Gender, Childhood and Children’s Literature

What is it about?

This article discuss how children's literature critics have made claims about children and gender and sexual identity. I argue that there are problems with the understandings of the work of literary theorist Jacqueline Rose and queer theorist Judith Butler, who are often cited by these critics.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Children's Literature studies has itself remarked on the long-standing history of referring to the theories of Jacqueline Rose in her 1984 book 'The Case of Peter Pan or the Impossibility of Children's Fiction', and has at the same time noted how little the critics actually do with the arguments Rose makes. I have written a number of books and articles exploring Rose's work and its implications for all thinking about childhood, and in this article I focus especially on the relationship of Rose's arguments to those of Judith Butler, and how and why they both seem to be misunderstood in childhood and children's literature studies, in my view.

Perspectives