Children's Literature, Collections & Recollections

(5 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This module explores the intersection of children's literature, collections, and memory across four centuries of children's literature. This module invites you to investigate the relationship between collections and recollections. We will explore the processes of collecting and the impact the public and private collections have on our understanding of childhood, memory, and history. The texts we will examine all feature collections - of poems, of souvenirs, of experiences, of objects. In some of these texts, the child character becomes a sort of archivist, in others, childhood itself becomes something to be recorded and preserved. We will examine how collections begin and question at what point a collection becomes more than the sum of its parts. We will also work with the collections at TCD and you will gain practical experience working with archives, catalogues, and the Library's collections. The module assessment is closely linked with the central focus on collections. You will curate a small digital collection of your own and reflect on the processes and theories that help to inform and organise this collection. The module essay allows you to work closely with the children's texts on the module and the critical and theoretical texts underpinning the module. This module aims to introduce you to the practicalities of archival research and to a range of critical approaches to collecting including Susan Stewart's work on souvenirs and memory, Edmund deWaal's work on tracing family history through objects, and Jacques Derrida's deconstruction of archives.