Edited Collection of Essays on the Intersection of Children’s Literature and the Horror Genre (DEADLINE: Abstracts due May 31)
(DEADLINE: Abstracts due by May 31, 2012; Submissions due by August 1, 2012)
Editor: Jessica McCort (Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA)
In many of the world’s most popular and well-known children’s tales, terrifying characters that belong better in a horror flick often rear their ugly heads. From the child-devouring Baba Yaga in “Hansel and Gretel” to the biting, snatching Jabberwock in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass to R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series, horror elements are everywhere in the child’s literary world. The knee-jerk reaction to such elements in children’s books is a simple one: frightening things scare children into being good. But in the best children’s literature in which these elements appear, new and old, the world becomes a Wonderland of terror and their inclusion borders on playful. This edited collection of essays will examine the intersection between horror and children’s literature, focusing on various examples of the horror genre infiltrating children’s texts. The book will concentrate on the appeal of horror for children and considers why it has been, and will continue to be, a dominant element in their favorite books.
This collection is intended for publication in the newly established series Studies in Children’s Literature with the University Press of Mississippi (http://www.upress.state.ms.us/).
Topics for the essay submissions may include, but are not limited to:
• Horrific Elements in Traditional Picture Books (i.e. The Monstrous in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are)
• Edward Gorey
• Christopher Pike’s Young Adult/Children’s Horror Literature
• The Domestification of Horror in Twilight and Harry Potter
• R.L. Stine as the “Stephen King of Children’s Literature”: Why have the Goosebumps books been so popular for so long?
• Lee Striker’s Children’s Horror Fiction
• The Creepers Series
• The Haunted Mansion: Horror Elements in Disney Films/Films Targeted toward Children
• Horror Motifs in The Hunger Games Trilogy
• Horror Fiction for Girls (i.e. My Sister the Vampire)
• Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book
• The Lemony Snicket Tales
Send long abstracts (500-750 words) and inquiries to Jessica McCort at mccortj@duq.edu by May 31, 2012. Please include contact information and a short bio that is relevant to the submission. If your abstract is selected for inclusion, you will be requested to submit a complete essay (up to 6,000-8,000 words) by August 1st, 2012.
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