In part I think we can attribute (if not necessarily wave away without further examination) a lot of the leaps Melson’s argumentation seems to make to the stakes of Why the Wild Things Are – identifying connections between children and…

I know that Ruwanthi also asked along these same lines, but I’m really curious about the degree to which our inevitable centralization of a text, a literary object and a literary voice, challenges or troubles some of Harde’s own readings…

On page 36, Derrida writes, “More precisely, of sexual differences, that is to say, what for the most part is kept under wraps in almost all of the grand philosophical-type treatises on the animality of the animal. This opening, on…

Firstly, wow, it was very strange to return to Charlotte’s Web…I thought I remembered enough of that book from my primary school days but there were many, many surprises. This initial question may be…anthropocentric…of me, but I’m thinking about Fern;…

I’m sure we’ll give Lofting and Dolittle more criticism and consideration in class, but I think this is actually a good time to talk about authorial presence and authority in works considered ‘classics’, as is hinted at in the Slate…

In “Risky Business: Talking about Children in Children’s Literature Criticism”, Marah Gubar writes that “the critical story we have been telling about children’s literature rules out the possibility that young people can function as artistic agents, participants in the production…

In what way is the ownership of pets (and pet-ownership as a subject-position) a privilege? In what ways is it classed? What kinds of adults are being imagined and constructed in literary narrative of pets and pethood? In the case…

I’m interested in thinking about Black Beauty as a novel (an animal autobiography) about class and about disability. The ability to do specific kinds of work, or to look a certain way (and move, breathe, act a certain way) while…

Keyword: Captivity I chose to work on the keyword captivity in part because the term was immediately evocative to me; it generated vibrant, distressing images from memory, cultural objects, and imagination as to what it meant and continues to mean…

Hi all, below are my discussion questions for tomorrow’s class. I am looking forward to meeting! 1. Bow’s primary sources in this article are largely picture books, intended for very young children presumably between the ages of 3-8. What does…