Feral children books | Reference books and source materials

FeralChildren.com says The impact of trauma on the child's developing brain.

FeralChildren.com says "The Stuff of Thought" is an exhilarating work of non-fiction. Surprising, thought-provoking and incredibly enjoyable, there is no other book like it - Steven Pinker will revolutionise the way you think about language. He analyses what words actually mean and how we use them, and he reveals what this can tell us about ourselves. He shows how we use space and motion as metaphors for more abstract ideas, and uncovers the deeper structures of human thought that have been shaped by evolutionary history. He also explores the emotional impact of language, from names to swear words, and shows us the full power that it can have over us. And, with this book, he also shows just how stimulating and entertaining language can be.

FeralChildren.com says Using tales of feral children (fictional and real), Kidd looks at the cultural perception of boys in modern American society.

FeralChildren.com says Writing about her own two autistic sons, the author also looks at cases of feral children.

FeralChildren.com says Includes a chapter that investigates whether Kaspar Hauser, the abandoned boy who claimed to have been imprisoned in a cell and given only bread and water, was really the missing crown prince of Baden.

FeralChildren.com says In one chapter of this work, the author draws a parallel between feral children and autism.

FeralChildren.com says Includes the paper The Linguistic Development of Genie by Curtiss, Fromkin et al.

FeralChildren.com says Imaginative and creative thought is what distinguishes humans from animals. It is what defines us as Homo sapiens. What it means to have thoughts, and what gives us the remarkable capacity to think, have been subjects of debate for centuries. In The Cradle of Thought, Peter Hobson presents a new and provocative theory about the nature and origins of uniquely human thinking.

FeralChildren.com says This collection considers the borders between humans and their imagined others: animals, women, native subjects, machines. It examines border creatures (hermaphrodites, wildmen, and cyborgs) and border practices (science, surveying, and pornography). Includes a chapter by Michael Newton examining whether Wild Peter had a soul.

FeralChildren.com says Includes the chapter: John, Genie and Kaspar: Some Recent Scientific Uses of Wildness, Confinement, and Abuse, by Benzaquén, Adriana Silvia.

FeralChildren.com says Condillac's Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, first published in French in 1746 and offered here in a new translation.

FeralChildren.com says Encounters with Wild Children: Childhood, Knowledge, and Otherness is a critical and comparative study of the stories of some extraordinary children, named "wild" or "feral" by the adults who discovered them: Peter of Hanover, the wild girl of Songi, Victor of Aveyron, Kaspar Hauser, Amala and Kamala of Midnapore, Genie, the gazelle boy of the Sahara Desert, and many others. It is also a historico-philosophical study of relations between adults and children. Wild children were 'received' by scientists and administrators as privileged objects of knowledge, believed to hold answers to fundamental questions — about the boundaries of the human, the character and significance of civilization, and the relation between nature and culture, heredity and environment. Regardless of whether it took place in 1730s France ('wild girl'), 1820s Nuremberg (Kaspar), 1920s Bengal (Amala and Kamala) or 1970s Los Angeles (Genie), the encounter with the wild child raised crucial problems of classification and diagnosis, knowledge-production, communication and language, and caring for the child. While the wild children unfailingly attracted scientific and popular curiosity and concern, they were given many different meanings and elicited varied responses. My dissertation analyzes these meanings and responses, which reveal much about the societies and communities that came in contact with each wild child. I trace the complex links between the wild child and the 'savage' as well as the ambiguous way in which the wild child functions discursively as a figure or example, sometimes of the extraordinary (at maximum distance from other children and the idea of the 'normal child') and sometimes of the typical (representing 'every child'). On the basis of a detailed reconstruction of the philosophical and scientific controversies in which wild children were enlisted, I argue that their stories have indelibly affected the history of the human sciences, the sciences of childhood, and the social and institutional practices dependent on them (e.g., school, welfare, mental health, law).

FeralChildren.com says In which the author ponders the difference between humans and animals, and specifically, the way in which language distinguishes humans from (other) animals.

FeralChildren.com says Includes the chapter: The Civilizing Of Genie, by Maya Pines.

FeralChildren.com says Includes the chapter: Extreme Deprivation in Early Childhood, by Skuse, D H, which talks about language development in circumstances of extreme deprivation.

FeralChildren.com says A book that started as a PhD thesis. Chapter 4, Feral Children: the debate on the limits to humanity discusses Feral Children in the context of the preoccupation with the origin of langauge prevalent in the 17th century, and in the debate over exactly what constitutes humanity.

FeralChildren.com says An outcast child rather than a feral child.

FeralChildren.com says In which Bettelheim uses feral children as part of his argument that autism can result from trauma in childhod, even minor trauma during a critical period if a child has a congenital predisposition.

FeralChildren.com says The story of how Armen found and followed a gazelle-boy in the western Sahara. (There is an audio book version of this title on cassette, but I haven't found a supplier.)

FeralChildren.com says One of the chapters covers language acquisition in isolated children.

FeralChildren.com says Being a narrative interpretation of the life history of Kamala, the wolf girl; based on the diary account of a child who was reared by a wolf and who then lived for nine years in the orphanage of Midnapore, in the province of Bengal, India. A somewhat superficial and half-fictionalised account with few photos.

FeralChildren.com says A collection of Texan stories, including one chapter on The Lobo Girl of Devil's River.

FeralChildren.com says A commentary thereon quoting North Indian Notes and Queries, March 1893.

FeralChildren.com says Reprinted in various places at various times, most recently in New Delhi in 1995.

FeralChildren.com says A history of England, mainly covering the years 1187 to 1224. Reprinted and republished at various times during the 19th and 20th centuries.

FeralChildren.com says 15 pages. A pamphlet that is impossible to obtain. Quoted extensively in Singh and Zingg, 1942, and reprinted in A Journey Through the Kingdom of Oude.

FeralChildren.com says A defence of Greek philosophy. A facsimile edition was published in 1977, and again in 2001 by Thoemmes (now Rachel Lee Rare Books).

FeralChildren.com says Translation into English of Buffon's Histoire Naturelle

FeralChildren.com says A translation of Histoire d'une Jeune Fille Sauvage… by La Condamine, which you can read online in full in French.

FeralChildren.com says Published under the pseudonym Madame Hecquet but in fact by Charles La Condamine. The later introduction and additions to the English version are also useful.

FeralChildren.com says A work of pure speculation about how Wild Peter might have survived in the wild.

FeralChildren.com says This was actually published anonymously.

FeralChildren.com says The full title is as good a description as any: The history of Poland in several letters to persons of quality, giving an account of the antient and present state of that kingdom, historical, geographical, physical, political and ecclesiastical ... : with sculptures, and a new map after the best geographers : with several letters relating to physick.

FeralChildren.com says Ross tries to defend traditional beliefs against the new scientific discoveries of his age.

FeralChildren.com says Digby presents a mechanistic account of the nature and motion of bodies, dealing with such issues as refraction and the movement of the heart.