The Victorian Era in Twenty-First Century Children’s and Adolescent Literature and Culture ed. by Sonya Sawyer Fritz and Sara K. Day

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-322
Author(s):  
Maya Zakrzewska-Pim
Keyword(s):  
Adolescent Literature ◽  
First Century ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Twenty First Century

‘The Worst Oratorio Ever!’: Colonialist Condescension in the Critical Reception of George Tolhurst’s Ruth (1864)

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (02) ◽  
pp. 199-227
Author(s):  
Sarah Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
First Century ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Parent State ◽  
British Colony ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Cultural Hierarchies ◽  
Made In

The oratorio genre was regarded amongst the most edifying and instructive artforms of the Victorian era, and it was to these lofty ideals that George Tolhurst (1827–1877) aspired when composing his 1864 oratorioRuth. The first work of its kind written in the British colony of Victoria, Australia,Ruthreceived an initially favourable local reception; Tolhurst was urged by the Melbourne press to aim higher and present his work to a wider and more discerning audience. Consequently, he took his work to London where it was roundly criticized, widely mocked and eventually dubbed ‘the worst oratorio ever’. It might be assumed that a work so poorly received in the cultural metropolis of London would be, like so much other Victorian music, immediately forgotten. However, through its notoriously bad reception,Ruth– in what Percy Scholes describes as a ‘succès de ridicule’ – found a cult following that has spanned from the nineteenth century to the present day. This article examines the critical reception ofRuththrough the lens of colonial social relations, arguing that the treatment ofRuthin both London and Melbourne is emblematic of broader trends in the nineteenth-century relationship between parent state and settler colony. It also explores the surprising phenomenon of twentieth- and twenty-first-century consumption ofRuthin Britain, questioning whether the legacies of certain Victorian social and cultural prejudices relating to the artistic products of the colonies have been mitigated. Aesthetic and representational decisions made in recent revivals of Ruth suggest that cultural hierarchies forged during the Victorian era continue to be reinforced in the present day.

Twenty-First-Century Feminisms in Children's and Adolescent Literature

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Seelinger Trites
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Adolescent Literature ◽  
First Century ◽  
Feminist Ethics ◽  
Cultural Perceptions ◽  
Material Feminism ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Ethics Of Caring

Twenty-First Century Feminisms in Children’s and Adolescent Literature employs methodologies from material feminism to demonstrate how feminist thinking has influenced literature for the young in the last two decades. Material feminism provides people with ways of thinking about the interactions among discourse, embodiment, technology, the environment, cognition, and the ethics of caring. This book thus applies the principles behind material feminism and interrelated manifestations of feminism (such as Critical Race Theory and ecofeminism) to texts written for the young to demonstrate how shifting cultural perceptions of feminism affect what is happening both in publishing for the young and in the academic study of children’s and adolescent literature. The work begins with a specific focus on how language and the material interact before moving to an examination of race as an intersectionally-lived material phenomenon and a social construction. How embodied individuals interact with the environment is explored through ecofeminism and the dystopic; how people interact with each other involves romance, sexuality, and feminist ethics. In other words, the structure of the book moves from examinations of the individual to examinations of the individual in social groups, the individual and the environment, and the individual within relationships. Overall, the goal of this work is to interrogate how material feminism can expand our understanding of materiality, maturation, and gender—especially girlhood—as represented in narratives for preadolescents and adolescents.

scholarly journals O ciałach, które się stają. Feminizm materialny w literaturze dla dzieci i młodzieży

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 259-272
Author(s):  
Adrianna Zabrzewska
Keyword(s):  
Judith Butler ◽  
Adolescent Literature ◽  
First Century ◽  
Karen Barad ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Susan Bordo

W artykule recenzyjnym omówiono monografię Twenty-First-Century Feminisms in Children’s and Adolescent Literature [Feminizmy XXI wieku w literaturze dziecięcej i młodzieżowej] (2018) autorstwa Roberty Seelinger Trites. Jego celem jest nakreślenie znaczenia tzw. zwrotu materialnego w teorii feministycznej dla badań nad płcią społeczno-kulturową w literaturze dla młodych odbiorców. Artykuł rozpoczyna się od przybliżenia sylwetki Trites i jej poprzednich prac. W kolejnej części przedstawione zostają różne sposoby teoretycznego ujmowania ciała w myśli feministycznej. Przywołanie stanowisk zajmowanych przez Susan Bordo, Judith Butler czy Elizabeth Grosz pomaga stworzyć odpowiednie tło dla podstawowych założeń feminizmu materialnego i teorii Karen Barad. Sproblematyzowanie kwestii ucieleśnionej podmiotowości kobiecej pozwala zarazem wykazać, w jaki sposób zastosowanie przez Trites feminizmu materialnego do badań nad literaturą dziecięcą i młodzieżową wyznacza nowe kierunki analizy i interpretacji. W dalszej części artykułu zostają omówione poszczególne rozdziały książki, w których Trites włącza do dyskusji perspektywy kluczowe dla współczesnych feminizmów, w tym m.in. teorię krytyczną rasy, ekokrytykę, teorię queer oraz studia nad niepełnosprawnością.

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