cross-dressing in children's literature
This is a case of, despite having drafted a really serviceable paper in about 2004-2005 and having gotten positive feedback from a major journal on the draft, I'm just wanting to set this project aside. And so I turn in two books related to it: The Queer Child by Stockton and Ways of Being Male ed. by Stephens (chapter by Flanagan). I already turned in (but xeroxed the last chapter of) Out of the Closet by Flanagan, which was the main text that the editors referred me to in considering my paper.
So, when I get back to this project (I won't say "if," but it's obviously implied by the relentless rigors of my schedule), here's what I want to do: a listing paper. Not English scholarship, but LIS. An analytic approach that nonetheless really scopes out what has happened in the field in the last however many years. I'm still very interested in the main premise of the paper: that children's cross-dressing in children's literature is often accompanied by a strong emphasis on heteronormativity. You could almost say "disciplined" by (good morning Foucault!), but however you say it, I want to look across multiple books to establish these patterns. Flanagan's whole book really only takes on a few texts, and The Queer Child looks to be about the same. It's tough to clear out the old to make space for the new, but the new must come. And the old must go.
The paper I am focusing on is "Editing Race: the case of May Massee, Rebecca Caudill, and the "N" word in children's publishing." With hopes of both ChLA and SHARP this year. Fingers crossed!
Just for the record, here are abbreviated chapter titles from The Queer Child: Or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century by Stockton (which, interestingly, cites very few texts from children's literature as sources, but a lot of sources from English canons):
Part 1: Sideways Relations
1. The Smart Child is the Masochistic Child
2. Why the (Lesbian) Child Requires an Interval of Animal
Part 2: Sideways Motions
3. What Drives the Sexual Child?
4. Feeling Like Killing?
Part 3: Sideways Futures
5. Oedipus Races, or the Child Queered by Color
Conclusion: Money is the Child's Queer Ride
So, when I get back to this project (I won't say "if," but it's obviously implied by the relentless rigors of my schedule), here's what I want to do: a listing paper. Not English scholarship, but LIS. An analytic approach that nonetheless really scopes out what has happened in the field in the last however many years. I'm still very interested in the main premise of the paper: that children's cross-dressing in children's literature is often accompanied by a strong emphasis on heteronormativity. You could almost say "disciplined" by (good morning Foucault!), but however you say it, I want to look across multiple books to establish these patterns. Flanagan's whole book really only takes on a few texts, and The Queer Child looks to be about the same. It's tough to clear out the old to make space for the new, but the new must come. And the old must go.
The paper I am focusing on is "Editing Race: the case of May Massee, Rebecca Caudill, and the "N" word in children's publishing." With hopes of both ChLA and SHARP this year. Fingers crossed!
Just for the record, here are abbreviated chapter titles from The Queer Child: Or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century by Stockton (which, interestingly, cites very few texts from children's literature as sources, but a lot of sources from English canons):
Part 1: Sideways Relations
1. The Smart Child is the Masochistic Child
2. Why the (Lesbian) Child Requires an Interval of Animal
Part 2: Sideways Motions
3. What Drives the Sexual Child?
4. Feeling Like Killing?
Part 3: Sideways Futures
5. Oedipus Races, or the Child Queered by Color
Conclusion: Money is the Child's Queer Ride
