MCLC: children's/adult lit conference--cfp

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: VAN FLEIT HANG, KRISTA <HANGK at mailbox.sc.edu>
Subject: children's/young adult lit conference--cfp
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CALL FOR PAPERS for a session on Diversities in/and Comparative Children’s
and Young Adult Literature.

 
Children’s Literature Association Conference
Columbia, South Carolina, USA
June 19-21, 2014

 
Papers considering aspects of plurality within Children’s and Young Adult
Literature and Culture will be given highest priority, but all essays on
the genre will be considered. Paper abstracts should be 250 words, and
written in English. Abstracts will be accepted until January 15, 2014.
Please submit to daniela at sc.edu

 
Diverging Diversities:

Plurality in Children’s & Young Adult Literature Then and Now

 
The 2014 Children’s Literature Association Conference invites papers that
consider the diversification of the genre—and its limits—both within the
U.S. and internationally.  The most common understanding of “diversity” in
children’s literature relates to ethnic and/or racial diversity. This
conference will consider the concept more broadly to include disabilities
(differing abilities), gender, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic
class, and region (especially depictions of the South in children’s
books).  Further, it will consider the ways in which a shifting U.S.
population and the effects of deindustrialization, migration to the
Sunbelt, and so forth, have influenced children’s literature.  Other
topics to be considered include historical conceptions of plurality,
historical innovations in form, adaptations and re-adaptations of texts,
the internationalization of the children’s literature market, and how the
“prizing” of children’s and Literature has fostered or frustrated
diversity. 

 
Though certainly not limited to these ideas, essays might address:

 
·       The meaning and significance of diversity in children’s and YA
literature in the 21st century
·       Innovations in form and aesthetics that reflect diverse populations
·       How texts by and about social and cultural minorities have shaped
mainstream children’s and YA literature
·       The impact of bilingual children’s books and books in translation
·       Regional and international influences in children’s and YA
literature
·       The role of visual images in diversifying children’s literature
·       The social and cultural influence of diversity in non-book media
for children and young adults
·       The individual and instructional forces advocating for, and posing
obstacles to, continued diversification of children’s literature
·       Projections of how recent developments in the field may continue
to diversify the genre
·       The work and literary legacy of Augusta Baker,  a pioneer in
African American children’s literature and the University of South
Carolina’s  Storyteller-in-Residence from 1980 to 1994
·       The life and work of Anita Lobel, a featured artist at the
conference
 
 

Krista Van Fleit Hang, Ph.D.
(杭) 冯丽达
Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
University of South Carolina
Welsh Humanities Office Bldg 811a
1620 College St. | Columbia, SC  29208