childrens literature

Call For Submissions
31st Annual Significations Graduate Student Conference
California State University, Los Angeles
Department of English

Conference Date: April 24, 2026
Submission Deadline: January 30, 2026

IN/ACTIVITY

Starting from a sense of our own activity as literary and cultural scholars, the organizers of Significations invite graduate students to share their work on the theme of In/Activity. We welcome submissions that interpret, examine, and analyze the theme broadly. Possible topics of discussion can include, but are not limited to, the following:

Call for Papers

Pets and Pet-Owner Relationships in Literary Texts of the Long Eighteenth Century

(Edited Collection)

Call for Papers

Translation and Interpreting Research (TIR)
Official Journal of the Research Institute for Translation Studies, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran

The Diaspora Child Strikes Back is a  multidisciplinary conference held in-person in Camden, NJ, USA, from June 11-13 2026. 

Announcement: Call for papers extended and shift to online conference! New deadline: January 7, 2026

Panel Title:
Transnational Black Childhood and Practices of Maronnage

Conference:
Rutgers University-Camden, Childhood Studies Department
“The Transnational Child Strikes Back: Transnational Desires and Childhoods of Empire ”
June 11-13th, 2026
Camden NJ

Organiser Contact Info:
Samira Abdur-Rahman, The College of New Jersey, abdurras@tcnj.edu

Panel Description:

The Area of Education, Teaching, History and Popular Culture is now accepting submissions for the 2025 Popular Culture Association National Conference to be held April 8-11, 2026 in Atlanta, GA.

Educators, librarians, archivists, scholars, independent researchers and graduate students are encouraged to apply.  Undergraduates are reminded that there is an entire area devoted to undergraduate presentations in which they should submit.  Undergraduates who wish to present a paper, panel or round table must do so under the supervision of a faculty sponsor, who must be included in the proposal submission.

Call for Papers for a in person panel on 21st Century Latinx Children’s Literature and Media at the 2026 Annual MELUS Conference scheduled for Thursday, April 30 - Saturday, May 2, 2026.

According to the last three U.S. Census reports, the demographic of Latinx/Hispanic children has grown. Most recently, Latinx children account for about 1 in 4 of all children in the United States.

Filmed and produced in Pittsburgh, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood is considered a classic of U.S. children’s television. In each episode, Mister Rogers talked with and learned from his (sometimes celebrity) neighbors before taking viewers on a Trolley ride into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, where hand puppets like Daniel Tiger and X the Owl sang, explored, and learned together. Through stories, songs, conversations, and educational video segments, the show invited children to learn about the world around them as well as the complex universes inside themselves.

Conference:
Children’s Literature Association Annual Conference
“Won’t You Be My Neighbor”
May 28–30, 2026
Omni William Penn Hotel, Pittsburgh, PA

Roundtable Format:

This will be proposed as a roundtable.

I am looking for 4–6 participants to give short (5–10 minute) provocations or reflections that will spark an open discussion.

Organiser Contact Info:
Samira Abdur-Rahman, Assistant Professor of Literature and the Environment, The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) 

Roundtable Description:

In the mid-nineteenth century, the literacy rates among women and girls were on the rise. This was due to changing attitudes toward educating girls and women and the increasing popularity and availability of reading materials aimed at girls and women. Authors such as Lydia Maria Child, Louisa May Alcott, Juliana Horatia Ewing, E.D.E.N. Southworth, L.T. Meade, and Sarah Tytler wrote works specifically for girls, from novels and short stories to periodicals and conduct manuals.

This edited volume seeks to provide a comprehensive and multidisciplinary analysis of the profound and often overlooked impacts of climate change on children in India. As highlighted According to UNICEF, India ranks among the most vulnerable countries to climate shocks, with Millions of children are affected by extreme weather events annually. This volume aims to move beyond a general understanding, and delve into the specific mechanisms through which Climate change threatens the health, safety, education, and long-term well-being of India's children.

AATSEEL 2026: New Orleans, LA - February 19-22 (Sheraton New Orleans)

When taking stock of the figures that dominated late Soviet popular culture, one would be remiss not to mention Cheburashka, Vinni-Pukh, and the Bremen Town Musicians alongside the likes of Alla Pugacheva and Viktor Tsoi. Animation represented a massive undertaking in the Soviet Union, with state funded animation studios found across republics. Both viewers and scholars alike have been drawn to Soviet animation’s diversity in style and ability to address what scholars such as Larissa Tumanov have termed a “dual audience” of children and adults, often concealing more subversive messages behind an innocent storyline. 

In recent years, publishers and children’s book professionals have registered a new enthusiasm for comic and graphic narrative forms. Graphic narratives as children’s literature offer an exciting new type of text for children and youth, providing important insights into the interests and capabilities of these youngsters as readers and as potential agents of change. Curiously, children’s literature criticism has tended to ignore or, at best, marginalize comics and graphic narratives for young people. This “blind spot” in children’s literature and comics criticism, as Charles Hatfield has called it on a number of occasions, is now being addressed.

After an enriching conference in 2025, Heavy Childhoods 2026 will run under the title “Curating Future Nostalgia inHeavy Times”