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Nathalie op de Beeck
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American Childhood and Modernity ENG 470: Studies in Children’s Literature Thursday, 5:30 – 8:20 p.m., STV 347, Fall 2006
Dr. Nathalie op de Beeck STV 337 … office hours TR, 12:30-2 and by appointment x8-3297 … dbop@ilstu.edu … http://lilt.ilstu.edu/dbop
About the Course
Children’s literature tells us a great deal about what is considered modern and how we define ideal childhood at a particular place and time. Paradoxically, the nostalgic content of the children’s text is often in tension with its industrial, commodified format, and representations of childhood for the general public differ from representations of childhood crafted for those in the domestic space. By examining these intersections and disjunctions, we discover cultural and historical attitudes toward the child and childhood, as well as developments in literary and visual practice over the decades.
This course situates American children’s literature and childhood in the context of modernism and modernity, with particular emphasis on the period from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. We will study the ways that technological/industrial change, sociopolitical events, international art movements, dominant ideologies, and the growth of the publishing industry influenced and continue to resonate in concepts of the American child and childhood. Special attention will be paid to the popularization of pictorial texts in the early twentieth century U.S., and to the ways picture books and illustrated texts came to signify the American child and the industrialized nation.
Required Texts
• A course packet is available at East Side Rapid Print, Old Union Building. ($15) • Viviana Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child (Princeton, 1994) • Katharine Capshaw Smith, Children’s Literature of the Harlem Renaissance (Indiana UP, 2004) • Julia Mickenberg, Learning from the Left (Oxford UP, 2005) • Carl Sandburg, illustrated by Maud and Miska Petersham, Rootabaga Stories (1922) – get the Harcourt 2003 edition • Rachel Field, illustrator Dorothy Lathrop, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years (1929) – get the Aladdin 1998 edition • E.B. White, illustrator Garth Williams, Stuart Little (1945) – get the HarperTrophy 1974 edition • Russell Hoban, illustrator David Small, The Mouse and His Child (originally 1967; get the newly illustrated Scholastic/Levine 2001 edition) • • • Dianne Johnson-Feelings, ed. The Best of The Brownies’ Book (Oxford UP, 1996) – This title is out of print, but widely available, well worth having, and inexpensive online.
Reserve copies of some assigned resources are available at Milner Library’s reserve/checkout desk. These are designated in the course schedule. We can add or share more if needed!
Course Requirements
Weekly readings: Do the readings for the day on which they are assigned.
No weekly writings will be due on October 5, the deadline for our midterm paper, or on/after November 9, when final research presentations begin. We will have a total of ten weekly writings, which count as course participation and add up to 25 percent of the final grade (or, alternatively, 2.5 percent of the grade each).
Participation: Contribute to the discussion. A small group has advantages, because we can touch on everyone’s interests and exchange opinions. A small group also can be abysmal if only a few people come prepared or willing to chat. Communicate.
Conference-length midterm essay: An essay of 7-10 pages, building upon the course topic and material, will be due October 5. By September 21, you should speak to me in my office about your idea and its development. 25 percent of the grade.
Final project: On or by October 26, everyone will develop a final research and writing project, consult with me in person, and post a project abstract (100-200 words) to the web board. This project can build upon ideas begun in the conference-length essay, but it should not be a lengthy revision of the midterm work. I’d like everyone to finish the course with two or more developing essays or chapter segments, as opposed to one rehearsed piece. Take chances and be creative in your work.
Research presentation: During November, everyone will present ongoing research and receive written feedback from the rest of the group. Anticipate spending 15-20 minutes explaining your work, with about 10 minutes for Q&A. 10 percent of the grade.
Peer-review of research presentations: Everyone should take notes on research presentations. On the three Fridays following the oral presentations, give a brief paragraph of considerate, constructive, written feedback to the presenter. Everyone should post comments to the web board so that the presenter and I can have a look. This counts as course participation, for a total of 5 percent of the grade.
Final Essay: An essay of 15-20 pages, building on and demonstrably related to the course topic, the course material, and the research presentation and feedback. Due December 7. 35 percent of the grade.
Attendance: Because this is a graduate-level course and everyone is an advanced student, I anticipate no trouble with attendance. If you leave or arrive at the break, I do count the half class as a partial absence. I feel the same way about sleeping in class (intellectual if not physical absence), but with so few of us in here, occasions to nap will be limited. Be advised, however, that those who miss more than two class meetings (unexcused) will not receive better than a B in the course, and those who miss more than four meetings automatically fail the course. Let me know if you need to be away.
Similarly, I expect no problems with academic honesty, but please be aware that those who plagiarize will fail the course and that I will make plagiarism cases known to the Department, College, and University.
Field trip? We need to exchange schedules and discuss visiting the Art Institute of Chicago (the Charles Sheeler: Across Media exhibit begins Saturday, 10/7!) and the Museum of Science and Industry, home of the Pioneer Zephyr and other icons of modernity.
American Childhood and Modernity
Course Schedule
Aug. 24 American Childhood, Modernity, and Modernism
• The cinema of Charlie Chaplin, plus Chaplin’s “A Rejection of the Talkies” (1931)
Aug. 31 Early Twentieth Century Constructions of Childhood
• Viviana Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child • L. Frank Baum, excerpt from The Master Key: An Electrical Fairy Tale (1903) • Daniel Thomas Cook, Introduction (1-21) and “Pediocularity: From the Child’s Point of View” (66-95), from The Commodification of Childhood: The Children’s Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer. Durham: Duke UP, 2004. Handout: Assignment for conference-length essay, due October 5.
Sept. 7 American Children’s Publishing after 1919
• Carl Sandburg, illus. Maud and Miska Petersham, Rootabaga Stories (1922) • Peter Hunt. “Children’s Literature in America, 1870-1945,” from Children’s Literature: An Illustrated History (1995) • Three pieces from Stepping Away from Tradition: Children’s Books of the Twenties and Thirties. Ed. Sybille A. Jagusch. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1988. (13-69) John Tebbel, “For Children, with Love and Profit: Two Decades of Book Publishing for Children” Abe Lerner, “Designing Children’s Books: A Look at the Twenties and Thirties” Anne Macleod, “Literary and Social Aspects of Children’s Books of the Twenties and Thirties”
Sept. 14 Living Dolls and Commodity Fetishism
• Rachel Field & illus. Dorothy Lathrop, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years (1929) • Lois Kuznets, “Toys: Their First Ten Thousand Years,” from When Toys Come Alive. New Haven: Yale UP, 1994. (10-33) On reserve: • Rosemary Wells and illustrator Susan Jeffers, Rachel Field’s Hitty, Her First Hundred Years (S&S, 1999) Speak to me in person before next Thursday about your first essay topic!
Sept. 21 Uncanny Objects and Children’s Texts
More from last week, plus: • Sigmund Freud, “The Uncanny” (1919), translated by James Strachey • Hal Foster, “Exquisite Corpses,” from Compulsive Beauty. Cambridge, MIT, 1993. (125-153) On reserve: • Margery Williams & illus. William Nicholson, The Velveteen Rabbit, or, How Toys Become Real (1922)
Sept. 28 In which we jump to the 1960s and the brink of postmodernism…
• Russell Hoban, The Mouse and His Child (1967; 2001 edition) • Lois Kuznets, “Beyond the Last Visible Toy,” from When Toys Come Alive (157-179) • Valerie Krips, “Mistaken Identity: Russell Hoban’s Mouse and His Child,” from Children’s Literature 21 (1993): 92-100. • Susan Stewart, “Objects of Desire,” from On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Durham: Duke UP, 1993. (132-169)
Oct. 5 Contemporary Literature in Perspective
• Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (2006) Hand in: Conference-length essay
Oct. 12 The Harlem Renaissance
• Katharine Capshaw Smith, Children’s Literature of the Harlem Renaissance • Dianne Johnson-Feelings, ed., The Best of The Brownies’ Book Handout: Research project details
Oct. 19 Modernism and Primitivism
• Smith, Children’s Literature of the Harlem Renaissance • Laura Dawkins. “Black Babies, White Hysteria: The Dark Child in African-American Literature of the Harlem Renaissance.” The American Child: A Cultural Studies Reader. Eds. Caroline F. Levander and Carol J. Singley. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2003. (167-183) On reserve: • Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps, Popo and Fifina, Children of Haiti (1932) • Arna Bontemps, illus. Virginia Lee Burton, Sad-Faced Boy (1937) • Countee Cullen, The Lost Zoo (1940) Speak to me by next Thursday, 10/26, regarding your project abstract and research.
Oct. 26 Proletarianism, Regionalism, and Children’s Lit
• Julia Mickenberg, Learning from the Left • Leo Marx, “The Garden of Ashes,” from The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. NY: Oxford UP, 1967 [1964]. (354-365)
On reserve: • Lewis Hine, Men at Work (1931) • Virginia Lee Burton, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939) • Virginia Lee Burton, The Little House (1942) • Frank Conroy, Arna Bontemps, and Virginia Lee Burton, The Fast Sooner Hound (1942)
Make sure you have posted your final project abstract to the web board (100-200 words). We will schedule research presentations during the class meeting.
Nov. 2 Sentient Machines and Pacifist Bulls
• Mickenberg, Learning from the Left On reserve: • Munro Leaf and illus. Robert Lawson, The Story of Ferdinand (1936) • Robert Lawson, They Were Strong and Good (1940) • Hardie Gramatky, Little Toot (1939) • Hildegard Hoyt Swift and Lynd Ward, The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge (1942)
Nov. 9 Research presentations, group one Politics, the Avant-Garde, and Dr. Seuss
• Henry Jenkins, “‘No Matter How Small’: The Democratic Imagination of Dr. Seuss,” from Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture. Durham: Duke UP, 2002. (187-208) • Philip Nel, “Dada Knows Best: Growing Up ‘Surreal’ with Dr. Seuss,” from Children’s Literature 27 (1999): 150-184.
On reserve – some of Dr. Seuss’s earlier work • And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937) • The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1938) • Horton Hatches the Egg (1940) • Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose (1948) • Bartholomew and the Oobleck (1949) • Horton Hears a Who! (1954) • Yertle the Turtle, and Other Stories (1958) In class: Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950)
Nov. 16 Research presentations, group 2 Early Animation and the Modern World of Disney
Short live-action and animated films TBA (Steamboat Willie, 1928, etc.) • Beverly Lyon Clark. “The Case of the Disney Version.” Kiddie Lit: The Cultural Construction of Children’s Literature in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2005 [c.2003]. (168-183) • Joseph L. Zornado. “Walt Disney, Ideological Transposition, and the Child.” Inventing the Child: Culture, Ideology, and the Story of Childhood. NY: Routledge, 2006 [c. 2001]. (135-169)
Nov. 18-26 Thanksgiving Break
Nov. 30 Research presentations, group 3 Creatures of Modernity
• E.B. White & illus. Garth Williams, Stuart Little (1945)
Dec. 7 Research paper due Course wrapup |
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Please email me with any questions or comments! dbop@ilstu.edu |