Doing Age

Von der Relevanz der Age Studies für die Kinderliteraturforschung

Abstract

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[English title and abstract below]

Wer sich mit Kinderliteratur aus wissenschaftlicher Perspektive befasst, kommt nicht umhin, über age nachzudenken. Age spielt in seinen vielen Formen und Facetten im gesamten System Kinderliteratur eine entscheidende Rolle. In Fundamental Concepts of Children’s Literature Research beschreibt Hans-Heino Ewers den Beginn der Kinderliteratur als den Moment, in dem Kinder als die Adressaten eines Textes benannt werden (vgl. Ewers 2009, S. 10). Perry Nodelman geht in seinem Buch The Hidden Adult der Frage nach, warum Texte an Kinder adressiert werden und rückt Konstruktionen von Kindern als besonderer, literarischer Nachrichten bedürfend in den Fokus.

Doing Age
On the Relevance of Age Studies for Children's Literature Studies

The act of addressing a literary message to children is often regarded as the genesis of children’s literature. Consequently, age concepts play a role in how children’s literature criticism constructs the recipients of this specific literary communication and assesses its literary messages. Additionally, age constructions shape the characterisation of literary characters and narrative structures of children’s literature. Therefore, this article posits that findings of Age Studies and Childhood Studies should be integrated into children’s literature theory. Recognising the importance of age for the analysis of children’s literature demands an understanding of age as an identity category (comparable to the categories of race, class and gender). In the vein of Judith Butler’s discussion of gender, this article claims that age identity is a form of performativity, which naturalises concepts of age via the repetition of age acts. Correspondingly, children must perform their childhood and make themselves intelligible as children. Children’s literature, in this conceptualisation, is at the forefront as a repository for and discursive producer of socially and culturally sanctioned ways ›to do‹ childhood (and other age roles). The act of buying or reading a children’s book can be defined as a way of ›doing‹ young age. Reading children’s literature thus makes the child intelligible as child.