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Based within the Collection and Exhibitions Team at Seven Stories, you will lead a Knowledge Transfer Partnership project to create and embed a research dimension to the development of exhibition concepts and content at Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books. You will contribute first to the curation of a major temporary exhibition exploring the work of writer Michael Morpurgo (exhibition launching July 2016), and second to the development of concepts for a semi-permanent exhibition, drawing exclusively on material in the Seven Stories Collection, which will tell the story of British children’s books from the 1930s to the present day. Your role will be to research, identify and interpret content, setting it in a wider historical and literary context. A key business objective of the project is to increase visitor income by enabling Seven Stories to extend audience reach and engagement, in particular by appealing to a broader adult audience.
Candidates with a PhD in Contemporary Literature, ideally with a specialism in Children’s Literature are preferred. Experience of research in archives including reading and working with visual images is desirable. Suitable candidates with an Masters Degree will be considered.
The position comes with benefits including a £2,500 individual training budget and excellent management training. With the support of academic experts and a KTP Adviser, this is an excellent opportunity which will present an extremely interesting, varied and challenging role providing the potential for career development.
This position is fixed term for a duration of 15 months.
CFP – ChLA International Committee Focus Panel Session
43rd Annual Children’s Literature Association Conference
Hosted by The Ohio State University
The Sheraton Columbus at Capitol Square
Two abstracts will be selected, and the authors will be awarded a travel grant of $500 each. Those papers selected for the International Focus panel will accompany a presentation by the Japanese Distinguished Scholar.
Send 500-word abstracts accompanied by up to 250-word bios to the International Committee, Children’s Literature Association, at mbalina@iwu.edu with the subject line “International Committee Paper Submission.” The deadline for submissions is September 15, 2015.
Authors of proposals selected for the panel will be notified by October 1, 2015. The International Committee encourages those scholars who are not selected for the International Focus panel to submit an abstract through the general Call for Proposals so that Japanese children’s literature will become part of other panels at the conference. The call deadline for the 2016 ChLA conference is October 15, 2015.
CFP – Challenging Reading: English Language Education with Children and Teenagers
The TEFL team (Fachdidaktik Englisch) at the University of Münster is organising an international conference on reading as a deeply mindful activity,
Professor Victoria Murphy, University of Oxford
Professor Emeritus Junko Yokota, National Louis University, Chicago
STRAND 1: THE CHALLENGE OF LANGUAGE PLAY AND LANGUAGE CREATIVITY
Invited for this strand is research on the usage-based approach to L2 acquisition and extensive reading, stylistics, a focus on formulaic language, linguistic creativity, storytelling and metaphorical thinking, cohesion and repetition in literary texts.
STRAND 2: THE MULTI-LITERACY CHALLENGE OF MULTIMODAL LITERATURE
Research on multiple literacies, from visual literacy to film literacy, is invited for this strand, which considers the emotional engagement, intellectual, aesthetic, and linguistic affordances of e.g. picturebooks, graphic novels and film in EFL/ESL.
STRAND 3: THE CRITICAL CHALLENGE OF AVOIDING THE SINGLE STORY
The educational merit of literature that facilitates a change of perspective from a majority to a minority point of view, education in empathy, diversity and intercultural competence in English language education, is the focus of this strand.
STRAND 4: THE COGNITIVE CHALLENGE OF EXPLORING ALTERNATIVE WORLDS
The focus is on the educational dimension of speculative fiction, cognitive criticism and the epistemic value of narrative, the exemplification of alternative pasts and possible futures as developing dynamic learning and deep reading in L1 and L2.
Please send your proposal (max 300 words) together with name, title, affiliation and biodata (max 100 words) in doc format to: bland@uni-muenster.de.
CALL FOR PAPERS DEADLINE
Contact: Dr Janice Bland, University of Münster, Johannisstraße 12-20, 48143 Münster, Germany
Posted in calls for papers
Proposals for Volume on Teaching Young Adult Literature
Posted on July 27, 2015 by admin
Proposals are invited for a volume entitled Teaching Young Adult Literature to be edited by Karen Coats, Mike Cadden, and Roberta Seelinger Trites. This volume in the MLA’s Options for Teaching series aims to bring together a range of articles describing innovative and successful approaches to designing and teaching stand-alone Young Adult Literature courses at the post-secondary level, as well as incorporating YA texts into other undergraduate and graduate courses relevant to MLA members and Education and Library Science faculty.
This volume will be a resource for new and experienced teachers of young adult texts. It will provide suggestions for supplementary materials and pedagogical activities for a variety of student audiences in a range of college settings. Abstracts that use specific YA texts as examples to demonstrate how to teach genres within YA literature (e.g. graphic narrative, historical fiction, the verse novel, etc.) are welcome, as are abstracts that focus on themes, topics, methods, and problems in teaching Young Adult literature in various settings.
Your abstract should clarify your intended topic, setting, its relevance to the subject of Young Adult literature pedagogy, the texts, genre(s) or theories you expect to explore, and the value of your intended topic to a broad range of instructors and students. Please note that any quotations from student papers will require written permission from the students.
Contributors to a volume must be members of the MLA when their contribution is submitted in the final, approved manuscript, through publication.
If you are interested in contributing an essay of between 2000–3000 words, please submit an abstract of 350–500 words to Karen Coats at kscoat2@ilstu.edu by 1 November 2015.
Posted in calls for papers
Lecturer and Teaching Fellow posts in Childhood at UCL
Posted on July 23, 2015 by admin
The UCL Institute of Education in London, UK, is currently recruiting for two posts in Childhood:
The appointment will be FULL-TIME from 1st September 2015 or as soon as possible thereafter. This is an indefinite appointment.
Salary (inclusive of London allowance): £41,430 – £48,873 per annum
Your role will involve working with the programme leader and other colleagues to develop and deliver Childhood teaching and learning programmes (in particular the Sociology of Childhood and Children’s Rights MA), as well as developing an active research profile in Childhood. We are seeking to appoint someone who has a strong background in the sociology of childhood, or other related childhood studies disciplines (geography, cultural studies and/or anthropology). We are looking for a candidate who has experience working or researching with children and teaching in higher education. You should be able to demonstrate the potential to undertake high quality research to publish in leading peer-reviewed journals and the potential to raise research funding in their research area.
More details available at: http://tinyurl.com/qf7tkjd
Teaching Fellow in Childhood
This PART-TIME (40 hours per month), fixed-term appointment is available from 1 August 2015 or as soon as possible thereafter until 30 April 2016.
Salary: £33,353 – £40,313 (pro-rata) including £2,919 London Allowance (pro-rata).
You will provide tutorial support, formative and summative feedback, and marking for students on the Sociology of Childhood and Children’s Rights MA as well as plan and organise informal Sociology of Childhood seminars. This post requires someone with comprehensive knowledge of the sociology of childhood and a doctorate in a relevant discipline (if not, you will be in the later stages of your PhD and on track for successful completion, or have a substantial record of high quality publications that could be used in submission for a PhD by publication). You will also have experience conducting research with or about children and childhood, and experience of teaching, lecturing or other forms of public presentation.
More details available at: http://tinyurl.com/phr297a
Posted in positions and postings
CFP – The Child and the Book Conference: Children’s Literature and Play
Posted on July 21, 2015 by admin
THE CHILD AND THE BOOK
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND PLAY
UNIVERSITY OF WROCŁAW, POLAND
The cultural determinants of play — free participation, separation and closure within a defined spacetime, uncertainty, unproductiveness, conformity to norms or fictionality — center on the following vital elements: agon (competition), alea (destiny), mimicra (imitation), and linx (stupefaction). Are these elements reflected in children’s play and its literary renderings? According to Swiss psychologist Édouard Claparède (1873-1940), the child exists to play. To paraphrase this statement, does the child exist to read or to be read to? Does literature addressed to children fulfil their ludic expectations? Does it compete with toys, computer games and other kinds of entertainment that do not demand fluent reading skills or the ability to interpret texts? How does it function within the economies and consumption of children’s culture?
The conference will be organized by the Faculty of Philology, the University of Wrocław, under the auspices of the Department of Polish Studies. It will be closely related to the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Professor Jerzy Cieślikowski (1916-1977), a longtime employee of the Department of Polish Studies at the University of Wrocław. Jerzy Cieślikowski was the most distinguished Polish scholar in the field of children’s literature and the author of The Great Play: Children’s Folklore (1985). According to Cieślikowski, “play is the purpose of all the best things that children have taken from adults, what adults invent for them, what children create themselves, and what adults write for them. This is the seminal project encompassing children’s play, i.e. their creative efforts and re-creative endeavors, as well as their fascination and play with the word as such.” We invite papers related to the overall theme of the conference. Of particular interest are:
the child’s imagination and children’s folklore as sources of children’s literature
ludic adaptations and paraphrases of children’s literature classics
play in literacy education
play in picture books and toy books
reading as a pastime
linguistic playfulness as a stylistic device in children’s literature
case studies of children’s play with literature
reading as play in the new media environment
Please send an abstract of 300 words maximum and a short biography of 60 words to: childandthebookwroclaw2016@gmail.com (please use this email for further inquiries). Papers will be 20 minutes long maximum.
Deadline for abstract submission: 18 October 2015
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 20 December 2015
More information will be available before 31 December 2015
For participants from abroad: EUR 90
For participants from Poland: PLN 360
Conference dinner: EUR 30 (to be confirmed)
Hans-Heino Ewers (University of Frankfurt/M., Germany)
Kim Reynolds (Newcastle University, England)
Björn Sundmark (University of Malmö, Sweden)
William Teale (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA)
Emilya Ohar (Publishing and Printing Academy in Lviv, Ukraine)
Krystyna Zabawa (Academy of Ignatianum in Kraków, Poland)
Convenor: Dorota Michułka (University of Wrocław, Poland)
Secretary: Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak (University of Wrocław, Poland)
Secretary: Katarzyna Biernacka-Licznar (University of Wrocław, Poland)
Bogumiła Staniów (University of Wrocław, Poland)
Barbara Kalla (University of Wrocław, Poland)
Natalia Paprocka (University of Wrocław, Poland)
Elżbieta Stolarska-Jamróz (University of Wrocław, Poland)
Vanessa Joosen (University of Antwerp, Belgium)
Ǻse Marie Ommundsen (University of Oslo, Norway)
Marnie Campagnaro (University of Padua, Italy)
Georgia Kalogirou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece)
Ana Margarida Ramos (University of Aveiro, Portugal)
The Child and the Book conference annually attracts delegates from all round the world and offers a unique opportunity for postgraduate students to present their work and discuss it with established scholars. The 2016 conference will be organized in Wrocław, a multicultural city with a rich history, which will hold the title of the European Capital of Culture 2016. It has also been named the World Book Capital for 2016 by UNESCO. The Child and the Book conference will be a major contribution to the wide-ranging programme of cultural and scientific events related to these projects. As the conference dates coincide with the annual children’s book fair “Good Pages,” the conference programme will be flexible enough to enable the presenters to participate in this event.
Posted in calls for papers, conferences
Picturebooks, Democracy and Social Change Conference
Posted on July 20, 2015 by admin
Picturebooks, Democracy and Social Change
International Conference at the University of Gdańsk, Poland
(in combination with a PhD-Workshop on 16 September 2015)
Picturebooks as multimedial art forms have always been used to convey political, social, and cultural ideas on different levels. Even more so, when societies are rapidly changing and political events influence cultural and social movements in a national or even international context. It might be asked, then, how these issues not only impact on the content, but also on the visual, narrative, and formal properties of picturebooks.
The topic of the fifth biannual picturebook conference is inspired by the location of the conference venue, Gdańsk – a specific historical place, where the social changes of new democratic countries in Europe emerged in 1989. Gdańsk is also an important place considering contemporary East European history and culture, as well as because of the political and social attitudes of these countries towards freedom and democracy. The conference will take place in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Gdansk, which is distinguished for its research tradition that investigates social change and resistance, education policy, and social exclusion in education, including such issues as gender, cultural minorities, disability, and the educational construction of differentiation.
The purpose of this conference is to bring together scholars from different countries and different fields, (i.e. children’s literature research, picturebook theory, cognitive and aesthetic features of picturebooks, social sciences, history of art, linguistics, book history, and pedagogy), who explore various aspects of this newly developed field and who are interested in the conference’s main topic.
The draft programme is available here.
Instytut Pedagogiki, Zaklad Filozofii Wychowania i Studiow Kulturowych
For registration as a listener and discussant please write an e-mail to conference organization and transfer the fee: 100 € (or 400 PLN) to the following bank account:
Bank: Bank Pekao IV o/Gdańsk ul Kolobrzeska 43
IBAN: PL 59 1240 1271 1111 0010 4368 2415
SWIFT: PKO PPL PW
Bank: Bank Pekao IV o/Gdańsk ul Kołobrzeska 43
59 1240 1271 1111 0010 4368 2415
Important! Along with the name and surname of participant, please provide the following number in the message field on the transfer sheet: K792-15
Literaturdidaktik Position at the University of Münster, including Children’s Literature
Posted on July 9, 2015 by admin
This position is available from 01.10.2015 until 30.09.2016. For this lecturer position an understanding of teacher education and English language teaching (L2/EFL) in the secondary and/or primary school is essential. Therefore, as well as a formal TESOL qualification, experience of teaching children and teenagers in non-English speaking countries is normally required. The lecturer will be teaching six weekly seminar sessions (90 minutes each session) to ongoing teachers of English, at BA and possibly also MEd level. Seminar courses are offered over a 15-week semester, 30 weeks per year, and in Germany the lecturer is responsible for the entire seminar course as well as examinations and student supervision. Some seminar courses are introductory and cover a wide area (e.g. 2nd year BA), others are in-depth and on a narrow area (3rd year BA or MEd). This particular position is Literaturdidaktik – thus some of the courses could be on e.g. multimodal texts and film, poetry, an area of children’s literature, refugee literature, cultural studies, multiple literacies, extensive reading, or stylistics.
For information about this position see: http://www.uni-muenster.de/Rektorat/Stellen/ausschreibungen/st_20150307_sk12.html.
If you would like to apply, please send your CV, list of publications and relevant teaching experience at university and in school as well as copies of your relevant certificates. These documents should be sent electronically to Janice Bland, bland@uni-muenster.de by 16.07.2015.
Posted in positions and postings
CFP – Horrible Histories? Children’s Lives in Historical Contexts
Posted on July 7, 2015 by admin
Horrible Histories? Children’s Lives in Historical Contexts
16 and 17 June 2016
It is now over forty years since the bold declaration of psychohistorian Lloyd deMause that “The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken.” Stirred by such claims, scholars have subsequently tested the “nightmare thesis” for both the pre-modern and modern eras, locating children’s agency in unexpected places and stressing the contingencies of context, gender, ethnicity, age, class, caste and sexuality. Narratives of historic and contemporary institutional abuse, however, together with insights concerning the legacies of forced child migration, children’s labours and other challenging aspects of childhood experience, suggest that sorrow rather than joy characterises much scholarship on children and childhood. Should this be so?
In another context, since 1993 the phenomenally successful Horrible Histories books, stage plays and television series have helped introduce countless thousands of children around the world to the past. As their titles indicate, Horrible Histories also examine difficult and sometimes grisly historical episodes. Progressive narratives are at work here too, reinforced by children’s museum exhibits emphasising an emergence from the ‘dark ages’ of childhood in the twentieth century.
“Horrible Histories? Children’s Lives in Historical Contexts” is the launch conference marking the inauguration of the new UK-based Children’s History Society. Offering a forum for historical reflections from established and upcoming historians of children, childhood and youth, we also anticipate that this will be a platform for school-age scholars to reflect on the ways they respond to the history. This two-day conference invites paper proposals on the following themes:
Dealing with difficult history and heritage
Children’s histories and the longue durée
The ‘West and the rest’ in children’s history
Definitions of subjecthood and status
Archival approaches for retrieving children’s agency
The things of childhood
Children’s places and places for children
Play as protest, recreation and the ‘work’ of childhood
Children’s histories in museums, online and in the media
The histories of children’s places and places for children
Future trajectories for researching children’s histories
Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, together with a two-page CV, to both simon.sleight@kcl.ac.uk and M.C.H.Martin@greenwich.ac.uk by 1 December 2015. Applicants will be notified of the outcome in January. Panel submissions featuring three papers of 15-20 minutes apiece are also encouraged, particularly for panels showcasing in concert transnational and/or long chronological perspectives. Note that our definition of children is flexible, reflecting the multiple constructions through time of childhood as a social category.
The conference will be free to attend, courtesy of the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies and the Department of History, both at King’s College London. Further details will follow regarding accommodation options, conference-related activities and Society administration. If you would like to become involved in the running of the Children’s History Society, please email simon.sleight@kcl.ac.uk and M.C.H.Martin@gre.ac.uk to express your interest.
Posted in calls for papers
15th International Brothers Grimm Award Winner
Posted on July 2, 2015 by admin
The International Institute for Children’s Literature in Osaka (IICLO) is pleased to announce Perry Nodelman as the fifteenth recipient of the International Brothers Grimm Award.
In September 2014, IICLO sent questionnaires to 400 scholars in which they requested recommendations for candidates, and by the end of November 2014, the IICLO had selected 12 nominees. In December 2014, after researching these nominees and their achievements, the Japanese committee members narrowed the list of candidates down to the following four:
Roberta Seelinger Trites (U.S.A.)
In March 2015, a final meeting of the Japanese committee was held, and decided that the winner was Professor Perry Nodelman in Canada. The award presentation ceremony and Professor Perry Nodelman’s commemorative lecture will be held on 21 November 2015. At the ceremony, a trophy and a prize of one million yen will be given by the Kinrankai Foundation, a supporter of the award.
Dr. Perry Nodelman, Professor Emeritus of University of Winnipeg, is an exemplary researcher of children’s literature and picture books internationally. His main works published in book form are: Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books (1988), The Pleasures of Children’s Literature (1992), and The Hidden Adult: Defining Children’s Literature (2008), all of which are highly esteemed. Words About Pictures in particular has received international recognition as a groundbreaking work in the field of research on picture books. The Pleasures of Children’s Literature is renowned as a textbook for the research of children’s literature for university students and has been translated for publication in China, Taiwan, and Korea.
He was editor of the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly for five years (1983-87) and Canadian Children’s Literature/Littérature canadienne pour la jeunesse for five years (2004-2008). He also wrote many articles on children’s literature theory and reviews of research books on children’s literature, all of which contributed to development of research in the field.
He is also a writer of twelve books of children’s and young adult fiction. Among them, the four books of the Minds Series, written with Carol Matas, are works of fantasy which encourage logical thinking and have been translated into Japanese.
Dr. Nodelman taught at the University of Winnipeg in Canada for thirty-seven years and provided valuable support to many researchers.
Posted in members' news
IRSCL Book Award 2022- Applications open
Open Position: Assistant Professor in Global/Transnational Children’s Literature and Childhood Studies