精东传媒app

This course focuses on the notion of the child and the adolescent as they have been constructed in literature, and the ways in which literary narratives of youth in turn affect social and cultural understandings of the experience of growing up. It takes a literary approach to the study of a range of novels, films and shorter fiction, considering narrative modes, structures, and genres, particularly the Bildungsroman. This reinforces the literary skills established in earlier Literature courses. The course will have cross-disciplinary appeal for students studying in the School of Education, as well as covering texts and approaches relevant for students in the School of Arts and Communication.

The emerging popularity of Children's and Young Adult Literature as a field of study provides a critical and theoretical framework for this inquiry which begins with the Victorian romanticisation of childhood, the invention of the teenager in the twentieth century, and the more recent rise of Young Adult fiction which seeks to engage directly with a range of adolescent issues, while often ultimately containing the threat of adolescent rebellion. Students will be encouraged to consider the ideological implications of the adult interests vested in the production of texts for children and young adults. The course will open a space in which `classic' children's literature and `young adult' literature can be analysed in terms of their key literary features as well as the way narrative influences our understanding of the process of growing up.