Description
Book SynopsisPhilosophical Children in Literary Situations: Toward a Phenomenology of Education argues that both phenomenology and children’s literature can assist one another in understanding the lived experience of children. Through careful readings of central figures in the phenomenological tradition, including Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, Costello introduces both the novice and the scholar to the phenomenological method of describing community, emotion, religion, gender, and loss—experiences that are central to all humans, but especially to the developing child. When turning to literary analysis, Costello uses the phenomenological theory discussed to open up the literary texts of familiar and award-winning children’s chapter books toward new layers of interpretation, reading such novels as To Kill a Mockingbird, A Wrinkle in Time, and Charlotte’s Web to participate in ongoing conversations about childhood perception within children’s literature studies and philosophy for children. Scholars of philosophy, education, literary studies, and psychology will find this book particularly useful.
Trade ReviewReaders who recognize in a child’s experience not merely an imperfect attempt at adulthood—but, rather, a unique and profound expressivity—will cherish the work that Peter Costello has advanced in Philosophical Children in Literary Situations. Costello’s gracious and deeply insightful book engages with classics of children’s literature while providing multiple, lucid points of entry into a richly-layered phenomenological method. He writes not only for philosophers but also for educators, parents, and researchers seeking new ways of understanding the complexities of gender, race, meaning, and community that shape a child’s perceptual world.
-- Jessica Wiskus, Duquesne University
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Chapter One: Charlotte’s Web, Temporality, and the Transitions of Growth
Chapter Two: Reading Russell Hoban’s The Mouse and His Child as a Phenomenology of Emotion and Community
Chapter Three: A Phenomenology of Sexuality and Movement in To Kill a Mockingbird
Chapter Four: A Phenomenology of Religious Experience in A Wrinkle In Time
Chapter Five: Towards a Phenomenology of Education in Merci Suarez Changes Gears
Further Reading
Works Cited
About the Author
