Contesting Childhood

Kate Douglas

Published by Rutgers University Press 2010

Contesting Childhood

Autobiography, Trauma, and Memory

Kate Douglas

In the series Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813549156

Overview
Contents

About this book

The late 1990s and early 2000s witnessed a surge in the publication and popularity of autobiographical writings about childhood. Linking literary and cultural studies, Contesting Childhood draws on a varied selection of works from a diverse range of authorsùfrom first-time to experienced writers. Kate Douglas explores Australian accounts of the Stolen Generation, contemporary American and British narratives of abuse, the bestselling memoirs of Andrea Ashworth, Augusten Burroughs, Robert Drewe, Mary Karr, Frank McCourt, Dave Pelzer, and Lorna Sage, among many others.

Drawing on trauma and memory studies and theories of authorship and readership, Contesting Childhood offers commentary on the triumphs, trials, and tribulations that have shaped this genre. Douglas examines the content of the narratives and the limits of their representations, as well as some of the ways in which autobiographies of youth have become politically important and influential. This study enables readers to discover how stories configure childhood within cultural memory and the public sphere.

Author information

Kate Douglass is a senior lecturer in the department of English, creative writing, and Australian studies at Flinders University, South Australia. She is the coeditor of Trauma Texts.

Reviews

"Douglas offers a rich trove of insights into how versions of childhood are sold to fulfill a range of political purposes, both progressive and regressive, and how speaking through the voice of the traumatized child makes it difficult to tell the difference."

— Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: Constructing Childhood, Contesting Childhood Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Creating Childhood: Autobiography and Cultural Memory Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	19
2. Consuming Childhood: Buying and Selling the Autobiographical Child Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	43
3. Authoring Childhood: The Road to Recovery and Redemption Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	67
4. Scripts for Remembering: Childhoods and Nostalgia Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	84
5. Scripts for Remembering: 106 Traumatic Childhoods Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	106
6. Ethics: Writing about Child Abuse, Writing about Abusive Parents Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	131
7. The Ethics of Reading: Witnessing Traumatic Childhoods Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	150
Conclusion: Writing Childhood in the Twenty-first Century Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	170
Notes Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	181
Works Cited Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	195
Index Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	211
About the author Requires Authentication Licensed Download PDF	225

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 236
Illustrations
- Other: 15

eBook

Published: January 21, 2010
ISBN: 9780813549156