Day o' Networking

Ah the joys of email. I have been sitting here in the privacy of my own home, but in touch with scads of scholars at the touch of a button. I am constantly amazed at the ease of communication and networking in this digital age.

I posted to Child-lit, a listserv run through Rutgers University, which I am often shy to do. If you are a children's literature enthusiast, especially in terms of critical and academic discussion of children's literature, this is the place to be. The volume of emails can be large, but there are so many provocative conversations. Now the discussion is on representing Christianity in children's literature, which has expanded to question the place and role of religion in society, whether ALL American children's literature is effectively Christian (a point made by June Cummins), and a wonderful list of thoughtful books 'by dead people' on religion from Mitali Perkins. She said she's happy to get new book suggestions now from current (living) writers.

My posting was about upcoming children's literature conferences and events, as Australian children's lit maven Judith Ridge said her friend was looking for something overseas in the warm months of 2007. So I wrote about the Children's Literature International Summer School, which I run. Here's what I posted:

In July 2007 we’ll be running the 4th biennial Children’s Literature International Summer School (CLISS) at Roehampton University in London, so this seems like a good opportunity to give people some details in case they want to mark their calendars. Basic information is on the website, but I can give you a bit more information now as well:
http://www.ncrcl.ac.uk/cliss/about.htm

CLISS will take place from 11-15 July, 2007, with the following international tutors running seminars and giving lectures: Dan Hade (USA), Gillian Lathey (UK), Kerry Mallan (Australia), Michelle Martin (USA), Rod McGillis (Canada), Maria Nikolajeva (Sweden), and Lisa Sainsbury (UK), amongst others. CLISS runs based on strands, which are still being finalised, but will mostly likely include Comparative Children’s Literature, Creative Writing for Children, Gender and Children’s Literature, Juvenile Publishing, Origins and Developments, and some sort of Visual strand (possibly politics and visual texts). Creative writing includes lectures by published authors, as well as creative writing workshops; and the publishing strand will include presentations by people working within the publishing industry, as well as seminars which examine implications of how the industry runs as a whole. Some of you may have read about CLISS from the special edition of The Lion & the Unicorn that came out featuring papers from the 2003 CLISS (and co-edited by Lissa Paul who was one of our tutors).

You can sign up on the mailing list to be contacted when we start taking bookings by emailing me at my work address:
L.Atkins@Roehampton.ac.uk.

I expect we’ll start to take bookings towards the end of this year, around November. But I’m happy to give people more information in the mean time (including projected fees). You can see more about the last summer school and the programme on the website. We’ve had child-litters attend in the past, particularly Ernie Bond who brought a group of students from Salisbury – it was great to have him and Patty Dean there. And we hope to see more of you in July 2007.

Best,
Laura

As a result, I heard from an academic, Joe Sutliff Sanders, Assistant Professor of Children's Literature at Missouri Southern State University. He sounds like he does really interesting work in the areas of multicultural children's literature, graphic novels, and historical girl's popular novels. I love this field!

I also sent out a massive email to children's literature scholars about the Child and the Book conference. Here's what I wrote:

Dear children’s literature scholar,

I hope you don’t mind being emailed in this way. You are either already a friend of the Child and the Book postgraduate conference, or your name has been suggested as a good person to contact. I am writing on behalf of the Child and the Book steering committee, the collective group of people who have been involved in running this conference since 2004. We are currently trying to spread the word to graduate and postgraduate students who are working in the field of children’s literature, and hoped that you would be able to help by alerting any students that you have, or forwarding this information to others in our field.

The Child and the Book is an annual conference which brings together postgraduate (MA and PhD) students from all disciplines whose work is concerned with children and literature. This exciting event attracts international delegates and provides a unique opportunity for postgraduate students to meet, present and discuss their research. Conferences have taken place so far at Roehampton University in London (2004), the University of Antwerp in Belgium (2005), and the University of Newcastle in England (2006). The most recent event attracted over 80 people from 19 countries, and included presentations by 36 mostly PhD scholars. We also had the participation of the IRSCL board and Seven Stories: Centre for Children’s Books. You can see details from all previous conferences at the general conference website: http://www.ncrcl.ac.uk/childandbook/Index.htm. You can email me if you have general questions about the conference, at L.Atkins@Roehampton.ac.uk

The 2007 conference will be hosted by the Department of Western Languages and Literature at Bogaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey, from 30 March - 1 April 2007, with Zohar Shavit as a keynote speaker. You can find the call for papers, as well as details about the event, at their website: http://www.cb2007.boun.edu.tr. Please contact Anthony Pavlik at cb2007@boun.edu.tr with questions about that particular event.

I am pasting the call for papers below. It is important to us that this event attract as international a group of scholars as possible, so the price is kept to a minimum. We appreciate any help you can give in spreading the word.

The 2008 event will be held at Buffalo State University in upstate New York, USA. Please contact Professor Karen Sands-O'Connor at SANDSK@BuffaloState.edu for further details.

Please let me know if you would like to have your name removed from this email list, or if you have any suggestions of someone to add. We really appreciate your help.

All the best,
Laura Atkins
Member, steering committee, Child and the Book conference, with Nolan Dalrymple (UK), Michele Gill (UK), Vanessa Joosen (Belgium), Anthony Pavlik (Turkey), Liz Thiel (UK), and Katrien Vloeberghs (Belgium)

PROPOSALS: Lost in Translation

In an increasingly globalising world, English (as the dominant language of business and the internet) is almost inevitably a carrier of western ideologies and social, religious and cultural mores that do not always sit well in other cultures. Translations do increase the number of literary works available to young people, widening their literary experiences, introducing them to other countries, and, hopefully, promoting a more international perspective, a greater understanding between cultures. Yet most translations are from English, few are into English; there is a decided imbalance in what is translated and for whom. In countries without their own substantial tradition of children’s literature, where, when making reading choice decisions, parents do not have the same background/experiences on which to draw as parents in the original market, or when translated books are used, for example, in the area of education, this issue can be problematic in terms of intercultural interference. Of concern, too, are questions such as the choice of texts, the nature and the extent of changes from the original to the target language, and the nature of the gate-keepers (especially publishers with their own commercial interests).

Of course, “translation” can also be thought of in broad terms, not just the literal translations between languages. Adults writing for children “translate” the world and its rules and codes, the re-tellings of traditional/canonical stories “translate” from one period to another, films (and video games) can be seen as “translations” of books (and vice versa), and books (and other media) “translate” cultures. These acts of mediation are not without their own problems and issues.

In the tradition of this conference and its intention to reflect a broad spectrum of current graduate research, proposals are invited from all disciplines and from inter-disciplinary teams for twenty-minute papers addressing any aspect of “translation” in children's literature. In addition, the conference offers various subthemes which will enable the final programme to reflect the diversity of current studies in children's literature. Thus, papers may also consider any of the following areas of interest, which may or may not touch upon the main theme:

· Literary theory and children's literature
· Gender studies – masculinist, feminist or queer theory approaches
· The politics of children’s literature
· Ideology and/or reader response
· The voice of the child
· Popular culture and children’s literature
· Education and children’s literature
· Publishing and children's literature
· New voices: new trends

The deadline for receipt of proposals is October 15, 2006.

CONFERENCE LANGUAGE
The conference will be held in English.

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION
Please email your proposal to Anthony Pavlik: cb2007@boun.edu.tr

Please note: If you need an early decision on your proposal in order to secure funding and/or travel visas, please indicate this when you send in your proposal.

IMPORTANT DATES
Deadline for Submission of Abstracts and Proposals: OCTOBER 15, 2006
Acceptance Notice: by NOVEMBER 15, 2006
Deadline for Conference Registration for Presenters: DECEMBER 15, 2006
Announcement of the Conference Programme: DECEMBER 20, 2006
Deadline for Conference Registration for Non-presenters: JANUARY 31, 2007
* Conference Registration Fee for Non-presenters after JANUARY 31, 2007 will be DOUBLED.

FURTHER INFORMATION
If you have any questions regarding the conference please see the website, http://www.cb2007.boun.edu.tr/, or contact Anthony Pavlik at cb2007@boun.edu.tr

I've already had a friendly email back from Lissa Paul, who taught on the first CLISS that I managed. Lissa teaches children's literature at Brock University in Canada, and works particularly in areas of poetry and multicultural children's lit. She's also a co-editor on The Lion & the Unicorn, one of the best children's literature academic journals available (and coincidentally founded by my father's oldest friend, Roni Natov, who has become my children's literature fairy godmother - or should that be earth mother?).

So in one day sitting in my blue living room in Rottingdean, I've emailed people all over the world (Child-Lit has over 1,000 subscribers), and heard from academics in the US and Canada. As my husband knows, I have a bit of a phone phobia, so email for me is a wonderful thing!

And here's cat Thomas, enjoying the blueness...