[ Summary ] [ Syllabus ] [Bibliography] [Final Projects] [Interpretive Questions]


Course Number(s): CMS.871, 21L.715, SP.493, MAS.961
Term:
Spring 2002Credit: 3-3-6
Lecture: TTh 3:30-5pm, Room 14E-310
Lab: T 7-10pm, Room 2-146

Professor Justine Cassell
justine@media.mit.edu

Professor Henry Jenkins
henry3@mit.edu

 


Class Reading Lab/Dates of Note

Unit One:
Introduction

I. Tuesday February 5
Introduction


Read:
- Henry Jenkins, "Childhood Innocence and Other Modern Myths" CCR
- William Kessen, "The American Child and Other Cultural Inventions"
- The Alliance for Childhood, "Fool's Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood"

Lab: AI

II. Thursday February 7
Children in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Quality Time and Tough Love

Read:
- Theodore Zeldin, "How to Interpret the Anger of Teenagers" and "How Children Deal With Their Parents"
- Jean Briggs "Eskimo Family Life"

 
III. Tuesday February 12
The Historical Evolution of Childhood

Read:
- Phillippe Aries, "From Immodesty to Innocence" CCR
- Viviana A. Zelizer, "From Useful to Useless: Moral Conflict Over Child Labor" CCR

Lab: Secret Garden

IV. Thursday February 14
Rousseau and the Primitive Child

Read:
- Jean Jacques Rousseau, "Book One"
- Carlo Collodi, The Adventures of Pinnochio

 
Tuesday February 19 is a Monday Schedule Due to the President's Day Holiday
V. Thursday February 21
The Developing Child
Read:
- Erik Erikson, "Toys and Reason" and "Eight Ages of Man";
- Lev Vygotsky, "Tool and Symbol in Child Development";
- Jean Briggs "Conflict Management & Socialization among Canadian Inuit"
 

Unit Two:
Sexuality

VI. Tuesday February 26
Responding to Children's Sexuality

Read:
- Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality

Lab: La Vie en Rose
VII. Thursday February 28
Representing the Erotic Child
Read:
- Anne Higonnet, "Photographs Against the Law
-
Henry Jenkins, "The Sensuous Child: Benjamin Spock and the Sexual Revolution" CCR

 
VIII. Tuesday March 5
Gender and Non-Conformity

Read:
- Eve Sedgewick, "How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay" CCR
- Barrie Thorne, "Crossing the Gender Divide", Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School CCR

Lab: Troubriand Cricket / Film on Children's Stories.

Unit Three:
Play and Language

IX. Thursday March 7
Play and Reality

Read:
- D.W. Winnicott, "Playing: A Theoretical Statement" and "The Location of Cultural Experience"
- Gregory Bateson, "A Theory of Play and Fantasy"

 
X. Tuesday March 12
The Commercialization of Children's Culture

Read:
- Heather Hendershot, "Action For (and Against) Children's Television"
- Ellen Seiter, "Children's Desires/Mother's Dilemmas" CCR
- Gene Del Vecchio, "Touch the Boy's Psyche" and "Touch the Girl's Psyche"

For Lab:
Read: David Buckingham and Julian Sefton-Green, "Gotta Catch Em All': Structure, Agency and Pedagogy in Children's Media Culture" (Working Paper)

Lab: Pokemon: The Movie
XI. Thursday March 14
Toys and Culture

Read:
- Lois Rostow Kuznets, "On the Couch with Calvin, Hobbes, and Winnie the Pooh"
- Philip Aries "Toys & Games"
- Chandra Mukerji, "Monsters and Muppets: The History of Childhood and Techniques of Cultural Analysis."

 

XII. Tuesday March 19
Present Artifacts

Student Presentations:

Nintendo's Gameboy as an Artifact of Childhood http://home.attbi.com/~etargum/CC/GameboyPres.ppt

Lab: Toy Story
XIII. Thursday March 21
The Girls Game Movement

Read:
- Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins, "Chess for Girls?" B/MK
- Interview with Brenda Laurel B/MK
- Game Grrls B/MK
- Henry Jenkins, "From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Further Reflections," http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/jenkins.html

 
March 25-29, SPRING BREAK, NO CLASS
XIV. Tuesday April 2
The Gendering of Play and Work

Read:
- E. Anthony Rotundo, "Boy Culture"CCR;
- Miriam Formanek-Brunnell, "The Politics of Dollhood in Nineteenth-Century America." CCR

Recommended:
- Henry Jenkins, "Complete Freedom of Movement': Computer Games as Gendered Playspaces" B/MK

Lab: Sam, DollTalk, & Games to Teach
XV. Thursday April 4
Case Study of Barbie

Read:
- Erica Rand, "Older Heads on Younger Bodies" CCR
- Nancie Martin interview B/MK

Recommended:
- Ann du Cille, Skin Trade (Harvard Univ. Press, 1996). Especially pp.9-40

 
Unit Four:
Children as Instigators
XVI. Tuesday April 9
Children as Technologists

Read:
- Seymour Papert, "Computers for Children" (Introduction)
- Mitch Resnick., Amy Bruckman, and Fred Martin "Pianos Not Stereos: Creating Computational Construction Kits";
- Justine Cassell, "Genderizing HCI"
http://web.media.mit.edu/~justine/publications.html

Lab: Lego Mindstorms

XVII. Thursday April 11
Children as Storytellers
Read:
- Carolyn Steedman, "The Tidy House" CCR
- Peggy Miller et al., "Narrative Practices and the Social Construction of Self in Childhood";
- Justine Cassell "Making Space for Voice: Technologies to Support Children's Fantasy and Storytelling."
http://web.media.mit.edu/~justine/publications.html
 
NO CLASS, Tuesday April 16, Patriot's Day
XVIII. Thursday April 18
Children as Cultural Producers
Read:
- Alison James, "Confections, Concoctions, and Conceptions" CCR
- Shelby Anne Wolfe and Shirley Brice Heath, "Living in a World of Words" CCR

 

Unit Five:
Literature
XIX. Tuesday April 23
The Problem of Children's Literature
Read:
- Jacqueline S. Rose, "The Case of Peter Pan: The Impossibility of Children's Fiction" CCR
- Marjorie Garber, "Fear of Flying or Why Is Peter Pan a Woman?"
- Maria Tatar, "'Violent Delights' in Children's Literature"
Lab: Peter Pan (Mary Martin)
XX. Thursday April 25
From Folk Tales to Children's Literature

Read:
- Robert Darnton, "Peasants Tell Tales"
- J.K. Rowlings, Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone
- Bettelheim "Uses of Enchantment" + Grimm's "Hansel & Gretel", and "Snow White"

 
XXI. Tuesday April 30
Walt Disney and Doctor Seuss: Two Visions of Childhood

Read:
- Henry Jenkins, "No Matter How Small: The Democratic Imagination of Doctor Seuss"
- Nicholas Sammond, "Manufacturing the American Child: Childrearing and the Rise of Walt Disney"

Lab: 5000 Fingers of Dr. T; Mickey Mouse Monopoly
Unit Six:
Moral and Political Issues
XXII. Thursday May 2
Play and Moral Development
Read:
- Carol Gilligan, "Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle"
- Lawrence Kohlberg, "Moral Stages and Moralization: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach" (Chapter 2) and "The Six Stages of Justice Judgement" (Appendix A)
- Optional: Kohlberg, "The Current Formulation of the Theory" (Chapter 3)
 
XXIII. Tuesday May 7
Violence and Child's Play
Read:
- Joanne Cantor, "'But it's Only Make Believe': Fantasy, Fiction and Fear"
- Gerald Jones, "Vampire Slayers" http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/jones.html
Lab: Song of the South; Mulan
XXIV. Thursday May 9
Cultural and Racial Stereotypes

Read:
- Herbert R. Kohl, "Shall We Burn Babar?"

 
XXV. Tuesday May 14
Childhood Online
Read:
- Jon Katz, "The Rights of Children"
- Don Tapscott, "The N-Gen Mind"
- Amy Bruckman, "Community Support for Constructionist Learning" (http://www.cc.gatech.edu/%7Easb/papers/cscw.html)
- Justine Cassell " "We Have these Rules Inside": The Effects of Exercising Voice in a Children's Online Forum"
http://web.media.mit.edu/~justine/publications.html
Lab: Presentations of Final Projects
XXVI. Thursday May 16
Wrap Up
- Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age