‘If We’re Being Honest: The Facts and Fictions of Children’s Literature’

The 2012 Biennial Conference of the Australasian Children’s Literature Association for Research (ACLAR)
National Library of Australia, Canberra ACT, June 20 – 22, 2012
Debates about notions of honesty, openness, innocence and agency have abounded in both the study and practice of children’s and young adult literature. The 2012 Biennial ACLAR conference will explore the contemporary tensions between some of these key debates, with particular emphasis upon the role of children’s literature in the digital world. Confirmed keynote speakers include Prof. Clare Bradford (Deakin University) and writer/illustrator Shaun Tan.
Presenters are invited to submit abstracts exploring aspects of the conference theme; ‘If We’re Being Honest: The Facts and Fictions of Children’s Literature’.

Special issue: “Children’s Literature Collections and Archives”

Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature

Globally there exist numerous specialist collections of children’s literature. These are variously located in university, public, and private libraries, museums, and archives. While specialist collections vary in terms of space, resources, services and documentation designed for children’s literature, their common purpose is to collect, preserve, and offer access to texts that have been published for children over many years. The advent of digital technology and the application of Web 2.0 technologies have extended the ways texts are recorded and distributed, as well as how users can interact with the collections. This special issue of Papers is interested in collections of children’s literature and related scholarship, in how collections are organised, managed and used, and in the relationship between these collections and academic scholarship in children’s literature. Some of the approaches to papers for this special issue may include (but are not restricted to) the following topics.

Memory, history and children’s literature collections/archives
Forgotten “voices” in children’s literature collections
Nature, value and use of children’s literature collections
Digital convergence
Children’s literature collections and Web 2.0
Writing from the archive
Copyright issues in selection and use of materials
Children’s Book Illustration as aesthetic history
Reading the past: (nation and identity; childhood; religiosity)
School readers, papers, and memorabilia
Subject or object? Aboriginality and/or ethnicity in children’s literature
Use and users of digital archives

Please note that Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature is a refereed journal and all articles will undergo a refereeing process.

Submissions due: 5 April 2012.

Please send your essay to: http://www.paperschildlit.com/index.php/papers/login

Papers is a free open access journal.

Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures

ONGOING 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 an 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:

- children’s and young adult literature and media;

- young people’s material culture, including toys;

- digital culture and young people;

- historical and contemporary constructions, functions, and roles of “the child”;

- and literature, art, and films by children and young adults.

We welcome articles in both English and French.

More information on how to submit papers and how to subscribe can be found on our website: http://jeunessejournal.ca. Our review essay and forum sections are open access.

The Child and the Book Conference, Cambridge

Towards Common Ground: Philosophical Approaches to Children's Literature

30 March – 1 April

In 2012, The Centre will host the eighth international Child and the Book conference at the Faculty of Education in Cambridge.

The Child and the Book 2012 aims to examine the foundations of children’s literature criticism. Taking a philosophical approach, we intend to find some common ground among the increasingly scattered areas of research, to think about definitions, and to work towards a more coherent framework. How can philosophical perspectives benefit our discipline? Conversely, how can children’s literature research contribute to the field of philosophical knowledge?

We suggest the following topics, though papers addressing the general theme from other perspectives are also welcome.

Metacritical approaches to the discipline
The empirical and the theoretical: building bridges between approaches
Generational transmission and educational ideals
Constructions of childhood and adulthood
The big questions: love, life and death, time and space
Knowledge, reason and imagination
Ethics and morality
Aesthetics
Identity, the self, and subjectivity
The mind and consciousness
Political thought
Nature and culture
Changing notions of humanity

Papers will be made available online to all participants for the month preceding the conference in order to facilitate more fruitful questions and discussion.

Submission guidelines

Please submit your abstract by 3 January 2012 to Erin Spring: ees34@cam.ac.uk

Abstracts should be 300–500 words and be accompanied by a brief biography. All abstracts will be peer-reviewed, and notification of acceptance will be sent on 14 January.

Full papers should be submitted by 1 March 2012 to to Erin Spring: ees34@cam.ac.uk
All papers will be available online to registered participants from 3 March 2012.