childrens literature

Investigating Identities in Young Adult (YA) Narratives

Symposium on the 13/12/2017 at The University of Northampton UK

From JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, Young Adult (YA) narratives have grown exponentially over the past twenty years. Adopting a range of genres and platforms including the Bildungsroman and the coming of age teen drama, YA narratives represent a significant cultural means to explore the formation of identity in all its varied aspects. This one day symposium at the University of Northampton will investigate the representation of identity constructions in relation to narrative form in YA narratives both past and present.

BFS Journal 18

BFS Journal 18 is due out in October/November

The journal is a mix of articles and is keen to accept submissions from people who want to write about fantasy, horror and science fiction. Our focus is primarily the former, but our readers have interests across all three genres.

Academic articles for the BFS Journal should be between 2500 and 6000 words. We prefer nearer the former, as this is about the size of a conference paper. References in the text should be (Author, Date of Edition: Page Number) with a full publication listing for the bibliography given for each article at the end. Please don't use footnotes in your submissions.

Past, Present, Future: Medieval Monsters and Their Afterlives
Sponsored by The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture
53rd International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan
10-13 May 2018
Proposals due by 15 September 2017

Children and Childhood Studies (CCS) focuses on the societal, cultural, and political forces that shape the lives of children and the concept of childhood contemporaneously and throughout history. CCS research may originate in any discipline, including: the humanities, the behavioral and social sciences, or the hard sciences. We especially encourage multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary research.

Sensing Poverty: Visions of Vulnerable Children

All papers considering representations of impoverished children within fiction or film

will be considered for this panel. Topics relating to the conference theme of sight, visuality, visibility,

and ways of seeing are especially encouraged.

Representations of poverty and childhood within novels, comics, or films will be the subject of this

proposed panel. Topics relating to the conference theme of sight, visuality, visibility, and ways of seeing

are especially encouraged. Proposed papers may consider the experience of poverty (hunger, disease,

violence) for children; the use of language to create imagery and inspire empathy; interconnections with