cfp.english.upenn.edu

‘A Game That Calls Up Love and Hatred Both’:
The Child, the First World War, and the Global South

1-4 December 2011

University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Australian Centre for Child and Youth: Culture and Wellbeing (ACCY) & Dromkeen National Centre for Picture Book Art

War ain’t no giddy garden feete – it’s war:
A game that calls up love an’ ‘atred both …
~ C. J. Dennis, The Moods of Ginger Mick (1916)

The Leverhulme International Network project, Approaching War: Children’s Culture and War, 1880-1919 (www.fww-child.org), focuses on the pre-war and wartime experience of children in Anglophone countries which were involved in the conflict or which were engaged in international discussions about the war, including Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and the USA. Three international conferences are planned: Australia, 2011; Canada, 2012; UK, 2013.

The Australian conference in December 2011 at the University of Technology Sydney will explore the impact of the First World War on childhood from the perspective of the global south. It will bring together researchers and practitioners to explore verbal and visual representations of war in the children’s culture of Australia and the global south, with special reference to the First World War but also considering other wars of the 20th century. Papers on any topic relating to the figure of the child and childhood cultures and war, with a particular focus on the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, are welcome. We welcome papers from a variety of disciplines, including English, Education, Film, History, Modern Languages, Sociology, and Geography, amongst others.

Participants are invited to submit 250 word abstracts for 20 minute papers on the conference themes. Panels of three linked papers are also very welcome. Topics for papers may include, but are not limited to:

● Children’s and young adult literature
● National and global ideas of childhood and nationhood
● Gender, the child and war
● Intersection of cultures of war and childhood cultures
● Constructing Empire
● Concepts of ‘home’
● Constructing otherness
● Changing histories and geographies
● The spread of conflict in Europe, Asia, the Far East
● War and federation
● Child/adult relationships
● Mother Country and ‘sons’
● Ambivalence and war
● Multimodal representations of friends and foes

The project seeks to further scholarship on countries drawn into the conflict by virtue of their connections to the British Empire, particularly those which have been under-represented in First World War studies. Conference papers from scholars in such countries are particularly welcomed, and some bursaries are available for those working in countries where support for international conference attendance has traditionally been low. Some bursaries are also available for postgraduate speakers from any institution. Please see the conference website for more details.

Deadline for abstracts: March 1st 2011
Notification of outcome: April 1st 2011

Abstracts should be submitted via email to: info@fww-child.org.

Project Website: www.fww-child.org