Childhood

HY 410, Advanced Seminar

Block 7, 2002-3—Carol Neel

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND REQUIRMENTS

This course will treat childhood as a topic of historical investigation in a variety of periods and geographical contexts, with special attention to the European and American pasts. The historiography of childhood is a new field, growing from the work of Philippe Ariès in the 1960s. Common readings will include a variety of recent works responsive to Ariès pioneering study, as well as primary sources in the historical theory and literature of childhood. Class readings and discussions will provide theoretical models and topical suggestions for the development of student research papers.

Participants in this seminar are reminded that their work here may be a preliminary exploration of senior essay or thesis topics, and may also be closely related to their work in the department’s theory/historiography course, HY 399. The advanced seminar, 399, and senior essay are designed to form a three-part exit experience, in which the various elements together become the platform for investigation of complex problems, sophisticated research, and theoretically informed oral presentation and written discussion.

Students will immediately note that no page assignments are listed for common readings. Some are short articles. Others are thick books. The instructor will, in prior class meetings, suggest which sections of larger works class discussions will emphasize. A central value here will, however, be discussion of authors’ perspectives; hence students are encouraged to read entire works as closely as they are able and, as necessary, to struggle to decide how best to interpret a large work in a limited time. As twelfth-century theorist of history Hugh of St. Victor pointed out, “A huge amount of stuff has happened, and the historian’s most important job is deciding what to read” (rough translation). Our syllabus mirrors that problem, and we will solve it in our respective ways, for better and for worse.

COURSE MATERIALS

The following works are available for purchase in the Colorado College Bookstore:

• Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen, The Children of Willesden Lane, Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival (New York: Warner Books, 2002)
• Barbara Hanawalt, Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
• Maria Tatar (ed.), The Classic Fairy Tales: Texts, Criticism (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 1999)
• John Cleverley and D. C. Phillips, Visions of Childhood: Influential Models from Locke to Spock, rev. ed. (New York and London: Teachers College Press, 1986)
• John R. Gillis, A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest for Family Values (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997)

The following works will be distributed in photocopy form:

• David Herlihy, “Family,” American Historical Review 96 (1991): 1-16
• John Eastburn Boswell, “Expositio and Oblatio: The Abandonment of Children in the Ancient and Medieval Family,” American Historical Review 89 (1984): 10-33
• Robert Darnton, “Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose,” in The Great Cat Massacre 9-72 [a fuller version than the excerpt in Tatar]
• Betty B. Lanham and Maso Shimura, “Folktales Commonly Told American and Japanese Children: Ethical Themes of Omission and Commission,” Journal of American Folklore 80 (1967): 33-48
• Patricia Greenfield, “Children, Material Culture and Weaving: Historical Change and Developmental Change,” in Joanna Sofaer Derevenski, Children and Material Culture (Routledge: London and New York, 200) 72-86
• Victor Buchli and Gavin Lucas, “Children, Gender and the Material Culture of Domestic Abandonment in the Late Twentieth Century,” in Derevenski 131-138
• Sanne Houby-Nielsen, “Child Burials in Ancient Athens,” in Derevenski 151-166

REQUIREMENTS

Each student will be responsible for careful preparation and active discussion of assigned readings, and will take special responsibility for the presentation and criticism of at least one common text. S/he will write one short review essay during the first week of the block, and one further review essay of her/his choice during the second week. The major written assignment for the course will be a twenty-page paper submitted in draft form during the third week of the block, and revised during the last three days.

The course grade will depend on

1. participation in readings discussions; presentations of readings; short reviews

2. prospectus and developed versions of research paper

These groups of related tasks will be weighted equally.

SCHEDULE OF CLASS DISCUSSIONS AND WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS

WEEK 1 (March 24)

Monday Hearing silent histories: children as illiterates and subalterns

Tuesday Families in the colonial South

Visiting speaker Jennifer Goloboy

Reading: Herlihy, “Family”

Wednesday Individual meetings with instructor to explore research paper topics

Thursday Children of the Holocaust

Reading: Golabek and Cohen vii-198

Friday Memory, truth, and history

Reading: Golabek and Cohen 198-272; Boswell, “Expositio and Oblatio”

Golabek and Cohen reviews due (2 pp.)

WEEK 2 (March 31)

Monday Medieval children

Reading: Hanawalt

Tuesday Reading and library research

Wednesday Real fairy tales

Reading: in Tatar: Little Red Riding Hood (3-24); Cinderella (101-137); Hansel and Gretel (179-211)

Thursday Acculturation cross-culturally

Reading: Darnton; Lanham and Shimura

Free choice reviews due (3 pp.)

Friday Participation in Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association meeting (on campus)

WEEK 3 (April 7)

Monday Children and ideas

Reading: Cleverley and Phillips

Tuesday Paper workshop

Paper prospectus, annotated bibliography, and outline due for peer critique 9 AM

Wednesday Children and things

Reading: Greenfield; Buchli and Lucas; Houby-Nielsen

Thursday Reading and library research

Friday No class meeting (instructor at Medieval Academy meeting in Minneapolis)

WEEK 4 (March 14)

Monday No class meeting

Paper drafts due 3 PM

Tuesday Making families and making believe

Reading: Gillis

Wednesday Class breakfast, 2404 Constellation Drive

Research papers due 9:30 AM