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English 471: Critical Theories in Children’s
Literature
Spring 2005 / Thursday,
5:30-8:20 p.m. / STV 346
Dr. Nathalie op de Beeck
309.438.5649 /
dbop@ilstu.edu / 421L Stevenson Hall
Spring 2005 office hours: Tuesday 10-noon, Thursday
2-3 p.m.
Course Description
During this course, we will examine a variety
of novels and illustrated texts for a young audience and for “all ages.” Edward
Said’s Orientalism provides the critical touchstone for the course, which
explores postcolonial children’s literature, race/gender/class/ethnic issues,
and the textual and visual representation of non-white or non-Western people and
situations for an English-speaking, often white and Western, audience. (I’ve
resisted putting terms like white and Western in quotation marks, but we need to
talk about these.)
We will consider the primary texts in light of
the conventions of Anglocentric children’s literature, and through our critical
readings and discussions, we will explore how these texts work to inform a
generally young middle-class audience. Our work should shed light on cultural
ideology and on what cultural producers (authors, editors, publishers, etc.)
assume about a young audience’s identities, desires, and potentials. By
developing insights on narrative and visual representation of specific
historical moments, contemporary political issues, signifiers of
race/ethnicity/class/gender, and the idea of diversity in children’s literature
and textual criticism, we can gain a broader perspective on the production and
consumption of children’s literature, media, and culture here in the U.S. and
elsewhere.
Among the goals of this course are that graduate
students
• work to situate children’s literature and
media culturally and historically;
• investigate assigned texts and bring texts of
personal/professional interest to the conversation;
• engage in critical conversations about the
conventions and potentialities of children’s literature and media;
• integrate the serious study of children’s
literature and media with other directions in the English Studies model (e.g.,
cultural and critical studies, American studies, modernism and contemporaneity,
postcolonial studies, gender studies, theories of representation, art history,
film and media studies, etc.);
• research and prepare presentation-quality
essays, with attention to key scholarly journals and upcoming conferences in
children’s literature, child studies, and related fields.
Required Texts
All of these texts are required. All but the
last one are in paperback editions. Students should purchase the editions
specified here so that we all have the same texts, introductory essays, and
pagination. Additional readings including critical essays and picture books are
listed in the course schedule and will be made available as photocopies, online
documents, and/or course reserves at Milner Library.
Edward Said, Orientalism (Vintage, 1979)
Karín Lesnik-Oberstein, Children’s
Literature: New Approaches (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)
Lindsay Waters, Enemies of Promise:
Publishing, Perishing, and the Eclipse of Scholarship (Prickly Paradigm
Press, 2004)
Deborah Ellis, The Breadwinner (Scholastic, 2002)
Henry Rider Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines (Broadview, 2002)
Rudyard Kipling, with introduction by Edward
Said, Kim (Penguin, 1987)
Donna Jo Napoli, Beast (Simon Pulse,
2002)
Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Penguin, 1991)
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis (Pantheon,
2003)
Thura al-Windawi, Thura’s Diary: My Life in
Wartime Iraq (Viking, 2004)
Course Requirements
Essay 1.
25% of the grade. An 8-page essay
building on course assignments and discussion.
Essay 2.
40% of the grade. A 15-20 page essay
on a topic developed around the course and based on your own exploration of the
material.
Weekly short reflections on the reading
material. 25% of the grade.
Each week, write one single-spaced page (about
500 words) that reflects on the reading, makes note of two or three important
passages, and poses ideas for discussion and/or further study.
Using printed matter (books, journals),
databases, and other library resources, locate two or three secondary resources
to help with the assigned readings or to provide direction for further study.
Create a bibliographic citation for each.
Bring the journal and bibliographical resources
to class on the day we discuss the texts and topics in question. Keep a folder
of these pieces to generate ideas as you come to course meetings and compose
your essays.
A 10-15 minute research presentation, modeled
on a short conference paper. 10%
of the grade. Depending on how the course evolves, we may want
to turn the research presentations into a symposium for the department (with
other invited speakers) rather than hold them as an in-class exercise
exclusively. In addition, we should think about likely films for the Children's
Culture Film Festival, which will be international in its focus, later this
semester.
Consistent attendance and participation in
course meetings.
Course Schedule
Jan 20 Introduction:
Critical Approaches in Children's Literature
Jan 27
Louis Althusser, “Ideology and
Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)”
Peter Hollindale, “Ideology and the Children’s
Book”
Edward Said, Orientalism (Introduction)
Presentation: Maud and Miska Petersham, An American ABC (Macmillan, 1941)
Feb 3
Henry Rider Haggard, King
Solomon’s Mines
Edward Said, Orientalism (Section 1: “The
Scope of Orientalism”)
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, “Introduction” and “The
Language of African Literature” from Decolonising the Mind
J. Hillis Miller, "Reading. The Swiss Family Robinson as Virtual
Reality," from Lesnik-Oberstein anthology
Feb 10
Edward Said, Orientalism
(Section 3: “Orientalism Now”)
Tania Modleski, “Cinema and the Dark Continent:
Race and Gender in Popular Film” (from Writing on the Body)
Selections from ethnographic films and
children’s entertainment, such as King Kong, Aladdin, The Lion
King, and George of the Jungle.
Feb 17
Rudyard Kipling, Kim, plus
Edward Said’s introduction
Judith Plotz, “The Empire of Youth: Crossing and
Double-Crossing Cultural Barriers in Kipling’s Kim,” from Children’s
Literature 20 (1992)
Don Randall, “Kim: Disciplinary Power and
Cultural Hybridity” and “Kim: Ethnography and the Hybrid Boy,” from
Kipling’s Imperial Boy: Adolescence and Cultural Hybridity (London:
Palgrave, 2000)
Feb 24 Picture books, ethnicity, and race
Heinrich Hoffmann, “The Story of the Inky Boys,” from
Struwwelpeter
Helen Bannerman, The Story of Little Black Sambo
(1899) and
Sambo
and the Twins (1936)
Julius Lester and illustrator Jerry Pinckney, Sam and the Tigers
Helen Bannerman, illustrated by Fred Marcellino, The Story of Little Babaji
Sanjay Sircar, “The International Case of Little
Colourless Babaji: Reracinating, Returning, and Retaining a Classic,” from
Signal 90 (187-211, Sept. 1999
Jan Susina, “Reviving or Revising Helen
Bannerman’s The Story of Little Black Sambo: Postcolonial Hero or
Signifying Monkey?” in Voices of the Other, edited by Roderick McGillis
(Garland, 1999).
Michelle H. Martin, “Hey, Who's the Kid with the
Green Umbrella?: Reevaluating the Black-a-Moor and Little Black Sambo,” from
The Lion and the Unicorn 22:2 (147-62, April 1998).
Mar 3 Picture
books, ethnicity, and race
Demi, Gandhi
Florence Parry
Heide, Judith Heide Gilliland, and illustrator Ted Lewin, Sami and the Time of the Troubles
Florence Parry Heide, Judith Heide
Gilliland, and illustrator Ted Lewin, The Day of Ahmed’s Secret
Florence Parry Heide, Judith Heide
Gilliland, and illustrator Mary GrandPre, The House of Wisdom
Naomi Shihab Nye and
illustrator Nancy Carpenter, Sitti’s Secrets
John Marsden and
illustrator Shaun Tan, The Rabbits
Vladimir Radunsky, Mannekin Pis: The Boy Who Peed on a War
Vladimir Radunsky, What Does Peace Feel Like?
Madonna, The Adventures of Abdi
Jacqueline Lazu, "National Identity. Where the Wild, Strange, and Exotic Things
Are: In Search of the Caribbean in Contemporary Children's Literature,"
from Lesnik-Oberstein anthology
Florence Parry Heide, “Living in Sami and
Ahmed’s Worlds” from Battling Dragons
Nancy Larrick, “The All-White World of
Children’s Books”
Mar 4 (Friday): Paper 1 due
March 7 (Monday): 2005 Lois Lenski Lecture by
Professor Valerie Krips, University of Pittsburgh
Readings:
Valerie Krips, “Lieux de mémoire.” The
Presence of the Past: Memory, Heritage, and Childhood in Postwar Britain (Garland, 2000)
Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les
Lieux de Mémoire” from Representations 26 (Spring 1989)
Mar 10
Deborah Ellis, The Breadwinner
Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender
Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” from Writing on
the Body
Judith Butler, excerpt from “Subversive Bodily
Acts” in Gender Trouble
Film: Osama
March 12-20: Spring Break week
Mar 24
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis
Thura al-Windawi, Thura’s Diary: My Life in
Wartime Iraq
Allen Douglas and Fedwa Malti-Douglas, “An Arab
Girl Draws Trouble,” from Girls, Boys, Books, Toys
Gayatry Chakravotry Spivak, “Can the Subaltern
Speak?,” from Nelson and Grossberg, eds., Marxism and the Interpretation of
Culture
Additional article(s) to be announced:
Developments in subaltern studies
March 31: No class meeting
Apr 7
Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea
of Stories
Alison Lurie on Salman Rushdie
Research presentations—work in progress
Apr 14
Donna Jo Napoli, Beast
Angela Carter, “The
Tiger’s Bride”
Iona and Peter Opie, “Beauty and the Beast”
Research presentations—work in progress
Apr 21
Karín Lesnik-Oberstein, editor: Children’s
Literature: New Approaches
Research presentations—work in progress
Apr 28
Lindsay Waters, Enemies of Promise
Research
presentations—work in progress
May 5
Conclusion
Paper 2 due
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