Confirmation of Candidature - Candidate : Louise Turner

While horse stories have long been a popular genre of children's literature, one category of equine fiction has largely been ignored and forgotten: the British pony book. Written almost exclusively by women authors, the genre is associated with its female protagonists - enterprising, independent, physically active young girls who represented an alternative ideal of post-war female identity. Yet, as a genre of popular fiction mass-produced by publishers, the pony book has often been disparaged and dismissed by critics, and very little academic attention has been given to the genre's brave, hardworking heroines. Taking a qualitative approach informed by critical discourse analysis, this project adopts feminist, queer and cultural materialist theories to explore how pony books subverted twentieth century gender stereotypes and provided girls with positive narratives of female empowerment. Exploring a collection of 176 pony books written between 1936 and 1989, this study will use textual and narrative analysis to draw conclusions about the disruptive and dissident ideologies of the genre. This project will contribute to the re-evaluation of the pony book as it pertains to expanding existing representations of girlhood in post-war Britain and offer further insight into the pony book heroine as a non-binary feminist role model. The findings will play a role in the widening recognition of the cultural significance of popular fiction, particularly writing for girls and women, challenging existing constructions of literary value and validating the worthiness of genre, series and mass-market children's literature.

For more information, please email the Graduate Research School or phone 0746 311088.