Department of English

This is not your great-great-gran’s Bildungsroman. There will be no orphans here. No. Wait. There will absolutely be orphans here, including one from Kansas who bests a wizard, and another from a cupboard under the stairs who is a wizard. In this course, we will study the evolution and convolution of Children's Literature from the 19th to 21st centuries: books written not just about children but, more importantly for them, asking many of the same questions we ask when looking at children themselves. What are they saying to us (Text)? What are they really saying to us (Subtext)? How are they taking on that critical challenge: finding their place in the world (Context)? We will read, analyze, even psychoanalyze the beloved, the famous, and the just plain odd, in order to best understand why these books are not just fabric of our youth, but of critical cultural, literary, and scholarly importance.

We will read across decades and genres, from picture books to YA and graphic novels, to essays on polemic and passions and the uncanny, including such voices as Margaret Wise Brown, Raina Telgemeier, Jason Reynolds, E.B. White, Anna-Marie McLemore, Gene Luen Yang, and Neil Gaiman. Assignments will include several short essays, a presentation on your literary passion, and a final project of either critical analysis of your term study or a creative representation of where that study has taken you. Regular participation in class discussions is crucial. If all good little scholars are eager and industrious, there will be literary cookies. If not, there might be wolves…