Between Children and Women – Reading Gender in Children's Literature

Dr. Rotem Preger Wagner

The seminar will focus on the complex relationship between women and children in children's literature. The discussion will relate to major questions raised by feminist literary criticism regarding the ways of shaping gender-relations in literary works in general, and in works for children in particular, while emphasizing feminist writing.

           During the course, we will read works written for children from a gender perspective and ask questions such as: how are the characters of boys/men and girls/women, represented in a given work? How is the space in which they operate shaped? What are its gendered characteristics? How are the narrative structures gendered? How does the literary work take apart depressive gender relations and what does it offer instead? In what ways is it possible to rewrite patriarchal narratives from a feminist approach? What devices does feminist children's literature apply, and how can its power in creating an artistic, educational and social change, be assessed?

          The discussion will combine gender theory with literary texts, and offer methodological tools for developing a critical reading of gender issues in children's literature.