Literature and Childhood Studies／Spring 2010
Fiona Feng-Hsin Liu／NCHU DFLL
SPRING 2010 DFLL GRADUATE COURSE
LITERATURE AND CHILDHOOD STUDIES
Course Instructor:
Fiona Feng-Hsin Liu
Email: fionaliu@dragon.nchu.edu.tw
Website: http://web.nchu.edu.tw/pweb/admin/index.php
Class Time:
Office Hour:
Wednesdays, 1400-1700
by appointment
Course Description
Ever since the French historian Philippe Ariès records the launching of childhood in Europe in
the mid-eighteenth century, childhood has become the focus of different academic fields. Once
childhood was a feature of familial discourses, the sole property of pedagogues, and the profession
of developmental psychologists, but over the last two, or at most three decades, childhood has
moved to the forefront of personal, political and academic agendas. The aim of this course is to
offer students a glimpse of a series of contesting, complex, and may at times seeming
contradictory concepts and accounts of child and childhood of modernity and late modernity.
Through essay readings and class discussions, this course also hopes to help students identify
complex, entangled factors in the wider society that either shape or relate to childhood
discourses.
Reading Texts
See “Weekly Schedule” for details.
Grading Formulations
2 Presentations and *Reading Notes
30%
*The presenter, in addition to making an oral presentation, is required to distribute a print version of
detailed reading note of the assigned reading to the instructor and
the students before the presentation. For
an example of how to take detailed note of reading, see sample reading-note pieces posted at the instructor’s
webpage.
Attendance**, Class Participation and the Frequency of Utterance
(content, length, relevance)
20%
**Attendance Policy: Students are expected to attend the class on time and to stay for the duration of
class. Being late for class for more than 15 minutes will be considered an absence. 3 absences
(equivalent to three weeks of class) will result in a ZERO score of the final grade.
5 pieces of Reading Responses
(1.5-2 pages, Single space, Times New Roman 12 font, MLA style)
Pages 3 - 1
50%
Literature and Childhood Studies／Spring 2010
Fiona Feng-Hsin Liu／NCHU DFLL
Weekly Schedule
Week
Date &
No.
Theme
1
2/25
Class Description
Reminder
Orientation to the course
Introduction
2
3/4
David Archard’s Childhood
-Chapter 1: John Locke’s Children
Childhood
Concepts before
the 20th Century
3
3/11
Philippe Ariès’s Centuries of Childhood
-Introduction pp
-Chapter I: The Ages of Life
-Chapter II: The Discovery of Childhood
-Conclusion of the Book
4
3/18
David Archard’s Childhood
#1 Reading
-Chapter 2: The Concept of Childhood
Response
-Chapter 3: The Modern Conception of Childhood
Due
(reflect on
Ariès’s
readings)
5
3/25
Theorizing Childhood by Allison James, Chris Jenks, and Alan Prout
-Chapter 1: The Presociological Child
-Chapter 2: The Sociological Child
7
4/8
Sigmund Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
Children and
-I. The Sexual Aberrations
Sexuality
8
4/15
Sigmund Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
#2
-II. Infantile Sexuality
Reading
Response
Due
(reflect on
reading of
Archard
and James
et al.)
9
4/22
Mid-Term Examination Week, No Class
10
4/29
Sigmund Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
Pages 3 - 2
presenters
Literature and Childhood Studies／Spring 2010
Fiona Feng-Hsin Liu／NCHU DFLL
-III. The Transformations of Puberty
11
5/6
Peter Pan (1/2)
#3 Reading
Response
Due
12
5/13
Peter Pan (2/2)
13
5/20
Jacqueline Rose’s The Case of Peter Pan
-The Return of Peter Pan + Introduction
14
5/27
Jacqueline Rose’s The Case of Peter Pan
Chapter 1: Peter Pan and Freud
15
pp.12-30(19)
6/3
-Theorizing Childhood (by Allison James et al.)
#4 Reading
Childhood and
Chapter 3: Childhood in Social Space
Response
Space
-Michel Foucault’s “Questions on Geography” (in
Due
Power/Knowledge)
(reflect on
Peter
Pan
and Rose’s
ideas)
16
6/10
Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning (by Holloway,
Sarah, L and Gill Valentine)
-Chapter 1: Children’s Geographies and the New Social Studies of
Childhood
-Chapter 2: Melting Geography: Purity, Disorder, Childhood and
Space
17
6/17
Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning
-Chapter 13: Children’s Geographies and the Primary School
-Chapter 15: Nature’s Dangers, Nature’s Pleasures: Urban Children
and the Natural World
18
6/24
Final Exam Week, No Class
#5 Reading
Response
Due
Pages 3 - 3