childrens literature

CALL FOR PAPERS (updated May 2020)

Children’s Literature and Climate Change

Special Issue of The Lion and the Unicorn

Guest Editors:

Marek Oziewicz, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Lara Saguisag, College of Staten Island-City University of New York

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS

Alt KidLit: What Children’s Literature Has Been, Never Was, and Might Yet Be

eds. Kenneth B. Kidd and Derritt Mason (editors of Queer as Camp: Essays on Summer, Style, and Sexuality, Fordham UP, 2019)

We seek papers that explore all aspects of Children’s and Young Adult Literature, as well as those addressing the conference theme of cultures of collectivity. Considerations may be given to audience, race, technologies, body image, sexualities, disabilities, literacies, socioeconomics, immigration, rural/urban spaces, posthumanism, regionalism, and any other critical issues in children’s and young adult literature from any period and genre. Panel proposals are also welcome. The MMLA conference will take place in Milwaukee, WI November 4-8, 2020. Inquiries and/or abstracts of 250-300 words should be sent to Dr.

We are starting a national peer-reviewed undergraduate and graduate student journal, The Journal of Fantasy and Fan Cultures.  Our first issue is a special issue on Harry Potter and we are accepting academic essays and creative non-fiction submissions.

Submissions opened on February 1st and will be open until June 1st (extended deadline due to COVID19).    Submission is free. 

Submissions can focus on the Harry Potter books, films, other media, or any expressions of the fan cultures of Harry Potter, including fan fiction, art, sports, or fan communities of other kinds.  

Twitter: @horrifyingbook

Email: HorrifyingChildrenBook@outlook.com

There has been an explosion of interest in the impact of children’s television and literature of the late C20th. In particular, the 1970s and 1980s are seen as decades that shaped a great deal of our contemporary cultural landscape. Television of this period dominated the world of childhood entertainment, drawing freely upon literature and popular culture, and much of it continues to resonate powerfully with the generation of cultural producers (fiction writers, screenwriters, directors, musicians and artists) that grew up watching the weird, the eerie and the horrific.

Submissions for our first issue (Harry Potter) will be open from February 1 until April 1.  Submissions can focus on the Harry Potter books, films, other media, or any expressions of the fan cultures of Harry Potter, including fan fiction, art, sports, or fan communities of other kinds.  

You may submit once per issue for each category (creative non-fiction and academic essays). We are not interested in publishing fan fiction or poetry.

Submissions must be 2500-7500 words and, if scholarly, must be in MLA citation format. Please use Times New Roman 12 pt font. Current undergraduates and graduate students in any major or field are eligible to submit, as are holders of master’s degrees.

2020 MPCA/ACA Conference: Animation and Anime

Call for Papers. The Midwest Popular Culture Association/Midwest American Culture Association seeks proposals for papers and panels both on Western animation and on anime for its 2020 Conference, to be held Friday-Sunday, 2-4 October 2020 at the Westin Minneapolis in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  As animation and anime cover all kinds of storytelling, topics may include but are not limited to the following suggestions:

This guaranteed session sponsored by the Children’s and Young Adult Literature Forum welcomes proposals for 5-minute lightning talks introducing innovative, irreverent, revolutionary, or downright disorderly approaches to teaching children’s and young adult literature and culture in the college classroom. Scholars from across research areas and disciplines — including English, Education, Library Science, and others — are welcome, as are reflections on teaching young people’s texts and cultures in a variety of class contexts, from the undergraduate survey to the graduate seminar.

MLA 2021 “#OwnVoices in Children’s and Adolescent Literature”

Guaranteed Session Sponsored by the MLA GS Children’s and Young Adult Literature Forum

Toronto, Ontario

January 7-10, 2021

Panel Chair:  Brigitte Fielder

Deadline for submissions: 10 March 2020

CALL FOR PAPERS: *Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures*

Published by the Centre for Research in Young People’s Texts and Cultures (CRYTC) at the University of Winnipeg, *Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures* is a scholar-led, interdisciplinary, refereed academic journal whose mandate is to publish research on and to provide a forum for discussion about cultural productions for, by, and about young people.

Our scope is international; while we have a special interest in Canada, we welcome submissions concerning all areas and cultures. The focus of the journal is on the cultural functions and representations of “the child.” This can include, but is not limited to:

The Other in Narratives of Rival Nations

This panel seeks papers that examine the representation of the ethnic Other in literatures of rival nations or ethnic groups in twentieth and twenty-first century children’s and young adult fiction from around the world. How is the ethnic Other presented to young readers, and how are children initiated into certain cultural, political, national, or historical ideologies of the rival nation? 

Please join us in Charlotte, NC October 23-24 2020 for the 49th annual Victorians Institute Conference. This conference seeks essays that explore how Victorians saw their world, how they depicted what they saw, and the ways that modern scholars, in turn, see the Victorians. Papers or panels on poetry, prose, nonfiction, biography, digital humanities, or visual art are welcome, as are presentations on the pedagogy and ethics of teaching Victorian literature in 2020.

For a full CFP, see http://victoriansinstitute.org/cfp-for-vi-2020-in-charlotte-nc/

The Rebecca Harding Davis Society welcomes proposals for two sessions at the next meeting of the American Literature Association. The conference will be held May 21-24, 2020 in San Diego, CA.

New Directions in Davis Scholarship (2 panels)

We are interested in proposals that engage in any aspect of Davis’s work. We particularly encourage proposals that address some of Davis’s lesser known works, and we also welcome new readings of the canonical “Life in the Iron-Mills.”

Please send a 200-250 word abstract to Aaron Rovan (ajrovan@mix.wvu.edu) by Sunday, January 26, 2020.

Guest editors: Erika Hughes, University of Portsmouth&  Angela Sweigart-Gallagher, St. Lawrence University

Contact: intergenerationalperf@gmail.com