2nd Annual Lecture on Childhood Studies at Rutgers-Camden

"Trayvon Martin and So Many More: Racial Innocence Today"

Thursday, September 19th 2013, 7pm

Reception at 6pm 

Professor Robin Bernstein

When George Zimmerman saw Trayvon Martin, he didn’t see an innocent kid with candy.  He saw a criminal.  And he wasn’t the only one: even after Zimmerman killed Martin, who was proven to have been unarmed, some members of the press rushed to attach guilt to Martin, not Zimmerman.  As African American blogger Mia McKenzie recently wrote, “Why don’t our children get to be children? Why don’t they ever get to be innocent?”  Robin Bernstein’s talk answers this question.  She unearths the history of how white children came to be understood as innocent–and how children of color, especially black children, became seen as tough, non-childlike, and definitely not innocent.  And she shows how this history remains vivid today–for Trayvon Martin and so many more.

http://childhood.camden.rutgers.edu/annual-lecture/

*For those in the area who can attend it, I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the lecture. Not only is the subject matter far too relevant for our current socio-political situation, but it also adds to the conversation about the intermingling of childhood studies with children's literature studies.

CFP: SWPACA Children's/YA Lit and Culture Area -- "The Monstrous"

SWPACA Children’s/Young Adult Literature and Culture Area

35th Annual Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference

February 19-22, 2014

Albuquerque, NM

http://southwestpca.org/

Submission deadline: November 1, 2013

Submit proposals to: http://conference2014.southwestpca.org

Conference hotel:

Hyatt Regency Albuquerque

300 Tijeras Avenue NW

Albuquerque, NM 87102

This year, as we celebrate our 35th anniversary, we also introduce our new organizational name: Southwest Popular/American Culture Association (SWPACA).  Please join us in Albuquerque to celebrate with us the start of a new chapter in our organization.

The Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture area has taken as its theme “The Monstrous in Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture,” and solicits proposals dealing with the concept of monsters and the monstrous from literal, physical, metaphorical, psychological, spiritual, or ideological perspectives.  In keeping with the conference’s overall theme of “Popular Culture and American Studies: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” papers including some aspect of looking at “the monstrous” across time will be read with special interest.  We highly encourage “thinking outside the box” with this theme.  While papers addressing the conference or area theme will be given preference, papers addressing other aspects in children’s and young adult literature and culture will also be read with interest.

Scholars, researchers, professionals, teachers, graduate students and others interested in this area are encouraged to submit an abstract. Graduate students are especially encouraged and will be assisted in accessing any and all award opportunities the conference and/or associations provide.  Award categories can be found here: http://southwestpca.org/conference/graduate-student-awards/.  Upon acceptance of a proposal, I will send out information on which awards would be most suited to the subject matter of the presentation.

We would like to encourage scholars and students outside of the United States to submit proposals.  However, all potential presenters need to be aware that our conference rules state that participants must present their papers in person at the conference.  Given the more complex nature of international travel these days, we encourage international proposals be submitted as early as possible so as to provide enough time to make those travel arrangements.

All proposals need to be submitted using our conference submission database at http://conference2014.southwestpca.org. This database is used to send out acceptance notifications, organize panels, and put the conference program together.  It is important for all submitters to enter their contact information and presentation proposal information into the database to avoid confusion.

This area covers a wide variety of possible mediums: traditional book/literature culture, but also comics, graphic novels, film, television, music, video games, toys, internet environment, fan fiction, advertising, marketing tie-ins to books and films, just to name a few.  Proposals on fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or cross-genre topics are welcome.  Interdisciplinary approaches are especially welcome, as are presentations that go beyond the traditional scholarly paper format.

In addition, please check out the organization’s new peer-reviewed, quarterly journal: Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, which will debut its inaugural issue at the 2014 conference.  (Find more information at http://journaldialogue.org.)

Please submit proposals of 250 words and a brief bio (100 words) for individual presentations, or a proposal for a full panel (3-4 papers on a panel – please submit contact information, abstract, and brief bio for each person on the panel) to our conference database at http://conference2014.southwestpca.org.  

Proposal submission deadline: November 1, 2013

For questions or if you encounter problems with submitting proposals to the database, please contact Diana Dominguez, Area Chair.  Please put SWPACA in the subject line so I can filter the messages effectively.  

Contact info:

Diana Dominguez

Area Chair: Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture

gypsyscholar@rgv.rr.com

The University of Texas at Brownsville

CFP: Polish Children's Literature (country focus panel at ChLA)

Call for Papers:
Polish Children’s Literature
41^st Annual Children’s Literature Association Conference
University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina
June 19-21, 2014
Special Deadline: November 23, 2013

The International Committee of the Children’s Literature Association is planning a special country focus panel on Poland, to be presented at the 41^st Children’s Literature Association Conference, held at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC from June 19 through 21, 2014.  The committee invites paper proposals that focus on any aspect of Polish children’s literature.  Papers may focus on the origins of and/or developments in Polish children’s and YA texts;  Polish children’s literature in dialogue with nationalism and/or cultural traumas;  Polish folklore as children’s texts or incorporations of folklore in children’s literature;  trends in contemporary Polish YA fiction and non-fiction;  Polish children’s authors and traditions in conversation with other traditions in Central/Eastern Europe and beyond;  translations of Polish children’s texts into English, or the state of children’s literature studies in Poland.  Preference will be given to proposals with the potential to inspire American and international scholars to develop active interest in Polish children’s literature and to integrate it into their own research.

The authors of two papers selected for the panel to accompany a presentation by the Polish Distinguished Scholar (invited by the committee) will be awarded a $500 travel grant each.  The papers must be presented in English and must not exceed the twenty-minute reading time.  The committee strongly encourages ChLA members and other scholars with an interest in Polish children’s literature to submit paper proposals for the session.  Send 500-word abstracts accompanied by up to 250-word bios to the International Committee, Children’s Literature Association, at info@childlitassn.org with the subject line “International Committee Paper Submission.”  The deadline for submissions is November 23, 2013.

Authors will be notified by December 30, 2013 whether their papers have been selected as part of the panel.  Authors whose papers cannot be accommodated in the panel may then choose to re-submit their papers through the general call;  the deadline for submitting proposals to the 2014 ChLA conference is January 15, 2014.

Career Opportunity: Asst and Associate Professor, Childhood Studies

Title: ASSISTANT and ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, CHILDHOOD STUDIES

Institution: Rutgers University—Camden

Start Date: September 2014

ASSISTANT and ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, CHILDHOOD STUDIES.  The Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University—Camden, New Jersey, USA invites applications for two positions:  Assistant Professor (tenure-track) and Associate Professor (tenured) of Childhood Studies to commence on 1st September 2014.

Building on the strengths of its established, internationally recognized program, the Department seeks outstanding scholars whose research interests and projects address the lives or contexts of children and childhood from an interdisciplinary perspective.  All areas in the social sciences and humanities are welcome, including interdisciplinary fields such as performance studies, gender studies and disability studies. The disciplinary affiliation of an applicant is of less importance than the quality of his/her research and the demonstrated appreciation for multidisciplinary approaches to the study of children and childhood.  We are particularly interested in receiving applications from those whose work addresses the following areas, broadly conceived, and can speak to both national and transnational contexts: children’s sexualities, literacies, media, health behavior, geographies and disabilities.  We seek applicants with experience supervising doctoral students and interest in contributing to leadership roles within the department.

Established in 2007 as the first doctoral-granting granting program in childhood studies in the USA, the Department graduated its first Ph.D. students in May 2013. Childhood Studies offers a robust, multidisciplinary curriculum for BA, MA, and Ph.D. degrees.  The Department has hosted several major international conferences, sponsors an array of lectures and symposia, and annually welcomes visiting scholars from around the world. It enjoys an active faculty and graduate student body whose work often integrates scholarship with social engagement.

Rutgers University—Camden, a beautiful, urban campus expanding to accommodate the growth of Southern New Jersey, is located just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.  Rutgers is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.  The University and our Department seek to attract an active, culturally diverse faculty of the highest caliber.  Women and minorities are strongly encouraged to apply.

Candidates can learn about the campus and the Department of Childhood Studies at http://childhood.camden.rutgers.edu/ and by contacting Department Chair, Dr. Lynne Vallone. Applications should include a cover letter indicating the ways in which their research adds to the Department’s strengths and focusing on how their teaching and research may enhance a multidisciplinary program, along with a CV and no more than two publications for the Associate Professor position and one for the Assistant Professor position.  Applicants to the Assistant Professor position should forward three letters of recommendation while applicants to the Associate Professor position should forward a list of at least three potential referees.  Applications—electronic submissions are encouraged—should be sent to cstudies@camden.rutgers.edu or to Dr. Lynne Vallone, Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, 405-407 Cooper Street, Camden, NJ 08102 USA.  The positions will remain open until filled, but completed applications received by 7 November 2013 will receive fullest consideration.

CFP: Mothers in Children's and YA Literature

Call for Papers:
Mothers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Edited by Lisa Rowe Fraustino and Karen Coats

Arguably, the most powerful figure in a child’s life is the mother, whether she is present or absent. How have mothers been represented in literature produced for and shared with children and young adults, from the oral tales of the preprint era to the present? What attitudes toward mothers and motherhood are reflected by the texts? What maternal ideologies are inscribed in young readers, and does the genre or target audience make a difference? In what ways do the books themselves, often written by women, serve as metaphorical mothers for their readers?

For this proposed collection, we seek essays from a range of theoretical perspectives that address depictions of mothers, stepmothers, adoptive mothers, foster mothers, anthropomorphized mothers, stand-ins for mothers, metaphorical mothers, and “other” mothers in nursery rhymes, fairy tales, childhood lore, picture books, early reader chapter books, middle grade fiction, young adult novels, and film adapations of classic texts to examine how the field of children’s and YA literature contributes to the phenomenon Nancy Chodorow coined “the reproduction of mothering.”

350-500 word chapter proposals are due by November 30th, 2013. Proposals should be for original works not previously published (including in conference proceedings) and that are not currently under consideration for another edited collection or journal. If the essay is accepted for the collection, a full draft (5000-7000 words) will be required by May 15th, 2014. Editors are happy to discuss ideas priot to the deadline.

Proposals and Final Essays should be submitted to:
Lisa Rowe Fraustino: FraustinoL@easternct.edu
Karen Coats: kscoat2@ilstu.edu

Conference: "Putting the Figure on the Map," in September 2013

“Putting the Figure on the Map: Imagining Sameness and Difference for Children”

Interdisciplinary Conference hosted by the Cotsen Children's Library at Princeton University

September 11-13, 2013 

This interdisciplinary program co-organized by Emer O’Sullivan (Leuphana University Lüneburg) and Andrea Immel (Cotsen Children's Library Princeton) will draw on the approaches in imagology, history, anthropology, psychology, and literary criticism. It will focus on modes of expression arising within or without the classroom that either target children or appropriate discourses for them that create competing, complimentary, or contradictory images of foreign nations and their peoples. The program will also feature a session where primary resources from the Cotsen collection will be highlighted.    

Visit the conference website at  http://www.princeton.edu/cotsen/research-collection/academic-conferences/imagining/ for a list of presenters, short biographies, abstracts and the conference schedule. 

Registration:  free to Princeton University students, faculty and staff; $25 for all others.  You may register online at the conference site.

For more information, please contact Andrea Immel aimmel@princeton.edu or Emer O'Sullivan osullivan@uni-lueneburg.de 

CFP for Diana Wynne Jones Memorial Conference

A Fantastic Legacy: Diana Wynne Jones Memorial Conference
Newcastle, UK, September 5-6, 2014

Diana Wynne Jones was one of the most outstanding 20^th-century writers of British children’s fantasy. She is widely recognised among scholars, writers and fans of science fiction and fantasy as a truly ground-breaking writer who made a significant contribution to the genres in which she operated, and her death in 2011 was deeply mourned. This international conference will celebrate her life, and evaluate her contribution to children’s literature, fantasy and science fiction.
We are currently seeking papers on any aspect of Diana’s life and work, including but not limited to:

• Her contribution to changing ideas of genre, audience, and form in fantasy and science fiction. 
• Her contribution to children’s literature, and her engagement with and empowerment of the child reader. 
• Her status as a female fantasy writer, and the ways in which she engaged with the gender discourse within fantasy and science fiction. 
• Publishing history and the commercial and creative forces affecting experimental and boundary-breaking work. 
• Translations of her books, and the international context and reception of her work.

In 2010, Diana donated her archive to Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books. The collection contains stories and other compositions written by Jones when she was a child; draft material relating to 49 published works by Jones, including novels and short stories; draft material relating to numerous unpublished works, including plays, novels and poetry; correspondence and personal papers, including professional correspondence; drafts of articles and talks by or about Jones; and copies of some of Jones' published works, including some foreign language editions. We are particularly interested in papers which make use of this material.

Participants are invited to submit 100-250 word abstracts for 20 minute papers via our online contact form - http://forms.ncl.ac.uk/view.php?id=4895

Deadline for abstracts: 28 March 2014

Notification of outcome: 28 April 2014

Abstracts should be submitted in doc, docx, or odt form via our online contact form - http://forms.ncl.ac.uk/view.php?id=4895

You can explore the contents of the Diana Wynne Jones Collection via the Seven Stories catalogue: http://collection.sevenstories.org.uk/home/. Contact collections@sevenstories.org.uk to arrange access.

Conference website: http://conferences.ncl.ac.uk/dwj