Performing the child. Power and politics in children’s literature and culture

In turning our attention to the performance of the child in children’s literature and culture we want to consider the narratives told to children not only as meaning but also as action. Following this, the predominant theoretical starting point in this issue of LIR.journal stems from the interdisci¬ plinary field of performance studies as well as from the fact that performativity has turned into a commonly discussed topic in the humanities.1 Hence, the different representations and executions of children and childhood found in children’s literature and culture is here regarded as performative utter¬ ances that not merely reflect or describe the world, they also intervenes and participates in the shaping and making of it.2

The articles in this special issue analyse the ideas of children and childhood inscribed and enacted in children’s literature and culture. The question of how the child is performed is addressed not only in relation to the narrative text but also in the combination of different semiotic systems: the visual, the textual, and the presentational acting. By doing so the articles explore the implications and limits of different and alternative visions of what it means to be a child and what childhood is supposed to be.