Subjectivity in Asian Childrens Literature and Film

Winner of the Childrens Literature Association Honor Book Award This volume establishes a dialogue between East and West in childrens literature scholarship. In all cultures, childrens literature shows a concern to depict identity and individual development, so that character and theme pivot on questions of agency and the circumstances that frame an individuals decisions and capacities to make choices and act upon them. Such issues of selfhood fall under the heading subjectivity. Attention to the representation of subjectivity in literature enables us to consider how values are formed and changed, how emotions are cultivated, and how maturation is experienced. Because subjectivities emerge in social contexts, they vary from place to place. This book brings together essays by scholars from several Asian countries Japan, India, Pakistan, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Australia, Thailand, and The Philippines to address subjectivities in fiction and film within frameworks that include social change, multiculturalism, post-colonialism, globalization, and glocalization. Few scholars of western children's literature have a ready understanding of what subjectivity entails in childrens literature and film from Asian countries, especially where Buddhist or Confucian thought remains influential. This volume will impact scholarship and pedagogy both within the countries represented and in countries with established traditions in teaching and research, offering a major contribution to the flow of ideas between different academic and educational cultures.