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 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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