CFP – Approaching War: Europe

Call for Papers

APPROACHING WAR:
CHILDHOOD, CULTURE AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR, 1880-1919
An International Leverhulme Trust Project
http://research.ncl.ac.uk/fww-child/

Third International Conference

APPROACHING WAR: EUROPE
Newcastle University, UK, 15-17 March, 2013

This is the third of three conferences aimed at producing a website and edited collections to provide teachers, academics, and the interested public with a rich and diverse resource of materials on childhood, children’s culture and children’s literature in the period 1890-1919. The searchable website will consist of video recordings of the conference papers, backed up by summaries, images, links and bibliographies; the published volumes will contain expanded versions of the conference papers.

We are inviting proposals for papers on any aspect of childhood, children’s culture and children’s literature in this period, relating to the approach of war. Potential topics might include:

  • Toys, Games and Ephemera
  • Children’s Literature before 1914 (especially poetry)
  • Children’s Poetry of the War
  • The Approach to War in Continental Europe
  • Materials Written by Children
  • The Treatment of Children and War in 20th and 21st Century Children’s Books

Proposals should be in the form of a detailed summary (no more than 500 words), including an indication of the (non-copyright) visual materials that you could provide for the website. In order to obtain maximum benefit from the conference, participants would be asked to produce, by 1 February 2013, an advanced draft paper, which would then be put on the website with access limited to other conference delegates. At the conference, speakers will be asked to give a 20-30 minute presentation, which will be digitally recorded for the website. After the conference, we will ask for completed papers to be sent to us by 30 April, 2013. The papers will then be peer-reviewed for inclusion in the published volumes or on the website.

The deadline for proposals is 1 September, 2012, and we will inform you of the outcome by 15 October 2012.

Some bursaries for travel and accommodation will be available.

Please send proposals to: approachingwar@ncl.ac.uk

CFP – Special Issue of interjuli: Old Age and Death in Children’s Literature

Call for Papers: Old Age and Death in Children’s Literature

In children’s literature, elderly people such as Stian Hole’s “Stamp Man” in Garmann’s Street often offer identificatory potential for the young reader since, similar to children, they can escape societal restraints and expectations. At the same time, these figures have increasingly provided the background to discussions about concepts of aging and death in recent years – whether representing avoidance strategies such as in Hermann Schulz and Tobias Krejtschi’s Mama Sambona or gentle pedagogical approaches to grief work such as Ulf Nilsson and Eva Erikssion’s All the Dear Little Animals. How does the discussion of this topic in children’s literature reflect a social change in the treatment of transience? Which linguistic and artistic possibilities are used in this context? How close to reality is children’s literature in its treatment of old age and death?

interjuli 01/13 deals with the focal topic of Old Age and Death. Possible topics are:

  • Old people as blueprints for identification and projection of children’s existence
  • Dying and death of child protagonists
  • Senile dementia and old-age diseases in children’s literature
  • Historical development of children’s media’s approaches to old age and death
  • Transcendence and religiousness in children’s literature about old age and death
  • Children’s literature and grief work
  • Children’s literature about old age and death mirroring societal strategies of avoidance and convergence

As always, we also encourage contributions that do not pertain to our focal topic. Please send in your manuscripts by September 15th, 2012. Guidelines concerning formatting and editing standards will be sent out upon request (info@interjuli.de) and can be found at www.interjuli.de.

interjuli is an interdisciplinary scientific journal dedicated to the research into literature for children and young adults. We publish research papers as well as reviews of primary and secondary works.