for
understanding human subjectivity and the human condition.
Focused Coursework in Childhood Studies
By the beginning of the second year of study, and in consultation
with her/his advisor, each student develops a plan for coursework
(minimum of 27 credits) in Childhood Studies that is the foundation
for the doctoral dissertation.
Doctoral Dissertation
Each student must complete an original dissertation research project
(minimum of 12 credits) under the supervision of a faculty advisor.
M.A.
NOTE: These are general guidelines. Students should consult
the Gradate Student Handbook for detailed requirements or contact
the Graduate Studies Director.
The Master of Arts in Childhood Studies equips
practitioners and beginning scholars with the skills and knowledge
to understand and to address the challenges which confront children
throughout the world. The program prepares its graduates to conduct
research with and about children, formulate social policy on behalf
of children and their families, and work effectively with the diverse
populations of children found throughout the world
Core Requirements
Students in the M.A. program complete the following program
of study in approximately two years. Most classes will be offered
in late afternoon and early evening.
- Child Growth & Development (3 credits) This course will cover
children's physical, mental, and social development. The goal of
this course will be to provide students with an integrated perspective
on how typical children develop, beginning with the milestones and
developmental tasks of infancy and continuing through the biological,
social, and psychological changes of adolescence.
- One course in cultural perspectives (3 credits) Children and
Childhood in Cross-Cultural Perspective The richness and diversity
of children's development is best understood by examining socialization
norms and child-rearing practices of the world's various societies.
The course focuses on the rich anthropological literature on children
in different cultures, but considers as well cross-cultural psychological
and sociological investigations.
-Or-
Literary and Cultural Constructions of Childhood This course will
examine changing concepts of childhood as reflected in a range of
literary and cultural texts from a variety of cultures and periods.
It will consider the representations of children and childhood throughout
literature and culture; the impact of the concept of childhood on
intellectual and aesthetic traditions; the role of childhood in
imagination and memory as well as in actuality; and the notion of
childhood as a discursive category useful for understanding human
subjectivity and the human condition.
- Individual Research (3 credits) This course will offer students
the opportunity to research a topic of special interest to them.
Each student will work closely with an advisor to produce a capstone
project/paper of 25-30 pages.
- Disciplinary Concentrations (12 credits) Each student will choose
two concentrated areas of study, one from the disciplines in the
humanities and one from the social sciences. 6 credits must be completed
in each concentration. This will ensure grounding in two traditional
fields of study.
Courses
NOTE: This listing and description of courses is meant
for illustrative purposes to give a sense of the range of possible
courses offered. Actual course offering will vary from year to
year. Please consult the most current schedule.
Proseminar in Childhood Studies (6 credits)
This class is only open to first year
Ph.D. students only!
This two-semester course provides an overview of paradigms and critical
issues in Childhood Studies. Researchers from within the University
and around the area present the latest research on children.
Children and Childhood in Cross-Cultural Perspective (3
credits)
The richness and diversity of children's development is best understood
by examining socialization norms and child-rearing practices of the
world's various societies. The course focuses on the rich anthropological
literature on children in different cultures, but considers as well
cross-cultural psychological and sociological investigations.
Child Growth and Development (3 credits)
Development in infancy and childhood is both regulated by biological
constraints and shaped by cultural practices. This course examines
the genetic underpinnings of development, the biological changes which
characterize development from birth through early adolescence, and
the environmental and social influences which affect, and are affected
by, biological changes.
Review of Literature (3 credits)
The goal of this course is a complete review of a specific content
area in Childhood Studies, such as might appear in a professional journal. Students
will learn how to use library resources, search the literature, find
studies relevant to their projects, and integrate and make use of the
literature. On the basis of this work, students will develop
the ability to formulate viable research hypotheses. In the ideal
case, the literature review will lead to a thesis proposal. But
if a student decides to work on a different topic for a thesis, important
research skills will have been learned.
Sociology of Socialization (3 credits)
This first-semester course and Statistics and Research Design, given
the following semester, form a two-semester sequence. Research
Methods covers designing, conducting, and analyzing research, including
issues of ethics, informed consent, control groups, measurement, and
data collection. It covers basic research designs and statistical
analyses, including experimental, quasi-experimental, survey, and archival
research, and associated statistical, computer, and graphical techniques,
with the goal of preparing students to design and carry out methodologically
sound research projects.
Issues in Social Policy (3 credits)
Public policy has profound influences on children in the United States
and elsewhere. This course focuses on social policy in the United
States, and how policy shapes children’s education, nutrition,
and environments. Policy in the United States is compared to
that of other countries in order to better understand the influence
of policy on the course of development.
Literary and Cultural Constructions of Childhood (3 credits)
This course examines changing concepts of childhood as reflected
in a range of literary and cultural texts from a variety of cultures
and periods. We consider the representations of children and
childhood throughout literature and culture; the impact of the concept
of childhood on intellectual and aesthetic traditions; the role of
childhood in imagination and memory as well as in actuality; and the
notion of childhood as a discursive category useful for understanding
human subjectivity and the human condition.
Practicum in Childhood Studies (3 credits)
This is an apprenticeship with an experienced researcher. Students
choose a faculty mentor and apprentice themselves in a collaborative
project. Students in the basic track will participate in an empirical
project. Students in the applied track will work with a faculty
member in analyzing a problem in an applied setting and developing
a proposed solution. The proposed solution must include successfully
negotiating implementation of the project in the context of an organization,
agency, business, or other setting.
Students in the Research / Fieldwork Practicum participate in a seminar
in which their projects are discussed with the instructor and other
first-year students . This course combines the advantages of
an apprenticeship model with the advantages of a seminar model. Each
student has an individual faculty advisor who supervises his or her
individual work. Students' work is tailored to their interests. Through
presentations by other students in the seminar, instructor comments
and suggestions, and active participation in group discussion and feedback,
each student gains knowledge of research strategies and methods used
in multiple settings. The grade is based 1/2 on the recommendation
of the faculty advisor, and 1/2 on participation in the seminar.
Cognitive Development (3 credits)
Theory and research in children’s intellectual development
from birth through adolescence. Neo-Piagetian, information processing,
and sociocultural approaches to cognition. Current research, including
children’s memory development, social cognition, language, problem
solving, spatial thinking, and theory of mind. Implications for schooling
considered.
Personality and Social Development (3 credits)
Theory and research on personality and social development in childhood
and adolescence. Attention is paid to the evolutionary, genetic,
social, and cultural shaping of personality and social interactions.
Visual and Material Cultures of Childhood (3
credits)
This course offers an in-depth investigation of eighteenth through
twenty-first century images of children and childhood in art, advertising,
television, and film, as well as through literary depictions of children
and childhood. We will also explore the materials - toys, dolls, clothing,
video games, etc., - that help constitute the (middle-class) child's
world and perspective. Although the course will focus on Western children
and childhoods, the visual and material cultures of children from around
the globe will also be addressed.
Youth and Sports (3 credits)
The social organization of athletics and sports for children and
youth. Youth and family involvement in organized and informal
athletic and sports activities. Social roles including juvenile
and adult athletes, fans, coaches, parents, and consumers of sports
equipment and media. The relationship of sports to social patterns
such as ideologies, values, laws, cultural norms and methods of social
control. Ethnic, racial and gender differences in sports activities
Growing Up Africa (3 credits)
This course examines the social, historical, and political contexts
of childhood in Africa through ethnographies, novels, and historical
work. We will begin with classic work on child socialization,
examining how children learn and come to assume certain positions through
interaction with peers and adults in work, rituals, and play. We
will explore children’s roles and status within societies in
which elders are valued and powerful, and how these roles changed with
colonialism through literacy, missionization, and migration to mines,
plantations, and cities. Finally, we will look at young people’s
myriad experiences in Africa today—as soldiers, AIDS orphans,
critics of the state, consumers of modernity, and powerful but hated
witches—within the context of structural adjustment and globalization.
Using Archival Data to Study Children (3 credits)
This course will provide students with the experiences necessary to
analyze data from publicly available data sets. Students will
obtain publicly available data sets and analyze them using SAS and
SPSS in order to test hypotheses about development and to assess the
effectiveness of interventions.
Interpretive Research Methods (3 credits)
This course delves into the philosophical, theoretical and practical
aspects of what many call “qualitative” research methods.
A number of specific methods will be examined, with particular emphasis
on researching the lives and experiences of children.
History of Childhood (3 credits)
How have religious, psychological, and economic theories affected
our notions of childhood over the centuries? Views have ranged, for
example, from seeintg childhood as a miniaturized form of adulthood
to seeing childhood as a distinct culture of its own. The United States
has often defined itself in terms of childhood and youth, making the
child an apt topic of study in American literature. In this course
we read literature by some of the best-known writers and examine popular
representations of the child in order to understand how conceptions
of childhood help to define individual, family, literary, and national
identities.
Youth Movement in Organizations (3)
Social movements organized and led by youth are important both for
their contributions to society and as a training ground for youth who
become leaders as adults. This course examines youth and student movements
in a number of countries and regions at key points in their history,
including Germany, China, Latin America, and the United States. The
topics will include political, social, and religious movements, minority
group movements, women's and girls' movements, and cultural movements.
The relationships between youth movements and adult organizations and
patterns of generational change over history will be examined.
Special Topics in Childhood Studies (3 credits)
Topics and themes related to childhood studies are considered.
Directed Readings in Childhood Studies (3 credits)
Topics and themes related to childhood are explored through readings
selected in consultation with the instructor.
Independent Research in Childhood Studies (3 credits)
In consultation with a faculty member, students pursue individually-designed
research projects
Matriculation Continued (0 credits)
Continuous registration may be accomplished by enrolling for at least
3 credits in standard course offerings, including research courses,
or by enrolling in this course for 0 credits. Students actively engaged
in study toward their degree who are using university facilities and
faculty time are expected to enroll for the appropriate credits.
Doctoral Dissertation (15 credits)
Each student must complete an original dissertation research project
under the supervision of a faculty advisor.
Additional Graduate Classes to be Offered
by Other Departments
Focused coursework in childhood studies may be taken from several different
disciplines. In consultation with your advisor classes may be selected
from psychology, public policy, criminal justice, English, liberal studies
and history.
Below is a sampling of classes that can be taken:
Psychology
Social Science Research Methods (3 credits)
This first-semester course and Statistics and Research Design, given
the following semester, form a two-semester sequence. Research
Methods covers designing, conducting, and analyzing research, including
issues of ethics, informed consent, control groups, measurement, and
data collection. It covers basic research designs and statistical
analyses, including experimental, quasi-experimental, survey, and archival
research, and associated statistical, computer, and graphical techniques,
with the goal of preparing students to design and carry out methodologically
sound research projects.
Statistics and Research Design for Social Sciences (3 credits)
This second-semester course is a continuation of Social Sciences Research
Methods, and builds upon knowledge and skills acquired in that course. The
focus is on the multivariate design issues students will confront in
applied research settings. The course covers between- and within-subjects
designs and mixed models, regression and covariance analysis, and other
univariate and multivariate techniques, relying on computerized data
analysis and graphical representation.
Program Evaluation (3 credits)
A survey of methods of program evaluation, including targeted research,
primary and secondary prevention, ameliorative programs, the assessment
of pilot programs, evaluation of training and educational programs,
and the study of broad policy issues. Consideration is given
to the assessment and reporting of results, including the use of objective/quantitative
measures and qualitative assessment of goals that depend on descriptive
performance criteria. The iterative process of evaluation, triangulation
methods, and meta-analysis are emphasized.
Survey Research Methods (3 credits)
This course teaches how to do several different types of survey research. Topics
covered include: the purposes of survey research, methods of data collection,
reliability and validity in measurement, questionnaire construction,
interviewing and questionnaire administration, sampling, methods of
minimizing and correcting for non-response, survey data analysis with
SPSS, and the reporting of survey research results. Students
are guided through the design, administration, analysis, and write-up
of small-scale survey research projects.
Public Policy
Law and Public Policy (3 credits)
The place of law in the formulation, articulation, and enforcement
of public policy; legal sources, such as constitutions, statutes, cases,
administrative rulings, and agency practices; federal, state, and local
sources and materials examined for policy inconsistencies, contradictions,
and overlap; the effectiveness of fees, taxes, licenses, labeling,
injunctions, and other legal sanctions.
Foundations of Policy Analysis (3 credits)
The logic of action, decision-making, and belief; epistemological
issues underlying scientific and policy research; causality, probability,
statistics, and public policy; the role of problem definition, description,
theory, model building, explanation, and prediction in policy research
and decision making. Reviews major substantive theories of public choice
and public policy making and critically examines them from a logical
and theoretical perspective.
Colloquium in Educational Policy and Leadership (3 credits)
Courses will cover various areas of study in educational policy and
leadership
Models for Planning and Policy in Education (3 credits)
This course addresses the theoretical and practical aspects of policy
embedded in school reform. Students will be exposed to the significant
issues of policy, practice, and implementation, including the improvement
of teaching and learning; teacher training; leadership, finance, equity,
and excellence; community engagement; partnerships; parental involvement;
and restructuring schools and school time. Through discussions
and group projects, students will review and discuss the implications
of current federal, state, and local policies relevant to a number
of aspects of education, including early care and education, school
performance and standards-based accountability, school choice, and
school finance
Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Education (3credits)
Given the many changes in the educational landscape and the choice
movement in public education, this course provides students with an
overview of the different opportunities for new ventures in public
education. Students will explore ideas for innovation in education
and learn new competencies in critical areas such as fundraising, development,
leadership, and best practices in education. Students will be
exposed to important business practices, such as writing a business
plan, structuring a capital development plan, and engaging in creative
financing for large-scale projects. The course features
guest speakers who have been successful in launching entrepreneurial
ventures--in and out of schools. Emphasis will be placed on areas
of supervision of teachers and innovation in instructional practice.
English
The American Child in Literature and Culture (3 credits)
The United States has often defined itself in terms of childhood and
youth, making the child an apt topic of study in American literature.
How does American literature construct the child--as romantic innocent,
wild entity, possessed demon, or avid consumer? How do religious, psychological,
and economic theories affect our notions of childhood? Views have ranged,
for example, from seeing childhood as a miniaturized form of adulthood
to seeing childhood as a distinct culture of its own. In this
course we read literature by a range of nineteenth- and twentieth-century
U.S. writers (for example, Child, Hawthorne, Alcott, Stowe, Twain,
Wharton, Cather, Faulker), and we examine popular representations of
the child in order to understand how shifting conceptions of childhood
shape individual, family, and national identities.
Literature of Adolescence (3 credits)
This course investigates literary, cultural, and historical constructions
of adolescence by studying changes in adolescent fiction and characters. Students
will learn to appreciate and analyze the aesthetics of adolescent fiction
as well as the socially situated nature of adolescence, in terms of
gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and time period.
Romantic Inventions of Childhood (3 credits)
When Children's Literature emerges as a literary genre in the 19th
century, it does so as a sub-genre of English and American Romanticism
and its shared belief in childhood as a source of visionary strength
and in the individual child’s essential originality. With readings
spanning the canon of the genre, from Good Two Shoes to Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, this course examines influential
Romantic sources, Anglo-American and Continental, and traces the elaboration
of these influences in the children's books that begin to appear in
the late 18th century, through the 19th, and into the late 20th.
The History of Child Consciousness in the Novel (3 credits)
While the story of the child is endemic to the novel, authors’ interest
in the child mind grew as the novel moved from Victorian to modern.
The child mind increasingly became a point of view from which to scrutinize
our world. In Henry James’s What Maisie Knew, for example,
the consciousness of a six-year-old is used to reflect the disorientation
of being in a modern (immoral) world. This had a defamiliarizing effect
that would quickly be employed by many authors, such as William Faulkner,
who sought to satirize the social world and deploy Freudian theories
of human development, which made childhood central to the discontents
of civilization. We will look at the slow growth of the child’s
voice and consciousness in the Victorian and modern novel, along with
how it evolved with different theories of development and different
understandings of the social purposes of the novel. We will look at
child perspectives and narrators deployed by Juliana Ewing, Charles
Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, the Brontes, Mark Twain, E. Nesbit,
Kenneth Grahame, Louisa Molesworth, and Frances Crompton. We will then
read What Maisie Knew and Faulkner’s Light in August to
glean a complete picture of how, by the 1940’s, the literary
child mind had evolved to a point at which the teen angst novel could
emerge.
Illustration and Media History: Perspectives on Childhood (3
credits)
This course will explore major children’s illustrators such
as John Tenniel, Randolph Caldecott, George Cruikshank, Kate Greenaway,
N.C. Wyeth, Tasha Tudor, Arthur Rackham, Beatrix Potter, Norman Rockwell,
and others, such as picture book artists Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak,
Leo Lionni, and Eric Carle. All of these artists shaped and interpreted
children’s literature in a visually meaningful way, yet they
also represent the importance of media in the history of children’s
literature. We will also look at the history of the children’s
book, exploring changes in technology and the rise of children’s
literature brought about by chapbooks, pocket-books, periodicals, and
the printing press. We consider literature written expressly for children
as well as the illustration of adult classics such as Robinson
Crusoe. The material object of the children’s book would,
in this century, further evolve with technologies that enabled and
developed the picture book market, comic books and graphic novels,
film and animation (cultivated, particularly, by Disney), and interactive
story software. Children today experience stories through a variety
of media that involve all senses. We will look at the rise of these
different story media and ponder the changing perspectives of children
and childhood embedded in these forms, all of which comprise the lifeblood
of children’s literature and learning today.
Literary Inventions of Childhood (3 credits)
Many critics herald G. Stanley Hall’s 1904 publication Adolescence as
the first construction of adolescence as a special time of life, with
specific characteristics and psychological requirements. However, authors
such as Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn) and Robert Louis Stevenson
(Treasure Island) had already established the adolescent voice
as a competent observer, critical of culture and ready to rebel and
discover life for itself. In fact, the basic paradigms for male versus
female adolescence were established by these works and by Little Women,
which demonstrated the discontents of the female adolescent along with
the overriding understanding that rebellion was not possible for “little
women.” This course will look at the growth of the adolescent
figure in novels throughout the twentieth century. The adolescent figure
would increasingly come to typify the alienated voice of modernism
and postmodernism, and would initiate the young adult genre after WWII.
Creative Writing for Children (3 credits)
How do you develop a vision of your young readers, and how do you
adopt an aesthetic stance toward children? How intricate do plot connections
have to be in writing for children of different ages? How overt do
symbols have to be? What kind of structures and mythological narratives
work best? How do you strike a balance between introspection and action?
How do you develop character and demonstrate growth? How do you
manage and maintain child perspectives? What type of humor works with
children? What do publishers expect for different categories and genres
of children’s literature? How do you write a successful picture
book? What vocabulary restrictions are there for different ages? Where
do you find literary agents that specialize in the children’s
market? How do you avoid didacticism? These questions and more will
be explored in this course. Students will be asked to analyze the structures
of the most successful children’s books today, such as The
Midwife’s Apprentice and The Giver, while working
on their own fiction. The intricate plot connections of works such
as Holes will provide a basis for understanding how children
take pleasure in discovering embedded plot connections and character
development. Students will be asked to select the genres in which they
wish to write, as well as the age categories for which they would like
to write. Student work will be critiqued by the class, as well as by
young listeners/readers at local libraries and schools.
Myth and Archetype in Children’s Literature: Male and
Females
Cinderella’s (3 credits)
The central archetypal plot in Western Literature, the so-called Monomyth,
tracks the individual quester through a career that begins in reluctant
acceptance and concludes in heroic submission to the cultural values
and roles, that the quest embodies and defines. Quest stories and questers
make up a bulk of the material that children read and that comprise
the canon of Children's Literature, yet the informing archetype, beginning
in Gilgamesh and concluding in provisional "children's" adventures
like Treasure Island, is thoroughly--one might say viciously--male-identified. The
course seeks to examine the value of genre studies and archetypal criticism
as tools for measuring the different successes recorded by male and
female questers in children's literature, from the original female
Ashputtle to male Cinderellas like Harry Potter, and at the same
time questioning the “predictive” power and profoundly
essentialist bias of archetypalism itself. Readings will cover a range
of texts, from chapter books (Treasure Island, The Secret Garden,
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Just Ella), picture story
books (Lily of the Forest, The Giving Tree, Where
the Wild Things Are), to films (Flashdance, Rocky, Ever
After).
Children’s Literature in Print and Film (3 credits)
This course examines British and American children’s literature
of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and film adaptations of that
literature produced in the 20th and 21st centuries. Of special
interest are the public political discourses into which these texts
intervene and the issues of intertextuality that are involved in the
translation of a work from page to screen. Authors and works
include: Alcott, Little Women; Kipling, The Jungle Book; Stevenson,
Treasure Island; Barrie, Peter Pan; Burnett, A Little Princess and
The Secret Garden; Burroughs, Tarzan.
The Politics of Children’s Literature (3 credits)
This course examines children’s literature of the late 20th
and 21st centuries, with special attention to the ways in which that
literature intervenes in public political discourses and seeks to shape
the political consciousness of children and the parents reading to
them. Many of the texts, but not all of them, are historical
novels, on such famous figures as George Washington, John Brown, Abraham
Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Other
works take into consideration the complicated politics of colonialism
and religious and ethnic struggle worldwide, including in Africa, the
Caribbean, India, and Ireland.
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