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Cara Byrne Dissertation Final .pdf (34.36 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Illustrating the Smallest Black Bodies: The Creation of Childhood in African American Children’s Literature, 1836 – 2015

Byrne, Cara
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1458747705

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, English.
Black children have had to contend with myriad visual representations of their bodies in popular media, from photographs in newspapers of young black children marching for civil rights to cartoons in popular picture books of grotesquely caricatured black children killing themselves. For several centuries, authors and illustrators of African American children’s literature have recognized the power of these images and have subsequently created their own picture books that establish black children as political agents deserving rights. With a particular interest in picture books authored by canonical African American writers, including Langston Hughes, Alice Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, and James Baldwin, this dissertation examines visual representations of black children in African American children’s literature from 1836 to 2015. In order to investigate how images communicate belief systems, function in a different rhetorical framework than works created chiefly for adult audiences, and redefine previously constructed visual statements, this study is framed by a chronologically-ordered investigation of African American children’s literature. I argue that picture books carry messages about the frailty or strength of the black child’s body, ultimately affecting larger assumptions about black childhood and racial identity.
Thrity Umrigar (Advisor)
T. Kenny Fountain (Committee Member)
Mary Grimm (Committee Member)
Renee Sentilles (Committee Member)
331 p.
African American Studies; American Literature; Black History; Black Studies; Gender Studies; Literature; Rhetoric
Childrens literature; African American studies; visual rhetoric; American literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Byrne, C. (2016). Illustrating the Smallest Black Bodies: The Creation of Childhood in African American Children’s Literature, 1836 – 2015 [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1458747705

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Byrne, Cara. Illustrating the Smallest Black Bodies: The Creation of Childhood in African American Children’s Literature, 1836 – 2015. 2016. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1458747705.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Byrne, Cara. "Illustrating the Smallest Black Bodies: The Creation of Childhood in African American Children’s Literature, 1836 – 2015." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1458747705

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1458747705
271
© 2016, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.