The first thing that struck me about Flynn’s article is that he takes Hunt to task for focusing on denigrating those he disagrees with, rather than stating he disagrees with them and then moving on to a richer and more productive discussion advancing his own views. Hunt claims that children’s books of the past are not worth studying, and that those who do study them are engaged in an act of veneration rather than actual scholarship.

Though Flynn himself says snarky things about Hunt, he does so only after fully acknowledging that it is petty of him and he is doing it anyway. I liked that. Besides, Flynn goes on to actually advance a clear rationalization in favor of his own argument, not merely bashing Hunt as he claims Hunt did to others.

Flynn’s rebuttal of the claim that studying historical childhood is impossible, and that “an understanding of contemporary childhood is relatively unproblematic” is, I think, by now fully accepted by all of us in this class, as is his explanation for why childhood studies is practically applicable to contemporary childhood policies etc. “on the ground.” So I’m going to focus on a different aspect of his article.

On page 144, Flynn talks about the perspective of those outside the field of children’s literature, that scholars of children’s literature know they are putting themselves into a position where they are going to constantly have to defend the scholarly nature of their field to those who view it as childish and indulgent – a discussion we started the semester with. As Carrie pointed out last week, this article is from 1997 and likely does not reflect the exact reality of today’s world of scholarship in children’s literature. But it gave me some interesting ways to see today’s reality.

Flynn ends off with a call for “us” to “build better, more visible, and more inclusive networks to promote the study of childhood.” Looking at the history and trajectory of childhood studies, that does certainly seem to have happened and to be happening. The CUNY MALS program’s new(ish) track in interdisciplinary Childhood Studies is one indication, and many universities (Brooklyn College as an example) have some variation of Childhood Studies as its own major – and it will of necessity be interdisciplinary.

Flynn’s assertion that “exploring the idea of childhood – in history, in society, in literature and culture past and present – is important,” and that “disciplines in the liberal arts and social sciences seem best equipped to conduct the kind of intellectual inquiry required” seems to have been heeded and borne productive interdisciplinary associations and collaborations.

But the fact remains that for a very long while, attitudes such as Hunt’s prevailed. The “continuing condescension toward children’s literature in the academy” has not completely disappeared, even if it has begun to. And when a group of scholars convinced of the worth of their own field bumps up against such condescension time and again, it does seem only natural that they would close ranks in a sense, and form a coterie of like-minded people where they can turn when the discouragement from outside gets to be too much.

(Ironically, as I read Flynn’s article and started thinking about this point, I had an image which I realized I was characterizing in my mind as female – something that denigrators of children’s literature tend to do – to feminize the scholars in the field.)

Flynn’s conceptualization of “more inclusive networks” has, I think, come to be. And yet it seems to me inevitable that after years of encountering so much indulgent “oh, you, you’re so cute, studying children’s literature and thinking it means anything,” an attitude of closing ranks still remains to a certain degree. Certainly every field creates its own little community. But not every community needs to develop the fierceness as of children against an adult world, as they do in so many of the books we study, because their scholarly legitimacy was never questioned.

Of course childhood studies is important. And of course children’s literature is a huge part of that, both past and present. Though there are still academics who maintain an amused affection for scholars of childhood studies and children’s literature, the majority of academics fully recognize children’s literature as a legitimate field.

And still, that doesn’t erase all the years of having to repeatedly assert the legitimacy of the field. None of us in this class actually experienced that constant beating down that resulted in the development of an insular community banding together against the big scary world of literary academia, but we feel the effects still. I don’t think any of our colleagues question the legitimacy of the work we’re doing, so why do we still feel compelled to defend ourselves?

Well, because institutional/cultural memory is a thing, and because the critical texts we read are written by scholars who did experience that. Maybe our students will feel differently about the place of children’s literature scholars within the broader world of academia.

But even for me, when I’ve been convinced for a long while already of the importance of childhood studies, even of the importance of studying childhood in medieval texts, this article was important, as a stark expression of why we do it, as a quick encapsulation of what that importance actually is, and as a reminder of how we got to where we are now in childhood studies and children’s literature.