Democracy
The narrative mode of democracy includes, according to Taylor, such concepts as the free ability of decision-making on a rational basis as well as an orientation towards mutual consent and benefit. The rationally determining, mature individual is the agent of this narrative mode; his actions are directed towards society, respectively towards a common good. Thus, important elements of this mode are maturation and socialisation processes, and specifically ethical behaviour and decisions. According to Appadurai, ‘democracy’ has been a “master term” (36) of the ideological landscape since the Enlightenment: the term is defined by values of liberty, charity, justice, sovereignty, and representation. However, the term has gained differing forms of expression due to global circulation, which might deviate from its European and American origin (cf. Appadurai 36f).
Consequently, the here located sub-projects are interested in the representation of decision processes and the ethical-moral basis of actions of protagonists in novels for children and young adults. Are, for example, rational decision processes favoured in opposition to intuitive-emotional ones? Do protagonists perform developmental and maturation processes? Is the maturity of decision-making and the capacity to act defined age specifically? Where are positively valued moral orders located – within the individual or society? Does the moral order concentrate on consent and community or are autonomy and dissociation of a (strong) individual favoured as antithesis to society? Does the individual completely dissolve in his affiliation to a certain branch of society and if so, how is this process evaluated?
Such texts that focus on the relation of individual and social groups should form the textual basis for this scope of work. Amongst others, these are family stories, Bildungsromane and stories of initiation, so-called ‘problem novels’ since the 1960s and, to a certain extent, adventure novels.
It is of importance for the historically oriented sub-project, eventually by considering genre specifics, to detect in how far the ‘democratic’ narrative mode sets specific priorities in British ChL and how these are influenced by historic change. The synchronous profile will particularly focus on the ‘problem novels’, whereby, regarding the current state of research as well as the overall aim of the project, those novels should be centred on those negotiating the opposition of individual and society outside the private framework of the family. With view to the connection of social imaginary and canonicity should the relation of canonical status and respective accentuation of the narrative mode be under examination. Are e.g. changes of the canonical status of texts justifiable because of a shift in the social imaginary and the resulting positioning of these texts concerning the imaginary?
PhD Project
"Negotiations of Individual and Community in British Children's and Young Adult Adventure Stories" (working title)
Simone Herrmann, M.A.
Abstract
When in 2019 Defoe's Robinson Crusoe will celebrate its 300th anniversary, the (British) Robinsonade will nearly be as old. The genre has persisted until today, especially in children's literature. During such a great span of time, adaptations of Robinson Crusoe were varyingly influenced by the respective moral orders of different eras. The isolation of the shipwrecked protagonists in these Robinsonades offers a secluded microcosm well–suited for social experiments. This setting requires the protagonists to negotiate in cohabitation. The twentieth century has brought forth a broad variety of children's Robinsonades beyond William Golding's utopian Lord of the Flies (1954). Do they live for a mutual benefit instead of domination? Are the (child) protagonists capable of formulating a moral basis for their actions without adult characters? Are their decision evaluated as ethically and morally correct? And by whom? These are some of the questions which will be addressed in the project at hand.
The second half of the twentieth century and the beginning twenty-first century for example feature norms informed by altruistic behaviour in favour of society and general public interest, as can e.g. be found in Terry Pratchett's Nation (2009). Texts up to 1950, like Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons (1930) or Dale Collins' Robinson Carew Castaway (1948), continue for instance Robinson Crusoe's focus on a strong individual, though protagonists still act according to democratic values such as tolerance and equality within their smaller community. Of particular interest will also be the favoured social forms of the new context: while Defoe characterises his Crusoe as sole sovereign and patriarch of his island kingdom, post-1900 texts feature substantially more open and equal social forms, which also include ethnic encounters. Accordingly, decision-making processes become more democratic: modes like contracts, free elections including all community members and consensual strategies of argumentation become increasingly favoured representations, culminating in the latest and most abstract narrative of the corpus, Dave Shelton's A Boy and a Bear in a Boat (2012).