[ 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

This course is intended to place current debates about childhood and children's media technologies within their larger historical, social and technological contexts. Students will examine children's culture (and the myths adults construct for and about children) from psychological, sociological, anthropological, historical, critical, pedagogical and technological perspectives. We will also critically engage with key examples of books, films, television programs, and digital media artifacts aimed at children. Our goal is to gain insights into the nature of children's lives, their culture, their relationship to the media, and the social institutions they confront. An intrinsic part of the course will be to reflect on (and engage with) the problems of creating new media for children, and recurrent efforts by adults to regulate children's culture and play.

Format:
Two discussion/lecture periods; a weekly lab session which combines screenings (film, TV, Web, etc.), hands-on interaction with children's artifacts (toys, games, videogames, etc.) and discussion.

Course Requirements:

Interpretive question: Before each class meeting students are required to submit at least one interpretive and motivated question for each text assigned for that class. Questions will be due 24 hours before the class meets, so that the instructors can base their discussion of the texts on the questions submitted. Occasionally we may cancel the question requirement in favor of another equally straightforward and non time-consuming assignment. Due each class period

Analyze a children's artifact: Choose a game, toy, program, book, or other artifact for children and analyze (in 1-2 pages) the representation of childhood that it explicitly or implicitly conveys/ instantiates / relies on. You will be bring the artifact in to share with the class. Due March 19th.

Critical Essay: Undergraduates (7-10 Pages); Graduate Students (15 Pages). Students should develop a topic in consultation with one of the two professors which allows them to apply some of the theoretical and conceptual materials from the course to explore some aspect of contemporary children's culture. Due April 18th.

Produce a children's artifact: Produce/construct/implement a game, toy, program, book, or other artifact for children. Examples include: writing a children's story, implementing a video game, building a children's toy, filming a segment of a children's show. Then write 1-2 pages about the underlying assumptions about children/childhood that are pre-supposed by your artifact. You will be bringing the artifact in to share with the class. Due May 14th.

Required Books:

For your shopping convenience, we have made links to all necessary books (except the Course Reader) on Amazon.com.

Henry Jenkins (Ed.) The Children's Culture Reader
Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins (Ed.) From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age
Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
Carlo Collodi, The Adventures of Pinnochio
Course Reader