Childhood and Innocence in American Culture

This collection approaches the deconstruction of American “childhood” from a wide variety of critical, interdisciplinary lenses and gestures toward the construction of a more realistic, twenty-first century definition of “childhood”—one which is defined by the real-life struggles of childhood and not by romanticized notions of “innocence.”

This collection argues that the romanticized conflation of “childhood” and “innocence” in American culture has been on a steady decline at least since the 1960s--largely due to postmodern critiques of overarching narratives involving both “the child” and the “innocence” of childhood. Additionally, this collection highlights and analyzes examples of children’s literature and culture throughout the 20^th century (and into the 21^st) which pointedly defy traditional, idealized notions of “childhood”. Such an analysis serves to reiterate the idea that the romanticized notion of “childhood” which has pervaded American culture for over two centuries is little more than a cultural construction that bears little to no resemblance to the actual, lived experience of American children.

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