AP/CCY 3997 6.00

The Social and Textual Production of Children’s Literature: Research Methods (Summer Abroad)

This course begins at Keele campus where students prepare for archival field work abroad. It incorporates book history, childhood studies, literary and archival methodologies in its exploration of the social and textual production of children's literature. It focuses on a selection of historical children's texts held in special collections to study how these artefacts shape our perceptions of childhood and youth. Prerequisites: CCY 2999 6.0A or by permission of the instructor Course Credit Exclusions: AP/CCY 3998 6.00

Course Objectives

Following classes at York, students will spend two weeks in Dublin, Ireland conducting field work at various special collections of children’s literature and other literary sites of significance to book history and children’s literature. Field work will focus on historical children's texts to study how these archival artefacts shape and interrogate our perceptions of books, reading, children, childhood, and youth in past and contemporary times. Irish historical context will be a key feature of the course; students will consider the relationship between colonialism and the historical construction of children, childhood, and youth. We will also engage with current research in the fields of childhood studies, visual and material cultures, literary criticism, and post-colonial theory to examine how the publishing world, and reading and writing markets shape, and often reinforce, our perceptions of children, childhood, and youth.

This course builds applied skills in research methodologies while providing a framework for conceiving an honours research project that the students will undertake in their final core course (CCY 4998).