CFP - THE CHILD IN THE BOOK
November 16-17, 2012
Soochow University
Taipei, Taiwan
Children’s literature as a field of academic study has grown steadily in Taiwan over the past several years. Many other Asian nations have also seen a concerted interest in both the production and criticism of literature for young people. This interest has given rise to the creation of the Taiwan Children’s Literature Research Association (TCLRA), a distinctly Taiwanese organization in the process of formation that is dedicated to the study of children’s and young adult literature. The first action of the TCLRA is this conference, held in conjunction with the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA), that seeks to unite Asian scholars of children’s literature with each other and with scholars from regions where the study of children’s literature has had a longer tradition.
By focusing the theme for this conference on “the Child in the Book” we wish to interrogate the ways in which children and childhood are constructed in texts for young people from a variety of cultures and perspectives. What ideas lay behind the representation of children in literary texts? What assumptions are made about potential readers? If childhood is a shifting idea that is ideologically constructed, then how do these ideas shift between texts written by or for people in different national contexts? Do the historical ideas of childhood that have played such an extensive role in North American and European societies translate to other societies and cultures? While issues of childhood representations in all settings are welcome, of special concern is the representation of cultures and diversity in Asian contexts as well as with Asians in non-Asian settings.
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