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Posthuman Influences and Posthuman Characters in Children’s Literature

  • Posthumanism is an ongoing philosophical discourse centered around the theoretical implications if beings completely beyond human were to exist. Linked to examples from fiction, this outlook is often associated with complex existential reflections on the human race. In connection to children’s literature this paper draws on Zoe Jaques’ perspective that “children’s fiction offers a heretofore neglected resource for understanding cultures of the human and non-human and often questions the nature, parameters and dominion of humanity” (Jaques 2018, 6). This paper analyzes the influences of literary posthuman characters in children’s fiction. Following the thesis that these entities do affect young readers and the entire genre of children’s literature, this paper attempts to unravel how exactly they manage to be this impactful. Similar to children's literature, this paper takes a playful approach to posthumanism by analyzing beings such as talking animals, living chess pieces, sentient foods or monsters like the Gruffalo. The selected works, Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, Julia Donaldson’s and Axel Scheffler’s Gruffalo books and their possible posthuman implications are found at the heart of this paper. In addition to various examples of posthuman characters, this bachelor thesis offers an individual understanding of posthumanism with supplementary illustrations in the appendix. However, since the very nature of posthumanism is disputed and tied to different viewpoints, many of the included statements and conclusions cannot be considered as definitive. Consequently, this bachelor thesis is merely an approach to take hold of the posthuman influences in children’s literature.

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Metadaten
Author:Tim Eggensperger
URN:urn:nbn:de:bsz:751-opus4-6627
Referee:Elizabeth ShipleyGND, Robin LohmannGND
Advisor:Elizabeth ShipleyGND
Document Type:Bachelor Thesis
Language:English
Year of Completion:2023
Date of first Publication:2025/01/07
Granting Institution:Pädagogische Hochschule Karlsruhe, Fakultät A - Fakultät für Geistes- und Humanwissenschaften (seit WS 19/20)
Date of final exam:2023/01/14
Release Date:2025/01/07
Tag:Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; The Gruffalo; Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There; children's literature; posthumanism
GND Keyword:PosthumanismusGND; KinderliteraturGND
Pagenumber:45
Identifier Union Catalogue:1915632455
Institutes:Fakultät A - Fakultät für Geistes- und Humanwissenschaften (seit WS 19/20) / Institut für Mehrsprachigkeit
DDC class:400 Sprache / 420 Englisch
800 Literatur / 820 Englische Literatur
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - CC BY-SA - Namensnennung - Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 4.0 International