230343 Lost and Found: Representations of Childhood in Contemporary British Literature (S) (WiSe 2015/2016)

We all know what a child is, right? We’ve all been children ourselves after all. But to what extent is our adult memory of what it means to be a child, to have been a child, filtered through cultural conceptions – or even prescriptions? What are adult authors doing when they write child characters, their perceptions, their emotions, their voices? Can they represent children authentically at all? Or do they create them, construct them, and in that way contribute to historically embedded societal conceptions of what children are or should be?

Since the 1960s the focus of Childhood Studies has been the socio-historical construction of childhood. Childhood can be framed as a biological and psychological phase of development, a state of (endangered) moral innocence, a state of imperfection that needs adult guidance and schooling, a state of unruliness that needs to be checked (or encouraged), a political site where the reproduction of human capital and cultural values is at stake, and so on. None of these conceptions is ‘natural’, all of them are culturally mediated, and all of them can be questioned critically.

In this seminar, we will both explore and question how this construction of childhood works in a number of selected contemporary British novels. Please buy the following novels (if a book is out of print, try Amazon and/or abebooks.de for second hand copies; if you buy an eBook, make sure you have the means to bring it to class):

• Toby Litt: deadkidsongs (READ BEFORE START OF SEMESTER)
• Roddy Doyle: Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (READ BEFORE START OF SEMESTER)
• Diana Evans: 26a
• Pat Barker: Another World
• Ian McEwan: The Child in Time

PLEASE NOTE: This is a reading class – we insist that you read all the novels. Don’t worry, they’re easy reads and entertaining. If you will not be able to do the reading, please don’t take this class. We will read deadkidsongs and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha first, so please read them before the start of the semester. Of course you may read the other novels during the term break, too, and we encourage you to do so if you’re not going to be able to make time for reading during the semester; but we will deal with them in later sessions.