TITLE:  CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF CHILDREN IN AMERICA
MWF 9:05-9:55am BH 245
How do toys, cartoons, ads, movies and books teach children about how
they should behave and about what is "normal" in their world?  How do
we, as adults, choose to represent children in the mass media and in
literature?  In order to contextualize our discussion of these
questions, we will begin by considering the ways that children and
childhood have been imagined and discussed by a number of writers from
the past.  The bulk of the course will consist of thinking, reading, and
writing about fictional representations and constructions of children--as consumers and as characters in television, film, and children's
literature.  Learning to describe and evaluate images of children in
terms of categories such as gender, race, and class will allow us to
explore the cultural and political implications of such representations.