Childhood and Pethood in Literature and Culture

<p>Bringing together new perspectives in childhood studies and animal studies this book<i> </i>is the first collection to critically address the manifold alignments and frequent co-constitutions of children and pets in our families our cultures and our societies. The cultural politics of power shaping relationships between children pets and adults inform the wide range of essays included in this collection as they explore issues such as protection discipline mastery wildness play and domestication. The volume use the frequent social and cultural intersections between children and pets as an opportunity to analyze institutions that create pet and child subjectivity from education and training to putting children and pets on display for entertainment purposes. Essays analyze legal discourses visual culture literature for children and adults migration narratives magazines for children music and language socialization to discuss how notions of nationalism race gender heteronormativity and speciesism shape cultural constructions of children and pets. Examining childhood and pethood in America Europe Asia and the Pacific this collection shows how discourses linking children and pets are pervasive and work across cultures. By presenting innovative approaches to the child and the pet the book brings to light alternative paths toward understanding these figures leading to new openings and questions about kinship agency and the power of care that so often shapes our relationships with children and animals. This will be an important volume for scholars of animal studies childhood studies children’s literature cultural studies political theory education art history and sociology.</p>