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English 4996: Guide to Resources: Childhood in Literature

Resources for writing about portrayals of children in adult literature, poetry, prose, and film.

 Course Texts:

(cp) indicates the text is located in the course pack for the class. 

Poetry Fiction Reference and Literary Criticism
Lucie Brock-Broido, “Jessica, From the Well” (cp)
Louise Glück, selections from Averno
Randell Jarrell, selected poems (cp)
Li-Young Lee, selections from Behind My Eyes
Audre Lorde, selected poems (cp)
Thylias Moss, Slave Moth
Patrick Phillips, selection from Boy (cp)
Henry James, What Maisie Knew
Amélie Nothomb, The Character of Rain (Timothy Bent, trans.)
Flannery O’Connor, “The River” (cp)
Helen Oyeyemi, The Icarus Girl
Justin Torres, We the Animals
Tarjei Vesaas, The Ice Palace (Elizabeth Rokken, trans.)

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie, excerpt (cp)
Chloe Buckley/Sarah Illot, Telling It Slant: Critical Approaches to Helen Oyeyemi, excerpts (cp)
Kenneth Kidd, “Queer Theory’s Child and Children’s Literary Studies” (cp)
James Marten, The History of Childhood: A Very Short Introduction
Roisín Laing, “What Maisie Knew: Nineteenth Century Selfhood in the Mind of the Child” (cp)

 

 Course Instructor:
 Professor Gabriel Fried

 Email: friedg@missouri.edu

 Office: 331 Tate

 Office Hours via Zoom: Wednesday 1-2 pm, Friday 11-12 pm