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International Research Society for Children's Literature 18th Biennial Congress
August 25-29 2007 in Kyoto, Japan

POWER AND CHILDREN'S LITERATURE: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Children’s literature has the power to help child readers to create diverse and free images of themselves, and to recognize the process of growing up and forming their identities. It can also give them consolation and vital energy. On the other hand, children’s literature has the aspect of serving state propaganda, imposing the social and moral codes of the dominant culture on child readers, and depriving them of their imaginative power, sensitivity and ability to think for themselves. Bearing these positive and negative aspects in mind, we will examine the power of children’s literature in the past and the present, and explore the possibility of children’s literature in the future.

Proposals are invited for papers, panels and posters exploring the 2007 IRSCL conference theme, Power and Children's Literature: Past, Present and Future. Aspects of the theme on which the conference will focus include: representations of power in children's literature, production and power in children's literature, visual images and power in children's literature, and theories of power and children's literature.

Strand A: Representations of Power in Children's Literature

1. Gendered power: patriarchy and children's books; feminisms and children's literature; sexuality and power relations.

2. Subjectivity and power: identity-formation; the politics of play; queering the child subject; children and sociality; power relations in families.

3. Racialised and nationalized power: race relations, postcolonialism, neo-colonialism; whiteness and power; children's literature and national ideologies; children's books as propaganda; political dissent in children's books.

4. Class and power: social class; class distinctions; reader positioning and class; children's literature as a middle-class activity; economics and children's literature; work in children's books.

5. Utopian and dystopian tropes: imagined futures; new political and cultural formations; the posthuman; alternative societies; changing power relations and children's books; new technologies and power; directions in national literatures.

6. World politics and power: eco-criticism and children's books; nature, culture and power; world power blocs; terrorism and anti-terrorism; refugee narratives; global media and power; the 'war on terrorism' and children's literature; global politics and children's books.

Strand B: Production and Power in Children's Literature

1. Power in writing and publishing: self-censorship by authors and illustrators; publishers and the state; censorship and its operations; dissemination of books.

2. Institutions and power: schools, library systems, publishers, booksellers; the dynamics of choice; children and their reading; books as cultural capital.

3. Child readers and power: children’s access to books; children as consumers; reader positioning and power.

4. Language and power: the hegemony of English; power and translation, cultural inflection and transgression; standard and non-standard languages and power; dialects and minority languages; status, power and language.

Strand C: Visual Images and Power in Children's Literature

1. Power in picture books and illustrated books: relationships between gender and power; power and interpersonal relations; the power of play; picture books and cultural discourses.

2. Comics (including manga and graphic novels) and popular culture: historical perspectives; comics and subversion; hybridity, comics and picture books; ideologies and comics; politics and comics; comics and social class.

3. The power of performance: children as performers; the history of childhood on stage, film and television; adapting and representing childhood in film/TV/stage; bodies and performance.

4. Subcultures and power: processes, ideas and ideologies in animations; childhood as represented in animations; child-adult dynamics in animations; cultural translation in animation and anime.

5. The power of video games: online communities at play; games, gender and race; power-politics and video games; video games in children's books; films and video games; video games as consumer products.

6. The power of photography: photographers and power; photographs in children's texts; photography and empire in children's books; photographic manipulation; identities and child subjects in photographs; documenting difference in photographs.

Strand D: Theories of Power and Children's Literature

1. Psychoanalytic theories and power: displacement theory; repression and children's books.

2. Theories of mass media and children's literature: sociologies of reception; power, resistance and child audiences; popular texts and power.

3. Theories of discourse and power: discourse analysis; dominant discourses in children's books; narratives and power.

4. Theories of canon-formation and children's books: how canons form; relations between canons and cultural/political power; institutions and canon-formation; national and international prizes and the canon.

NOTE

All contributions will be made in English and should be given in person.

Proposals for papers and posters should be approximately 300 words in length. They should indicate the title of the contribution, the primary texts under consideration, a description of the paper content and the arguments to be developed.

Proposals for panels should include a list of all presenters, and an approximately 500 words outline of the form which the panel will take.

Proposals must adhere to the theme of the congress and should indicate under which strand of the theme they should be considered. Work presented must be new which means it should not previously have been presented or published in public in any form.

20 minutes will be allocated for each paper, and up to 2 hours for each panel presentation. In the case of panels, presentations will not exceed 20 minutes and time must be allocated for discussion.

For poster presentations each author will be given a space of 120 cm by 90 cm and present their work on posters. This mode of presentation will offer the presenters the opportunity to have close conversations with those who attend the session, receiving comments and discussing the work.
→　For further information on poster presentations

Please note that the only visual aid available is Powerpoint.

The closing date for proposals is January 31 2007 (Wed)

(All proposals will be reviewed before acceptance. Notification of acceptance or otherwise will be given by April 30 2007.)

Criteria for acceptance includes: Adherence to congress theme, Originality of research, Clarity of description

Proposals should be written on the form which can be downloaded from here:
Click here for form.

This should be submitted electronically in Word format to:

Ms. Akiko Yamazaki, Email: yamaz@sit.ac.jp

Inquiry : IRSCL Japan Committee irscl2007_kyoto@hotmail.co.jp

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