J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan In and Out of Time

Celebrating 100 years of Peter Pan, this fourth volume in the Centennial Studies series explores the cultural contents of Barrie's creation and the continuing impact of Peter Pan on children's literature and popular culture today, especially focusing on the fluctuations of time and narrative strategies.

Celebrating 100 years of Peter Pan, this fourth volume in the Centennial Studies series explores the cultural contents of Barrie's creation and the continuing impact of Peter Pan on children's literature and popular culture today, especially focusing on the fluctuations of time and narrative strategies. This collection of essays on Peter Pan is separated into four parts.

The first section is comprised of essays placing Barrie's in its own time period, and tackles issues such as the relationship between Hook and Peter in terms of child hatred, the similarities between Peter and Oscar Wilde, Peter Pan's position as an exemplar of the Cult of the Boy Child is challenged, and the influence of pirate lore and fairy lore are also examined. Part two features an essay on Derrida's concept of the grapheme, and uses it to argue that Barrie is attempting to undermine racial stereotypes. The third section explores Peter Pan's timelessness and timeliness in essays that examine the binary of print literacy and orality; Peter Pan's modular structure and how it is ideally suited to video game narratives; the indeterminacy of gender that was common to Victorian audiences, but also threatening and progressive; Philip Pullman and J.K. Rowling, who publicly claim to dislike Peter Pan and the concept of never growing up, but who are nevertheless indebted to Barrie; and a Lacanian reading of Peter Pan arguing that Peter acts as "the maternal phallus" in his pre-Symbolic state. The final section looks at the various roles of the female in Peter Pan, whether against the backdrop of British colonialism or Victorian England. Students and enthusiasts of children's literature will find their understanding of Peter Pan immensely broadened after reading this volume.

Part 1 Introduction
Part 2 Part I: In His Own Time
Chapter 3 1. Child-Hating:Peter Pan in the Context of Victorian Hatred
Chapter 4 2. The Time of His Life: Peter Pan and the Decadent Nineties
Chapter 5 3. Babes in Boy-Land: J.M. Barrie and the Edwardian Girl
Chapter 6 4. James Barrie's Pirates:Peter Pan's Place in Pirate History and Lore
Chapter 7 5. More Darkly down the Left Arm: The Duplicity of Fairyland in the Plays of J.M. Barrie
Part 8 Part II: In and Out of Time—Peter Pan in America
Chapter 9 6. Problematizing Piccaninnies, or How J.M. Barrie Uses Graphemes to Counter Racism inPeter Pan
Chapter 10 7. The Birth of a Lost Boy: Traces of J.M. Barrie'sPeter Pan in Willa Cather'sThe Professor's House
Part 11 Part III: Timelessness and Timeliness ofPeter Pan
Chapter 12 8. The Pang of Stone Words
Chapter 13 9. Playing in Neverland:Peter Pan Video Game Revisions
Chapter 14 10. The Riddle of His Being: An Exploration of Pter Pan's Perpetually Altering State
Chapter 15 11. Getting Peter's Goat: Hybridity, Androgyny, and Terror inPeter Pan
Chapter 16 12. Peter Pan, Pullman, and Potter: Anxieties of Growing Up
Chapter 17 13. The Blot of Peter Pan
Part 18 Part IV: Women's Time
Chapter 19 14. The Kiss: Female Sexuality and Power in J.M. Barrie'sPeter Pan
Chapter 20 15. The Female Figure in J.M. Barrie'sPeter Pan: The Small and the Mighty
Part 21 Index
Part 22 About the Contributors