TY - CHAP

T1 - Discourses of Internationalism in Children’s Literature

AU - O'Sullivan, Emer

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - For a number of decades now, Otherness has featured as a central concept in cultural and literary studies. Poststructuralist and postcolonial approaches and whiteness studies as well as imagology have examined the construction and representation of different ethnic groups and their implications in lite rature.1 A further recent focus, fueled by the centenary of the First World War, has been on the role of children’s literature in indoctrinating children with nationalist agendas and spreading war propaganda.2 I would like to focus on a seemingly contrary issue, one which, instead of emphasizing the idea of children belonging to specific ethnic or national group, propagates childhood as a space which transcends all borders: the discourse of inter nationalism. Although no longer fashionable today-“there are few present-day invocations to internationalism” (Clavin 5)—it enjoyed tremendous currency in the eras succeeding the First and the Second World Wars.

AB - For a number of decades now, Otherness has featured as a central concept in cultural and literary studies. Poststructuralist and postcolonial approaches and whiteness studies as well as imagology have examined the construction and representation of different ethnic groups and their implications in lite rature.1 A further recent focus, fueled by the centenary of the First World War, has been on the role of children’s literature in indoctrinating children with nationalist agendas and spreading war propaganda.2 I would like to focus on a seemingly contrary issue, one which, instead of emphasizing the idea of children belonging to specific ethnic or national group, propagates childhood as a space which transcends all borders: the discourse of inter nationalism. Although no longer fashionable today-“there are few present-day invocations to internationalism” (Clavin 5)—it enjoyed tremendous currency in the eras succeeding the First and the Second World Wars.

KW - English

KW - Literature studies

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85024841073&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.4324/9781315679648

DO - 10.4324/9781315679648

M3 - Chapter

SN - 978-1-138-93164-0

T3 - Children's literature and culture

SP - 30

EP - 42

BT - Child autonomy and child governance in children's literature

A2 - Kelen, Christopher (Kit)

A2 - Sundmark, Björn

PB - Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

CY - London

ER -