Josephine Rout on Dress for Female Students in Japan

Josephine discussed recent research she has undertaken as part of the Royal College of Art and Victoria and Albert Museum’s joint Master’s programme. Josephine focused on the development of dress for female students, or jogakusei, in Japan’s Meiji Period (1868-1912). In this epoch, a concern with modernisation and ‘catching up with the West’ often played out in terms of women’s education, and Josephine used a particular garment, the hakama (a sort of culottes worn over kimono) to illuminate the history of Meiji jogakusei. Associated with state functions, hakama were a garment typically worn by men prior to this period. Josephine suggested that the adoption of hakama by female students reflected an identification with the figure of the student, rather than gender travesty: the only grown-up students prior to this period were male, and as they wore hakama, so did the new breed of jogakusei. Regardless, the short hairstyles and supposed masculinisation of female students were castigated in the media, and there was a more general distaste symbolised in, for example, the magazine serial from 1905 entitled ‘Tales of Degenerate Schoolgirls’. Josephine illustrated her talk with modern-day hakama (the piece remains popular as graduation garb for female students), as well as a wealth of images that included some from children’s books of the period.

Diane Purkiss on Children's Literature at Oxford

Dr Diane Purkiss began by assuring the group that there is nothing more traditional to the children's book than being soaked to the skin: highly apposite, of course, as most members of her audience were in that very state on the wet Bank Holiday Monday of this talk!

Diane discussed the new special topic option for third-year Oxford undergraduates, which involves centralised teaching in children's literature: a milestone for a university that has sometimes dismissed the subject out of hand. This dismissal is rather perplexing, of course, as Oxford (more so even than the 'Other Place', in Diane's august opinion) has produced a slew of phenomenal children's books, and also holds one of the best collections of children's literature in the world (the Opie Collection at the Bodleian). The special topic programme legitimates Oxford as a cultural centre of children's literature, while also legitimating students' interest in studying and researching children's literature at Oxford.

To this end Diane ranged over authors including Carroll, Lewis, Tolkien, Diana Wynne Jones, Alan Garner, and Matthew Skelton, and topics including the effect of both Oxford's built environment and its pastoral surrounds on children's books written here, or about here. She also spoke to the broader issues involved in the discipline: the relationship between adult author and child reader, and the perhaps less acknowledged relationship between adult and (remembered) child selves for any one individual. Her talk was an exciting taste of the programme, and I'll update you all on its progress as classes get up and running next academic year.





Alice and the Mouse swimming in the Pool of Tears: May weather in Oxford isn't quite that wet, but still....

Alice Nuttall on Pocahontas

Last Monday Alice discussed the depiction of Native Americans in a film for children which touts an overt anti-racist message: Disney's Pocahontas (1995). Despite the direct engagement with issues of race, racism, and cross-cultural interaction in Pocahontas—which Alice reads as in part an apology for previous Disney characters such as Tiger Lily in the 1953 Peter Pan—the film holds some problematic subtexts beneath its worthy surface message of tolerance and anti-colonialism. Elements of the production, such as Pocahontas' signature costume (a skimpy buckskin mini-dress) and the division between 'good Indians' (those who assimilate to European culture) and 'bad Indians' (those who fight it), make free use of prevalent stereotypes of Native American culture. When the important character Grandmother Willow, a spirit guide, encourages Pocahontas to learn English, the film even seems to tacitly suggest divine approval of colonialism. Alice also discussed 'Savages', the controversial song which appeared toward the end of the original version of the film (it was cut upon video release). The song depicts Native and European parties calling each other savages, ostensibly to show that both sides hold erroneous conceptions about race, and can be violent and hate-filled. However, racist slurs incorporated in the song were on occasion used to taunt Native children after the film's release—despite the diegetic emphasis on the wrongheadedness of such language and behaviour.

CLYCC wishes Alice all the best for her upcoming field research.

Trinity Term 2011 Programme

An exciting programme for the new term! Events held in Room 11 of the English Fac at 5.15pm as usual (directions if you need them...).
Looking forward to seeing both familiar and unfamiliar faces!

May 16th (Week 3): Problems with Pocahontas. Alice Nuttall, Oxford Brookes University
Alice, a doctoral student at Brookes who works on the portrayal of American Indians in children’s literature and culture, returns to CLYCC with a presentation on Disney’s thirty-third animated feature, the immensely popular Pocahontas (1995). Alice will examine problems with the portrayal of race and gender issues in the film, and ask whether it is successful as an anti-racist work.

May 30th (Week 5): Teaching Children’s Literature for Paper Eight. Dr Diane Purkiss, CUF Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow, Keble College
This Centrally Taught Special Topics (CTST) introductory lecture, held in conjunction with CLYCC, concerns the new stream of children’s literature-oriented Paper Eight seminars and classes which will be run through the English Faculty from next year. Dr Diane Purkiss, who will teach the 2011/12 series along with Professor Elleke Boehmer (Wolfson) and Dr Margaret Kean (St Hilda’s), leads a discussion of her own research interests in children’s books, projects undertaken by former and current students (particularly finalists), and her vision for the programme.

June 13th (Week 7): The Meiji Material Girl: Developing the Image of the Female Student through Literature. Josephine Rout, Royal College of Art
Josephine currently studies Asian design and material culture at RCA and will shortly act as curatorial assistant for a display at the Victoria and Albert Museum examining the influence of British design and culture on Japanese street fashion. In this session she will focus on her recent research into the development of Japanese school uniforms. In particular, Josephine is interested in the appearance of these garments before the adoption of now-ubiquitous items inspired by nineteenth-century British children’s dress, such as the sailor suit. She will also consider the depiction of the schoolgirl in Japanese literature, including some children's books.

Clive Hurst on Children's Books in the Bod

On February 28th Clive Hurst, Head of Rare Books and Printed Ephemera at the Bodleian Library, presented a personal selection of early children's books from collections at the Bod. Clive matched each image of a Bodleian treasure with a witty excursus on its significance: the squirm-inducing descriptions of the 'brands of Hell' in Janeway's Token for Children: Being an Exact Account of the Conversion, Holy and Exemplary Lives, and Joyful Deaths of Several Young Children, for example, were popular enough to warrant a 'further account', while even the subscription lists for the Gigantick Histories contained jokes (apparently the Vatican Library was a faithful subscriber). Tracing representations of learning and play in illustration and word throughout his talk, one of Clive's most fascinating examples confirmed the connections between Oxford and the children's book. The earliest known printed horn-book (circa 1620) was found in the foundations of Brasenose in 1882 during excavation works there. Of course, this volume did not have far to move once it resurfaced: it was deposited just across Radcliffe Square in the Bodleian, where it remains to this day.

At left, an illustration from Punctuation Personified, or, Pointing Made Easy, published by J. Harris. The Bodleian holds an 1824 copy from which Clive showed us images.

A facsimile version is available from the Bodleian bookshop.

Shira Wolosky on Harry Potter

This from Alice Nuttall on the CLYCC talk which took place on February 14th:

In our second talk of the term, Professor Shira Wolosky discussed the ethical principles and paradigms in the Harry Potter series which are the subject of her recent book The Riddles of Harry Potter: Secret Passages and Interpretive Quests. Beginning by noting the series’ use of political allegory, such as its references to the Second World War and modern conflicts, Shira then went on to explore how the series’ central focus is the dichotomy of love (represented by Harry and his allies) and power (represented by Voldemort). Shira noted that the characters in Harry Potter either seek power, which makes them dominant but leaves them isolated, or love, which brings strength in the form of friends and family. She read the prophecy ‘Neither can live while the other survives’ as suggesting that no-one can pursue both love and power, and that characters who try, such as Snape, must ultimately commit to one or the other. Shira also spoke of the series’ secondary ethical paradigms: that people should be treated as an end, not a means, and that one’s moral choices are more important than one’s abilities. Judging by the questions and discussion following the talk, Shira’s presentation inspired many readers to go back to the series on interpretative quests of their own.

For more information on Shira's book, published last year by Palgrave Macmillan, visit http://us.macmillan.com/theriddlesofharrypotter. Our thanks to Shira for presenting this term while at Oxford as the Rothermere Institute's Drue Heinz Visiting Professor.

Sarah Iversen on Children's Dictionaries

This term I'm going to post a little summary of each presentation for those who were unable to attend on the day. Here goes...

In our first talk Sarah Iversen from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, presented on one aspect of her research into children’s dictionaries. Looking at a number of historical examples including Anna Murphy’s A First or Mother’s Dictionary for Children (c.1813) and Wilby’s Infant School Spelling-Book (1844), as well as Maria Edgeworth’s glossary appendix in Early Lessons (1801), Sarah demonstrated that children’s dictionaries of the period teach not just words, but also broader moral attitudes. Many of these relate to gender, with boys and girls constructed in different ways: playing with different toys, exhibiting different virtues (or vices), and destined for different social roles. Indeed, as Sarah explained, even when word definitions were gender-neutral, the accompanying pictures frequently gendered, say, pat as a masculine verb (and activity), pet as a feminine one. Sarah also gave a fascinating account of contrasting definitions of particular words across individual lexicographers and across dictionaries for children as opposed to adults. Thanks, Sarah, and best of luck for your upcoming viva!

At right, an example from Sarah's presentation: an illustration for the word strut from Wilby's Infant School Spelling-Book, and Pictorial Dictionary (1844).

Image copyright British Library Board, shelfmark RB.23.a.1641.