childrens literature

Young adult (YA) speculative fiction routinely engages with many of life’s most important questions: love, death, relationships, the future of the planet, identity, belonging, and our very future as human beings. Whether styled after the classical bildungsroman or otherwise, coming of age narratives in the speculative genre encourage readers to challenge existing power structures and advocate self-expression and self-confidence. They also return agency to those often divested of power by the institutional and social structures that restrict freedoms based on age, and recenter the adolescent as a critical social figure.

The Children's Literature Association (ChLA) is seeking proposals to review for inclusion at MLA 2023. 

Call For Book Chapters: ‘Bondian Drama’ and Young Audience

Edward Bond is one of the most controversial and prolific playwrights of British theatre. Throughout his writing career; the playwright has challenged the conservative standpoint of theatre and education institutions which, he believes, alienate human beings ‒ especially children ‒ from their inner self. He reveals the cultural, psychological, social and individual conflicts of human beings between their inner self and outer world by exploring the effects of violent acts in his plays some of which were staged at more than 60 countries all over the world.

CALL FOR PAPERS
SPECIAL PANDEMIC ISSUE OF NEW LITERARIA
An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities
ISSN- 2582-7375 [Online]

Editors: Dipra Sarkhel & Nisarga Bhattacharjee

We are excited to announce the CCYSC Blog Theme for June 2021: "Dis/quieting Imaginings of Childhood in South Asian Fiction and Film."

Reshaping the Middle Ages in, and through, Asian Popular Culture

Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture and the Mutual Images Research Association.

For Medievalism Today: 36th Annual International Conference on Medievalism, organized by the International Society for the Study of Medievalism and hosted by Delta College, Michigan.

Online Conference: 4-6 November 2021.

Proposals due 30 June 2021.

This book aims to provide the latest critical research within a relevant theoretical framework in relation to the representation/s of ideology/ies in electronic media including TV cartoons, animations, videos, computer and video games, which are designed for children and young adults.

The book will appeal to general readers, including researchers, professionals or anyone who is interested in cultural studies, literary studies, humanities and sociology. Therefore, contributions are welcomed in the fields (but are not limited to, as long as they are related to the topic of the book) as follows:

• Cultural studies

• Literary studies

• Media studies

• Communication studies

CFP: The Undead Child: Representations of Childhoods Past, Present, and Preserved 

Deadline for abstracts: May 15th, 2021

Contact: 

Craig Martin camartin@swin.edu.au

Debbie Olson debbieo@okstate.edu or olsond@moval.edu

Studies in the Novel seeks submissions for a special issue on “Indigenous Young Adult Novels,” guest-edited by Christopher Pexa (University of Minnesota), Angela Calcaterra (University of North Texas), and Eric Gary Anderson (George Mason University), to be published summer 2022.

In recent decades, research has repeatedly demonstrated the overrepresentation of boys and men in children’s media (tv and movies, literature, and games). This field of research has, justifiably, focused primarily on the impact of this inequality on girls and women and has grown to consider not only the quantity of representations but also their content.

We are putting together an edited collection on cultural productions by children, theorizing children as creators and exploring children’s cultural production as a crucial, albeit often understudied, area of children’s literature, media, and cultural studies. We have most of the contributors in place, but we are seeking 2 to 3 additional chapters to round out the collection--specifically chapters on performance, music, visual art, digital media, film, television, and/or handicrafts from any time period, with special attention to BIPOC children. Please note that we are seeking work on children, not teenagers.

EXTENDED DEADLINES | CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

Confirmed keynote scholars: Enrique Ajuria Ibarra, Xavier Aldana Reyes, Kyle Bishop, Kevin Corstorphine, Justin Edwards (closing), Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Michael Howarth, Evert J. van Leeuwen, Elizabeth Parker + Michelle Poland, David Punter (closing), Julia Round, Christy Tidwell, Jeffrey Weinstock (opening), Maisha L. Wester. 

Children’s Literature Pedagogies in an Age of Misinformation

Emerging from oral literature, folk and fairy tales are embedded and entangled within the very confines of human consciousness and are continuously rewoven into the fabric of cultural memory. Often categorised as stories for children, these tales not only provide vital information into the psyche and disposition of the human mind, but also enable us to understand social and cultural interactions. The vast imagery, motifs, and archetypes these tales produce enable them to be constantly re-conceived, reinterpreted, and disseminated. Even though folk and fairy tales emerge from differing cultures with diverse traditions and customs, they seem to share similar formation mechanisms.