Call for Papers and Upcoming Children's Literature Conferences

Whether you’re knee-deep or neck-deep in final projects or outlining your final papers during this busy semester, there’s always time for some literary scholarship (says the graduate student currently neck-deep in all things literature). To make things a little easier, we’ve gathered a list of future conference proposals and calls-for-papers that includes children’s literature topics. 

The Children’s Literature Society and the American Literature Association

Event: 27th Annual Conference
Dates: May 26-29, 2016
Location: The Hyatt Regency, San Francisco

Panel 1: Children’s Literature Adaptations: Musicals (both theatrical and film).

Children’s literature has had a long history of adaptation transformations—from early Shirley Temple films to comic books and most recently to musicals; e.g., Shrek, Wicked, Once Upon A Mattress, Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Jungle Book, Tarzan, Wizard of Oz/The Wiz, Hansel and Gretel, Into the Woods, Annie. This panel explores the ways musical adaptations of children’s texts change the original tale and are revelatory of changes in social/cultural considerations that include the changing dynamic of the construction of childhood, adults, and family.

Instructions:

• Please include academic rank and affiliation, as well as AV requests.
• Send abstracts or proposals (~300 words) by January 15, 2016 via email to: Dorothy Clark (dorothy.g.clark@csun.edu) and Linda Salem (lsalem@mail.sdsu.edu)

Panel 2: Children’s Literature Adaptations—Part 2: Digital Transformations—From TV and Film to New Media

New media has entered the world of children’s literature adaptation in stunning ways. From video games to tablet and smartphone apps to YouTube videos and more, “story” is finding new formats and “reading” has gone from a passive immersive experience to a more interactive one. Multimodal storytelling—unique meshing of “old” media (e.g., print text, TV, film) with “new” media are transforming our understanding of adaptation, creating new formats, genres. This panel explores this new world of children’s literature adaptation, including a bit of the “old world” of media (print/television/film) as it also transforms to adapt to new media. In reflecting on this new world of adaptation, consider for example: What happens to the original story? How is narrative changing? What is the role of reader/writer? Does this new domain reflect changes in social-cultural understandings of childhood, adult, family?

Instructions:

• Please include academic rank and affiliation, as well as AV requests.
• Send abstracts or proposals (~250 words) by January 10, 2016 via email to: Dorothy Clark (Dorothy.g.clark@csun.edu) and Linda Salem (lsalem@mail.sdsu.edu)

Panel 3: “Humor and Children’s Literature”—Abstracts (300 words maximum) are encouraged on subjects addressing any aspect of humor in relation to children’s literature by an American author. Panel sponsored by the American Humor Studies Association and the Children’s Literature Society.

Instructions:

• Please include academic rank and affiliation, as well as AV requests. 
• Send abstracts or proposals (~300 words) by January 10, 2016 via email to: Dorothy Clark (Dorothy.g.clark@csun.edu), Linda Salem (lsalem@mail.sdsu.edu), and Jim Caron (caron@hawaii.edu) with the subject line: “AHSA/CLS session, 2016 ALA.” 

For further information, please consult the ALA conference website at www.alaconf.org or contact the conference director, Professor Alfred Bendixen at ab23@princeton.edu with specific questions. 

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CFP: The Intersection of Cartoons, Animation, and Youth Media: A Special Issue of Children’s Literature Association Quarterly

Description:
“In connection with the upcoming 2016 ChLA conference on Animation, this special issue of ChLAQ will focus broadly and widely on the multimodal and ever-expanding medium known as youth animation. From children’s cartoon shorts such as Steamboat Willy (1928) and Leon Schlesinger’s Loony Tunes (1930–1969); to full-length animation motion pictures such as the work of Studio Ghibli, Pixar, and Nickelodeon; to Homestar Runner, video games, and flip books, if it’s sequential art pit into motion, it’s on the table for discussion.”

Deadline: November 1, 2016 

Website: http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/61774

Instructions:

• Papers should conform to the usual style of ChLAQ and be between 5,000–7,000 words in length. 
• Queries and completed essays should be sent to Joseph Michael Sommers via email at somme1jm@cmich.edu with a re: line indicating “ChLAQ Essay) 

Notes: The selected articles will appear in ChLAQ in 2017. 

CFP: Reimagining the Child: Next Steps in the Study of Childhood(s)

Dates: April 22–23, 2016
Location: Camden, New Jersey

Description: Hosted by the Rutgers University – Camden Graduate Student Organization in Childhood Studies.
“The goal of this year’s graduate student conference is to bring together graduate students and other early-career scholars whose work represents a contribution to expanding academic understandings of and approaches to children and childhood. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: theorizations and discourses of childhood; representations of children in media; relationships between children and technology; considering children in approaches to human rights, ethics, and morality; children’s culture(s); children as social agents; etc.”

Deadline: December 20, 2015

Instructions:

• Send an abstract (~300 words) to the conference chair, Julian Burton, via email at Julian.burton@rutgers.edu. Include the words “conference abstract” in the subject line. 
• Please include your name, current level of study, and affiliated institution in the body of your email. 
• Attach your abstract as a separate document containing no personally identifying information. 

Website:

• http://www.childlitassn.org/assets/docs/cfp%20-%20gso%20conference.pdf
• rulinked.camden.rutgers.edu/organization/csgs/events 

Good luck to everyone, on submissions, upcoming finals, and final papers!

NCSCL Welcomes Everyone to the Fall 2015 Semester!

The NCSCL would like to welcome everyone to the Fall 2015 semester.

Back again, for another fantastic semester of blogging and fun NCSCL work, is Cristina Rivera. Cristina has officially begun her second year of the graduate program at San Diego State University, emphasizing in children’s literature, of course. After a year of graduate studies, she has once again found her love of folktales and psychoanalytic theory and spent the summer rereading some YA favorites. She hopes to graduate in May of 2016, after spending what she predicts to be a large number of sleepless nights writing her thesis. Although, the stone is still setting for the official thesis project, Cristina is considering the topic of repressed adult behaviors (more so, sexual tendencies) in children because of scary folktales and stories parents tell their children to make them behave. This idea came about from a paper written specifically on The Sandman and the effects of sexuality and a child’s instinctual behavior and conduct, and closely examined how the childhood story corrupted the main character of E. T. A. Hoffman’s version, ultimately creating sadomasochistic tendencies.

This semester our graduate students have the opportunity of taking two very interesting children’s literature courses: Dr. Phillip Serrato’s Children’s Gothic and Horror and Dr. Joseph T. Thomas’s Edward Gorey and Nonsense.

And here to introduce herself is our newest edition to the NCSCL team, Susan Shamoon. We are very excited to have her!

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Hello everyone!

Welcome to the Fall 2015 semester — let me hear you cheer! (Or at least make a little noise to let me know you’re awake. Anyone?)

My name is Susan Shamoon, and I’m the newest addition to the NCSCL team here at San Diego State University, and I can’t explain how excited and honored I am to be given this opportunity. I accepted this position by literally responding with, “Yes. A thousand times yes.” No lie, I did. I am a first year graduate student here at SDSU, working for my M.A. in English Literature with a specialization in Children’s Literature.

I believe understanding our fellow human beings starts young and with good stories. And, really, who doesn’t love metafiction about the very last unicorn in the world, where the fantastic and the everyday blur together when they meet, and become virtually indistinguishable? Someone who hasn’t read The Last Unicorn that’s who, and that’s a sad, deprived child indeed. I will forever support the Oxford comma and buy more books than I could ever realistically read during the school year.

Looking forward to a great semester!

And as always, if you haven’t done so, please follow us on Twitter (@NCSChildLit) and on Instagram (NCSChildLit).

Call for Papers and Awards Accepting Submissions Now

Here’s another look at some future conference proposals that can include topics regard the study of Children’s Literature:

      Reflections on Revenge: an International Conference on the Culture and Politics of Vengeance

-       Dates: 2/3/4 September 2015

-       Location: University of Leicester

-       Topic Highlights: “What motivates revenge, what course does it run, and what is it’s impact on individuals, societies and global history… this interdisciplinary conference will ask who seeks revenge and why, how it is done, how it is justified, how it is represented, how it feels to get revenge or be on the receiving end. This includes revenge starting with the smallest workplace slights, through family disputes and lynch mobs, to political violence, war and terrorism.”

-       Instructions: Please submit a 250 word abstract via email to revenge@le.ac.uk by April 2nd, 2015.

-       Website: http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/criminology/research/current-projects/revenge/call-for-papers

Through Opposition and Commonality: The Role and Depiction of the Arts and Sciences in Young Adult Literature

-       Dates: Nov. 12-15, 2015

-       Location: Midwest Modern Language Association, Columbus, OH

-       Topic Highlights: “Common depictions of dystopian cityscapes and rural pastorality, as in John Green’s Looking for Alaska (2006), indicate the danger in not only overly embracing technological advances, but also the very messages that governments and leaders encourage audiences to believe and support. In such instances, cultural participants are suggested to be cautious and thoughtful in what ideologies they embrace and act upon. Likewise, in Rainbow Rowell’s realistic fictional text Eleanor and Park (2013), the significance of challenging often self-imposed societal and cultural binaries depicts the way in which opposing traditional hegemonic discourses and structures allows for growth and, sometimes, salvation. Across genres, such literatures are questioning and challenging notions of the impact arts and science have on local, national and global scales. In keeping with the conference theme, “Arts and Sciences,” this panel seeks to explore the ways in which Young Adult Literatures question, investigate, challenge, impact and transform the function of arts and sciences.”

-       Instructions: Inquiries and/or abstracts of 250-300 words may be sent to Amberyl Malkovich at amalkovich@concord.edu by April 5, 2015.

-       Website: http://www.childlitassn.org/assets/docs/cfp%20-%20through%20opposition%20and%20commonality.pdf

       

  Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature:

-       Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature (ISSN 0006 7377) is a refereed journal published quarterly by IBBY

-       Highlights: “Invites contributions for a special issue exploring Indigenous Children’s Literature from around the world. Taking our cue from studies like Clare Bradford’s germinal Unsettling Narratives, which examines First Nations’ issues in texts by Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors, this issue welcomes articles that focus on texts for children and young adults by Indigenous/Native/Aboriginal/First Nations authors. Topics might include, but are not limited to: nations within and across nations, decolonization and survivance, orality and storytelling, history and context, formation of identity, borders and journeys, place and the natural world, spirituality and sacred folkways, origin stories and the trickster figure, tribal politics and sovereignty, community and culture.”

-       Instructions: Full papers should be submitted to the editor, Björn Sundmark (bjorn.sundmark@mah.se), and guest editor, Roxanne Harde (rharde@ualberta.ca), by 1 July 2015.

-       Website: www.ibby.org/bookbird

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS and CHILDREN'S LITERATURE (Special Issue of The Lion and the Unicorn)

-       Accepted articles will appear in issue 40.2 (2016) of The Lion and the Unicorn

-       Topic Highlights: “Seeking papers that investigate the intersections between the histories, theories, and practices of children's rights and children's literature. In response to the ratification of the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN-CRC) in 1989, advocates and scholars have debated the necessity and revealed the complexity of defining and implementing children's rights across the globe. Critical discourse on children's rights, however, has not yet fully examined the role that children's literature plays in shaping, promoting, implementing and interrogating children's rights. This special issue invites scholars to explore the connections between the institutions of children's rights and children's literature.”

-       Instructions: Essays should be sent to guest editors Lara Saguisag and Matthew B. Prickettat LU.RightsIssue@gmail.com by May 31, 2015. Submissions should be 15-20 pages (4000-6000 words)

-       Website: http://www.childlitassn.org/assets/docs/cfp%20-%20lion%20and%20the%20unicorn.pdf

 WRITING HOME: BATTLEFRONT AND HOMEFRONT, CHILDREN’S LITERATURE OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR:

-       Accepted essays will appear in the 2017 issue.

-       Topic Highlights: “This special issue of The Lion and the Unicorn invites submissions focused on children’s literature of the First World War from a variety of international perspectives. Among other things, essays could focus on: Constructions of “home” and “front” as made by civilians and soldiers in poetry, prose, and illustrations; The role of the coming centenary in modern reconstructions of the First World War; The significance of local and national borderlands and boundaries, includingconceptualizations and reconceptualizations of “no man’s land”; Intersections of childish/adult patterns of language in the war poetry of young soldiers such as Robert Graves, David Jones, Wilfred Owen, and Siegfried Sassoon; Collisions and explosions of memory and experience in experimental writing; Responses to the war in the children’s literature of neutral countries, American representations of the Great War, both before and after April 6, 1917; Escape narratives written by or about children; Child heroism narratives, including propaganda narratives of domestic heroism such asparticipation in victory gardens and scrap collection efforts; Limitations of language in writing about “unspeakable events” for children, particularly in the nonfiction texts that have been marketed to popular audiences or to classrooms; Visual representations of the First World War in graphic novels, including work by Jacques Tardi and Jean-PierreVerney, Joe Sacco and Adam Hochschild, Wayne Vansant, Pat Millsand Joe Colquhoun; The reshaping of personal and national memory and identity in children’s war narratives; The influence of militarism and pacifism on war narratives and propaganda narratives atdifferent stages of the war.”

-       Instructions: Essays should be approximately 8,000 words in length. Please email your essay as a Word attachment to Dr. Jacquilyn Weeks at weeksj@iupiu.edu by July 1, 2016. Accepted essays will appear in the 2017 issue. Or, if you prefer, you can mail a hard copy to Dr. Weeks at: Department of English, Cavanaugh Hall 502L, IUPUI, 425 University Blvd, Indianapolis, IN 46202.

-       Website: http://www.childlitassn.org/assets/docs/cfp%20-%20lion%20and%20unicorn%20jan%202015.pdf

 Eleventh-Annual Wonderland Award:

-       WHAT: Explore, explain, analyze, and interpret the works of Lewis Carroll

-       WHO: All graduate and undergraduate students in all fields of study, currently enrolled in accredited California colleges and universities are eligible to participate

-       AWARD: First prize is $2,500; Second prize is $1,500

-       WHEN: Deadline for entries is Wednesday, April 1, 2015; winners will be announced at an award reception in Doheny Library on Friday, April 24, 2015.

-       About the Award: “The Wonderland Award is an annual multidisciplinary competition that encourages new scholarship and creative work related to Lewis Carroll (1832–1898). The award was established in 2004 with the sponsorship of Linda Cassady. The 1st award was made in spring 2005; speaking at that event was the great-granddaughter of Alice, Vanessa St. Clair. Since then, there have been more than 300 student submissions and the success of the program prompted USC to open the competition to students from other Southern California colleges and universities.”

-       Website: http://www.usc.edu/libraries/wonderland/

Good luck to you and your submissions!

Award Winning Poetry Time

This year something very special has taken place within John Hopkins University Press’s The Lion and Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry. The Lion and the Unicorn journal presents the award in one of its three annual publications and works to maintain a current discourse in the study of children’s literature, covering topics such as “the state of the publishing industry, regional authors, comparative studies of significant books and genres, new developments in theory, the art of illustration, the mass media, and popular culture.” For the first time in the history of the Lion and the Unicorn Award, the winning piece of children’s literature is being shared by two titles. As a courtesy of Johns Hopkins University Press, the authors of the winning collections will each receive a $500.00 check. The award is given annually to children’s texts that include poetry and rhyming prose distinguishing them among the North American Poetry community.

Here are the names for the 2014 winning and honor book titles:

Winners-

~ Kindergarde: Avant-Garde Poems, Plays, Stories, and Songs for Children by: Dana Teen Lomax and illustrated by: Cliff Hengst
~ Enjoy It While It Hurts by and illustrated by: JonArno Lawson

Honor Books-

~ Rosa Rose and Other Poems by: Robert Priest and illustrated by: Joan Krygsman
~ My Brother’s Book by and illustrated by: Maurice Sendak

This year’s award is in the theme of experimental poetry for children. Kindergarde: Avant-Garde Poems, Plays, Stories, and Songs for Children is a brilliant anthology being recognized for its ability to capture the young mentality and experience, while incorporating experimental poetry that wasn’t necessarily intended for a children’s audience to begin with. It is also the first anthology in the history of the award to win. The newly coined term, “kindergarde,” refers to the influences of avant-garde artists, such as Picasso and Kandinsky, who were actually inspired by children and discovers a new and unusual aspect of children’s poetry. These poems ultimately move beyond a “cross-writing” element and focus on a variety of poems that will encourage audiences the formality of playing with normative literary traditions.

JonArno Lawson, winner of the 2013 Lion and Unicorn Award, receives a second award for his title Enjoy It While It Hurts. This publication of children’s poetry is being recognized for its vivid illustrations, capturing the kindergarde artistic feel, and for the complex lines of poetry that follow, through a serious yet playful collection of verses. Lawson’s work does not over-simplify language in children’s poetry but includes verses that challenge children’s language and intelligence, making it important to include as this year’s co-winner. 

As the editors of article state, “What we loved about the word kindergarde is that it defined for us a new genre of children’s verse… by poets unafraid to address the continuum of human experience” (382). Kindgarde is one way to sum up this year’s winners and honor books, and it is one that will hopefully inspire other authors of children’s literature to capture the sophistication and intellectual creativity displayed in these books.

References:

• Old Guard à Avant-Garde à Kindergarde: The 2014 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry: Lissa Paul, Donelle Ruwe, and Craig Svonkin
• Top Image: The Lion and the Unicorn By Julie Dillon