Existing between Possibility and Impossibility: The Othered Indian Children's Literature of the Pre-Colonial Era
Title and/or Affiliation
Associate Professor, Anant National University
Presenter Bio
Diti Vyas is an Associate Professor in the Writing and Communications Department at Anant National University, Ahmedabad. She has received international accolades for her research by bodies such as the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) and has published in International Research in Children's Literature and Routledge.
Session
Panel: Sociocultural Constructions of Identity
Location
Zoom
Start Date
10-7-2022 11:00 AM
End Date
10-7-2022 12:15 PM
Abstract
The accepted evolution pattern of Indian children’s literature is beginning with the missionaries to the development within education framework, diversifying into magazines and to come on its own through entertainment-centric writing. This temporal progression credits the post-independence children’s literature with modernity, creativity and originality and others the body of precolonial material for children through either erasure, essentialization or derision.
By delving into the variety and plurality of this othered material for children in the pre-colonial era, this paper establishes the central presence of children in this writing, demonstrates how it employed dual address, freed itself from clear-cut moral schematism, and tailored to specific needs of children. I argue that the categorization of children’s literature as a distinct genre and the resultant age-based stratification of audiences created an impossibility of ‘children's literature’, smuggled in the essentialized notions of constructed children vs. constructive adults and brought in the patronizing double address. I seek to raise concerns about the existing definitions, permissions, segregations, omissions and categorizations.
Existing between Possibility and Impossibility: The Othered Indian Children's Literature of the Pre-Colonial Era
Zoom
The accepted evolution pattern of Indian children’s literature is beginning with the missionaries to the development within education framework, diversifying into magazines and to come on its own through entertainment-centric writing. This temporal progression credits the post-independence children’s literature with modernity, creativity and originality and others the body of precolonial material for children through either erasure, essentialization or derision.
By delving into the variety and plurality of this othered material for children in the pre-colonial era, this paper establishes the central presence of children in this writing, demonstrates how it employed dual address, freed itself from clear-cut moral schematism, and tailored to specific needs of children. I argue that the categorization of children’s literature as a distinct genre and the resultant age-based stratification of audiences created an impossibility of ‘children's literature’, smuggled in the essentialized notions of constructed children vs. constructive adults and brought in the patronizing double address. I seek to raise concerns about the existing definitions, permissions, segregations, omissions and categorizations.
Comments
Moderated by Liz Parker Garcia