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  • Bulletin Board

Call for Papers

"Here and Now: Approaches to Current Events through Children's Literature." Modern Language Association. Philadelphia, PA, 27-30 December 2004. Sponsored by the Children's Literature Association

This panel explores how current world events and significant contemporary issues may be negotiated via children's literature of the past and present. Whether or not children's texts overtly address newsworthy situations or sociopolitical concerns, they are produced in the awareness of cultural and critical tensions, and they imply a reader's ideal response to those tensions. How do children's texts resonate with present-day occurrences, construct an informed or an unaware reader, perform or elide historical and social critique, or ignite a reader's historical consciousness? This panel interrogates reading practice and the texts of childhood in an ever-changing cultural field. Please send inquiries, one-page abstracts, or complete papers to: Nathalie op de Beeck, Department of English, Illinois State University, Campus Box 4240, Normal, IL 61790-4240; dbop@ilstu.edu. Deadline 15 March 2004. Panelists must be members of the MLA and the Children's Literature Association by 1 April 2004.

Call for Papers

"Food in Children's Literature." Modern Language Associatio.n Philadelphia, PA, 27-30 December 2004. Sponsored by the Children's Literature Association

We invite papers that investigate the construction and uses of food as a complex signifier for socialization and identity construction in literary texts written for or about children. Please submit 1-2 page proposals to either Kara Keeling or Scott Pollard, Department of English, Christopher Newport University, Ratcliffe Hall, 1 University Place, Newport News, VA, 23606; kkeeling@cnu.edu; spollard@cnu.edu. Deadline 15 March 2004. Panelists must be members of the MLA and the Children's Literature Association by 1 April 2004.

Call for Papers

"Children's Literature and the Literary." Modern Language Association. Philadelphia, PA, 27-30 December 2004. Sponsored by the MLA Children's Literature Division

In recent years, children's literature studies has increasingly explored children's material and popular culture, embraced critical models from cultural studies, and expanded its concerns to include interdisciplinary childhood or children's studies models. In light of the changes in children's literature studies and literary studies in general, this panel seeks to explore the role of literariness in children's literature. Is literariness still a meaningful concept? How do we define the literary in our discussions of children's texts? How does the history of children's literature studies, such as the struggle to get English departments to recognize children's literature as "literature" rather than "sub-literature," continue to inform our critical theory and practice? What do "literary" criteria have to offer children's cultural studies, and what does children's cultural studies have to offer children's literature? Papers are invited that explore these questions, or related ones. Both discussions of the role of the literary as it relates to children's literature's disciplinary status and discussion of specific texts are encouraged.

Please send detailed abstracts to: Richard Flynn, Department of Literature and Philosophy, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA 30458-8023; rflynn@georgiasouthern.edu. Deadline: 1 March 2004. Panelists must be members of the MLA by 1 April 2004.

Call for Papers

"Philip Pullman." Modern Language Association. Philadelphia, PA, 27-30 December 2004. Sponsored by the MLA Children's Literature Division

"There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book," said Philip Pullman in his 1996 Carnegie Medal acceptance speech for The Golden Compass. "But those adults who truly enjoy story, and plot, and character, and who would like to find books in which the events matter and which at the same time are works of literary art where the writers have used all the resources of their craft, could hardly do better than to look among the children's books." Those adults indeed found Pullman's books, resulting in his receipt of the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year Award for The Amber Spyglass. This panel will explore Philip Pullman's life and works. Any and all critical approaches are welcome. Send 8-page papers or 2-page...

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