Professional Notes and Announcements

Paper Call Children's Literature Association

The 1989 Children's Literature Association Conference to be held May 12-14 at Mankato State University in Mankato, Minnesota, will consider the theme, "Where Rivers Meet: Confluence and Currents." The conference committee encourages members and non-members to submit papers or proposals for workshops and panel discussions. Aspects of the conference theme include water themes or use of bodies of water in children's literature, collaborations by authors or authors and illustrators, textual collaborations such as friendships or important meetings, and origins of works of literature for children. All projects that approach children's literature from a serious critical standpoint will receive consideration, with preference given to those that relate to the theme.

Papers should be 8 to 10 pages double-spaced (20 minutes reading time) and should conform to the new MLA citation format. They should not have been read or published elsewhere. The author's name and address along with a brief abstract of the paper should appear only on the cover sheet, which will be removed for judging. Three copies of the paper and a SASE should be submitted.

Papers and proposals will be accepted through January 20, 1989. They should be sent to Kathy Piehl, Box 19, Memorial Library, Mankato State University, Mankato, MN 56001.

Paper Call (MLA 1989)

"Nineteenth-Century Illustration: Aspects of Interaction between Text and Illustration"

In the nineteenth century a large and assured audience demanding illustrated editions of their favorite works was created for the first time; together with this development came the origins of the modern picture-book (Caldecott and Crane) along side of the more traditional illustrated book. In both categories the task of the illustrator was to convey to the reader a recognizable graphic representation (or interpretation) of scenes and characters in an author's text. But to what degree were the illustrators successful in this process of representation? How are the illustrations integrated into the pattern of the book as a whole? Why have some of these illustrations (Tenniel's for the Alice books, for example) become definitive and others not? Any approach to these largely aesthetic issues—semiotic (the problem of "iconic" versus verbal meaning), psychoanalytic, sociological (the reception of the book among its audience), reader-response, formal (ways of distinguishing the two categories, borderline cases)—is welcome.

Paper deadline: March 1989

Paper Call

The Children's Literature Association invites submissions for the 1989 MLA conference session on Children's Literature and Autobiography. Papers may be on any aspect of autobiographical writing for children, past or present, and may approach the subject from any critical, phenomenological, or historical perspective that promises to illuminate the text(s) under consideration. Comparative studies, as well as analyses of single books are welcome. Manuscripts should be eight to twelve pages in length, typed double-spaced, and in comformity with the revised MLA handbook of style. Detailed two-page abstracts or completed papers by March 1, 1989. Address manuscripts or correspondence to:

Janice M. Alberghene

Department of English

Fitchburg State College

160 Pearl Street

Fitchburg, MA 01420-2697

Paper Call

The Children's Literature Association Quarterly will publish a special section on Children's Literature and Humor in Fall, 1990. Essays may address these or other questions:

What's funny in children's literature? Who is laughing and why? How do child and adult readers differ in their responses to humorous children's texts? What accounts for these differences? Is anything still taboo in humor for child readers? How does humor function in children's books? Does it subvert or reinforce the social order? Are satire and/or wit really possible in a children's book? What perspectives/knowledge from other disciplines might the literary critic bring to the study of humor in children's literature?

Manuscripts should be ten to fifteen pages in length, typed and double-spaced, and should conform to the new MLA style. The deadline for submissions is December 1, 1989. Send two copies of the paper (author's name on title page only) plus SSAE to one of the section's co-editors:

Jan Alberghene	Nancy Huse
Department of English...