CFP: L.M. Montgomery and Reading
The L.M. Montgomery Institute’s Thirteenth Biennial Conference
University of Prince Edward Island, 21-24 June 2018

“I am simply a book drunkard. Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them.” –April 4, 1899 (from The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The P.E.I. years, 1899-1900)

“In spite of this proliferation of approaches to Montgomery, her fictions flourish in their original form. They continue to draw people from all over the world to the island of reading pleasure.” –Elizabeth Waterston, Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery

The 2018 conference invites research that considers “L.M. Montgomery and Reading” in all its forms and possibilities. The allusions in Montgomery’s novels and the richness of her own reading life raise a host of questions about the politics, history, culture, technologies, and practice of reading. In turn, fans and scholars explore what it means to read Montgomery as they continue to visit and revisit her novels and autobiographical work. Her enduring popularity continues to inspire translations and transformations that offer readers new ways to experience Montgomery’s texts.

This conference will also mark the 25th anniversary of the L.M. Montgomery Institute, providing an important opportunity to (re)read and reflect on the past and future of Montgomery scholarship and to explore how the presenters see themselves in a community of international, interdisciplinary, and interrelated readers.

The conference theme inspires topics including:

• Reading politics and history in and of Montgomery’s works
• Material cultures and the class implications of reading
• Influence and intertextuality across texts including explorations of Montgomery’s literary allusions
• Global experiences of reading classics
• Literacy in all forms, teaching Montgomery texts, and reading education
• The neurobiology and neuroscience of reading and the human capacity to read
• Reading and ways of seeing, reading and visual culture, alternative reading methods
• Reflections on and readings of Montgomery scholarship
• Reading in translation, reading personally and culturally, and reading over a lifetime

Please submit 250-300-word proposals and short CVs to the submission form on the LMMI website (lmmontgomery.ca) by 15 August 2017. Proposals should not only clearly articulate a strong argument but they should also situate that argument in the context of previous Montgomery scholarship. All proposals are blind reviewed. Proposals for workshops, exhibits, films, and performances are also welcomed. For more information please contact Laura Robinson (lrobinson@grenfell.mun.ca) or Emily Woster (ewoster@d.umn.edu).

CFP for 2018 MLA Panel – Calling Dumbledore’s Army: Activist Children’s Literature

Books can encourage children to question rather than accept the world as it is. Literature for young people can invite them to imagine a world where black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, poverty does not limit one’s life choices, LGBTQ youth know they are loved, indigenous peoples’ rights are respected, the disabled have equal rights and opportunities, refugees find refuge, and climate change does not imperil life on this planet.

This guaranteed session (sponsored by the Children’s Literature Forum) examines children’s literature as a vehicle for social change. Subjects panelists might consider include (but are not limited to): children as activists, books aligned with social movements, satire or humor as catalyst for change, the repurposing of children’s culture as means of expressing or inspiring adults’ activism. Papers may cover any country or historical period.

The panel will convene at the Modern Language Association Convention in New York, which will be held from January 4 to 7, 2018.

Send 1-page abstract and 2-page CV by March 15, 2017 to Philip Nel philnel@ksu.edu.

Pippi to Ripley 4: Sex and Gender in Children’s Literature, Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Comics
Ithaca College, April 21-22, 2017
Keynote: SAMMUS performs her acclaimed nerdcore hip-hop and talks about race, geekdom, and feminism
Special guest: Breakout YA author LJ Alonge, author of The Blacktop series of YA novels

Pippi to Ripley 4 is an interdisciplinary conference with a focus on women and gender in imaginative fiction. We invite papers devoted to fictional characters in all media, including: comics, films, television, and video games as well as in folklore, mythology, and children’s and young adult literature. This year’s conference includes a special focus on Fan Intersectionality: Race, Gender and Sexuality in Fan Communities.

But we also welcome paper proposals on all aspects of female/gender queer representation within an imaginative context, including but not limited to:

• Young female and queer characters, especially in media for young adults and children (The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Song of the Lioness, His Dark Materials, The Runaways, Power Pack)
• Women and their place in futuristic or other worlds (Dystopic Fiction, Classic Science Fiction, Fantasy Worlds, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Babylon 5, Firefly)
• Female and queer protagonists in urban fantasy and paranormal romance (Buffy, Anita Blake, Sookie Stackhouse, Clary Fray)
• Gender politics after the apocalypse (Revolution, Falling Skies, Oryx and Crake, Y: The Last Man)
• Teaching imaginative fictive/offering imaginative fiction-based programming at all levels (Buffy-based courses; graphic novel units, YA dystopias, children’s fantasy)
• Female and queer characters in updated/adapted fairy tales (Once Upon a Time, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Snow White and the Huntsman, Grimm)
• The women of superhero films/television with a special focus on differently abled and gender non-conforming characters (Jessica Jones, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Agents of SHIELD)
• Female-focused comic book series (Ms. Marvel, Wonder Woman, Pretty Deadly, Rocket Girl)
• Horrific women and women in horror (American Horror Story, Lamia, Carrie, Mama)
• Science fiction and reproductive body horror (Alien franchise, Twilight, Bloodchild)
• Cyberpunk and the redefinition of gender (William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Charles Stross)

Please send a 300-500 word abstract by February 15, 2017, to Katharine Kittredge, Ithaca College, Department of English, kkittredge@ithaca.edu.

Cultural Representations of Transnational Childhoods
Day Seminar 13/5/2017, University of Wroclaw
organized by the Center for Young People’s Literature and Culture and the Center for Postcolonial Studies, Institute of English Studies, the University of Wroclaw in collaboration with the Centre for European Studies, Australian National University

It is assumed in Western culture that children have a natural need for a stable and safe domestic and familial environment (Holloway and Valentine 2000). Yet research reveals that the number of children whose everyday lives have been marked by mobility and risks it entails is increasing substantially (Ní Laoire et al. 2010). Child-centered studies of migration in particular show that children often become actors in the immigration process as they negotiate their identifications with places and cultures. Acknowledging and understanding both children’s agency and their active participation in the mobility of their families, for example as language and cultural brokers, requires a transnational literacy (Spivak 1992, Brydon 2003, Lee 2011) and relying on child-centered critical and pedagogical methodologies aimed at examining the influence of transnationalism on children’s lives (Spivak 1992, Brydon 2003, Lee 2011). Therefore, while substantial attention has been given to these phenomena in sociological studies of childhood, children’s movement across geopolitical borders also needs to be analyzed from a cultural perspective. We invite papers exploring past and contemporary representations of transnational childhoods in literature, film and other media that foreground the mobile nature of children’s lives and thus encourage a reflection on children’s experiences of mobility as an essential factor in their cognitive and emotional development.

Possible areas of interest include:

• motifs of home and belonging, children’s creation of belonging
• negotiations of belonging between/across cultures
• intersections between children’s mobility, gender, class and race
• children is diasporas
• inter/intragenerational relationships
• international and internal migrations
• (digital) media and identity formation
• emigration from “new” Europe to “old” Europe
• ethnic/minority children in communism
• longing for mobility in situations of restricted access to border-crossing

We welcome abstracts of 300 words before 1 April, 2017. To submit an abstract or for any questions, please email Dr. Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak at justyna.deszcz-tryhubczak@uwr.edu.pl.

The participation in the seminar is free of charge. We offer refreshments and cold lunch.