From fairytales, fantasies and fables to adventure stories and nonsense rhymes, this module explores 100 years of children%E2%80%99s literature from the 20th century to the present day.With active discussions and debates about the uses of children%E2%80%99s literature, we will focus on modern and contemporary British prose authors, including J.M. Barrie, Rudyard Kipling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Roald Dahl and J.K. Rowling, while acknowledging influential 18th and 19th century texts and the new genre of fan fiction. The module will develop your knowledge of a variety of interpretative approaches, including psychoanalysis, Marxism, gender theory, narratology and new historicism.

Target group
The course is not just for students of English literature and/or history but also for people with a scholarly interest in reading children literature and/or a creative interest in writing children literature.

Course aim
By the end of this course you will: - Gain a breadth of knowledge of modern and contemporary British children's literature, and an ability to situate key texts within a historical context; - Develop critical tools with which to interpret the literature; - Attain greater sensitivity to the political and ethical issues at stake when reading and writing children's literature; - Acquire a sense of the differences between the capacities of the media used in the composition of children's literature, and the ways in which they relate to one another: texts, images, sound, film and digital media; - Gain experience of using museum archives, and of analysing museum collections. - Gain awareness of the industries attached to childrens literature, and the importance of the genre to London's cultural heritage.

Fee info
GBP 1500: tuition fee only

King's College London
Address: Strand, London
Postal code: WC2R 2LS
City: London
Country: United Kingdom
Website: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/summer
E-mail: summerschool@kcl.ac.uk
Phone: +44 20 7848 1533