Philosophical Children in Literary Situations

Toward a Phenomenology of Childhood

Peter Costello

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781978798557
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Philosophical 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.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Charlotte’s Web, Temporality, and the Transitions of Growth
• 2 Reading Russell Hoban’s The Mouse and His Child as a Phenomenology of Emotion and of Community
• 3 A Phenomenology of Sexuality and Movement in To Kill a Mockingbird
• 4 A Phenomenology of Religious Experience in A Wrinkle in Time
• 5 Toward a Phenomenology of Education in Merci Suárez Changes Gears
• Conclusion
• Further Reading
• Works Cited
• Index
• About the Author