Course Recap for February 2

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Today at the beginning of class, you took a short reading quiz. We then discussed of some of the repeated themes and ideas you  noticed in Alice and made a list of these on the board. Next I gave a short presentation on domesticity and adventure in children's literature. You can access that presentation HERE. I also introduced you to a few terms that you can use to discuss Carroll's Alice: carnivalesque, frame narrative, and defamiliarization. Carnivalesque (a term coined by Mikhail Bakhtin) refers to the subversive questioning of authority through humor and chaos. Much of children's fantasy can be characterized as carnivalesque because it empowers the child protagonist to question authority (even if only for a short time). A frame narrative is the structure of including a story within a story. Alice embodies a specific type of frame narrative known as the dream vision narrative, in which most of the story is presented as the dream of a character. Defamiliarization (a term coined by Viktor Shklovskij) is the artistic technique of making the familiar strange in order to jolt the reader out of their normal/natural perspective.

I then handed out a literary interpretation exercise on intertextuality and form borrowing. You can access that document HERE. You worked in a small group to analyze and interpret Carroll's parodies and the original songs/poems that he based his works on. Each group also worked on one of the following tasks: identifying examples of the carnivalesque, examining the events of the main/introductory narrative, identifying examples of defamiliarization, or exploring Lewis Carroll's personality and behaviors. I asked you to consider the following questions: Where do you see the carnivalesque and defamiliarization in Alice? How are the frame narrative and defamiliarization used to engage the reader? What occurs in the introductory part of the narrative that frames the Wonderland narrative, and how might this relate to the author's purpose in writing Alice? How does knowing information about Lewis Carroll impact (or not) our reading of Alice? Then each group presented their interpretations and findings.

Critical Approaches to Alice: Abate
After the break, we turned to Michelle Abate's article. I asked you to identify Abate's main arguments and ideas. I asked you to identify her possible research questions, her thesis, passages she uses from Alice to illustrate her points, and scholarly sources she cites in her essay. We will continue to do this with all of the critical sources we encounter for the rest of the semester in order to answer one of the main questions of the course: What forms of critical analysis have been used to examine children's literature, and how can they enrich our understanding of the genre? This exercise will also help you connect the critical writing we read in class to the research you will do for your poster presentation. At the end of class, I asked you to reflect a bit upon your own areas of interest in relation to Carroll's Alice. You spent some time writing on a topic you were interested in Alice. I asked you to pull out a specific passage from Carroll's text to illustrate your topic or question and to cite a critic to back up your claim. Feel free to see me in office hours if you would like, and I would be happy to read and comment upon your writing.


Key Questions From Class
How are intertextuality and form borrowing used to comment upon the models of childhood represented in the narrative? How are capital punishment and criminal law figured in Alice? How can historical, political, and cultural knowledge about the period during which a text is published contribute to our understanding of the narrative? What cultural commentary might Alice be making about the society during the time of its composition (and contemporary society)?

Homework

• Read Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
• Read Jacqueline Reid-Walsh's "Girlhood" and Joseph Michael Sommers's "Are You There, Reader? It's Me, Margaret: A Reconsideration of Judy Blume's Prose as Sororal Dialogism"