Optional course in BA2 and BA3

After completing the course, students will have a basic knowledge and understanding of the developments in children's literature and its criticism since the 1970s. They have learned to analyze the form and content of children's books and young adult literature. In addition, the students are able to develop and phrase well-argued opinions on the recent development in children's literature and its criticism.

For literary scholars and sociologists, children's literature offers interesting material to trace which view of society a certain group of adults tries to communicate to the next generation, and in which form they try to accomplish this. In this course, we assume that children's literature is characterized by three important factors: a didactic function, an entertaining function, and an aesthetic function. In the last four decades, the stress has come to lie more heavily on the aesthetic: it cannot be denied that the content and style of children' books have gradually grown more complex. For the analysis of a dozen literary works and genres, we make use of tools and methods from contemporary criticism (psychoanalysis, intertextuality, cultural studies, gender studies, trauma studies, socio-historical criticism, etc). We confront these with a selection of recent children's books for a variety of ages and from a variety of geographic areas.

Vanessa Joosen & Katrien Vloeberghs. Uitgelezen jeugdliteratuur. LannooCampus, 2008.

Primary texts: a selection of six recent children's books, and a selection of fragments distributed in class