Jeunesse - Young People, Texts, Cultures (E-Journal)
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Questioning, Debating, and Problematizing Agency in Childhood Studies Research
Full text linkReview of:
Esser, Florian, Meike S. Baader, Tanja Betz, and Beatrice Hungerland, editors. Reconceptualising Agency and Childhood: New Perspectives in Childhood Studies, Routledge, 2016.
DOI: 10.1353/jeu.2018.001
The Missing B Word: Compulsory Binarization and Bisexual Representation in Children’s Literature
No full textThis project uses some LGBTQ youth’s social media posts and Allison Weir’s framework for identification-with identity politics to analyze and evaluate bisexual representation in YA literature. The essay posits that bisexual characters are often erased in literature because of common stereotypes and what the author calls “compulsory binarization,” or the assumption that a character is either gay or straight unless otherwise labelled. To combat this, the essay suggests that a superb bisexual YA novel first include a clear naming of bisexuality within the text; in addition, effective bisexual representation should challenge normative binaries and stereotypes.
DOI: 10.1353/jeu.2018.000
Singing and Dancing “Their Bit” for the Nation: Canadian Children’s Performances for Charity circa the First World War
No full textDuring the First World War, Canadian children supported the war effort by raising money for organizations such as the Red Cross through singing, dancing, and dramatic performances. Charitable performances by three distinct groups—the professional Winnipeg Kiddies, the educational Miss Sternberg’s School of Dance and Physical Culture, and the amateur service organization the Girl Guides of Canada—share striking commonalities that demonstrate how children and children’s bodies were powerful indicators of contemporary Canadian hopes for the good life in Canada.
DOI: 10.1353/jeu.2017.002
Constructing the Twentieth-Century Child: Postcolonial Retellings of Estevanico from Cabeza de Vaca’s La Relación
No full textSparked by the racially divisive socio-cultural environment of the United States in the post-war period, children’s literature saw a rise in the publication of children’s books that reimagined colonial texts such as Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s La Relación. By highlighting the country’s colonial origins, many such texts reinforced the ideals of white American nationalism. This trend is illustrated in retellings of La Relación, which complicate race relations through an emphasis on Estevanico, the Moorish slave, whose relationships with the child characters in books like Frank G. Slaughter’s Apalachee Gold, Betty Baker’s Walk the World’s Rim, and Jeanette Mirsky’s The Gentle Conquistadors ultimately reveal twentieth- century America’s reluctance to accept minorities. Estevanico’s childish relationships and infantilization represent emergent ideologies of children and childhood that promote colonial/white children’s power over the Other.
DOI: 10.1353/jeu.2017.002
Things to Do with Your Imaginary Child
No full textThis essay considers texts in which adults consciously invent children whom they represent to the world as “real,” children who can then investigate the limits that their inventors may test in other people. Drawing on clinical psychological theories of children’s imaginary playmates—and the value that psychologists ascribe to the juvenile practice of inventing imaginary children—I consider what the adult invention of a child might suggest about the “uses” of children more generally. Texts under consideration are Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Armistead Maupin’s The Night Listener, and Lorrie Moore’s Anagrams.
DOI: 10.1353/jeu.2017.002
Good Vampires Don’t Eat: Anorexic Logic in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Series
No full textThis paper argues that the convergence of post-feminist and Victorian values in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels perpetuate a logic of anorexia. Drawing on a selection of fan fiction in which young female authors rewrite Bella’s character as anorexic, this paper further argues that through fan fiction, young authors gain agency in making explicit the anorexic logic that is central to the canon texts and to mainstream girlhood as a whole; however, as each author negotiates her conflicting position as critic and subject of post-feminist culture, her narrative epitomizes the complex and contradictory nature of anorexic ideology itself.
DOI: 10.1353/jeu.2018.000
De l’impuissance à l’autonomie à l’intersection des luttes pour les droits linguistiques et de la littérature pour enfants
Full text linkReview of:
Poliquin, Laurent. De l’impuissance à l’autonomie : évolution culturelle et enjeux identitaires des minorités canadiennes-françaises. Prise de parole, 2017.
DOI: 10.1353/jeu.2018.001
Refusing the Role, Embracing the Hole
Full text linkReview of:
Allan, Jonathan A. Reading from Behind: A Cultural Analysis of the Anus, U of Regina P, 2016.
DOI: 10.1353/jeu.2018.000