Course Descriptions

Graduate Course

• ENGL 604. Seminar 20th-Century American Children’s Literature: Child, Culture, Nation. Prof. June Cummins-Lewis - Tuesdays 1600-1840 (4:00 - 6:40 p.m.).
  

  In this course we will study children’s books written during the 20th century in the United States with the aim of defining this specific canon. Now that the 20th century has ended, we can look back over the century and discern certain patterns and trends in children's literature. What can we determine about 20th-century culture through examining these patterns? Can we reach conclusions about American concepts of childhood, families, institutions, and of the nation itself through children's literature? Why did certain books become classics and what do these classics tell us about ideologies and agendas? How are attitudes toward gender, class, and race solidified or challenged? Why do certain books become very popular and what does this popularity reveal about children’s culture? We will attempt to determine how powerful children's literature is in creating cultural norms and values. We will discover if we can assert that the U.S. does have a national children’s literature, one with consistent characteristics and values.

• ENGL 627. History of Children’s Literature. Prof. Alida Allison - Mondays 1600-1840 (4:00 - 6:40 p.m.).

Books include Struwwelpeter, Pinocchio, Black Beauty, Pippi Longstocking, Ragged Dick, The Annotated Alice in Wonderland, Six by Seuss, Jack Zipes' Aesop's Fables, Anne Higonnet's Pictures of Innocence, and Neil Postman's The Disappearance of Childhood.

Class Reader includes excerpts from Philippe Aries' Centuries of Childhood, Hugh Cunningham's Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500, Colin Heywood's A History of Childhood, Koops and Zuckerman's Beyond the Century of the Child.

We will examine rare old children's books in the SDSU Special Collections Library with Curator Anne Bahde and Research Librarian Linda Salem.

Historical approaches: biography, thematology, literary-history, influence and reception. We’ll be discussing children’s literature, of course, and its development over the centuries, with an eye toward its burgeoning around the world today; we’ll discuss the economic, cultural, and psychological aspects of childhood as well as some key works defining/redefining children’s literature. We’ll have two class sessions at the library, as noted on the syllabus, and some intriguing guests. Because arrangements for guests are unsettled at the beginning of the semester, I may need to change the syllabus later. This won’t effect the due dates of your papers and I will let you know via email of the changes.

You’ll select two books during the semester, one a period-representive work of fiction from those listed above and the other a book of reference, criticism, or theory. For each you’ll write an 8-10 MLA-formatted research paper, one due about mid-semester and the other at the end of class. For the former, you will place the book and author in the context contemporary to the book’s writing/publication and contrast it to the book’s reception nowadays. The final paper will explain key points made in the book you’ve selected, and offer evaluation and critique from others and yourself.

Your grade will be based on these two papers, on your oral presentations of the books to the class, and your overall participation, of which there should be a lot.