CFP: Children's Literature and Bildung Processes in the Age of Digitalization and Political Concern

Children’s Literature and Bildung Processes  in the Age of Digitalization and Political ConcernNordic Journal of Childlit Aesthetics is an international open access journal. The aim of the journal is to develop cross-disciplinary discussions on children’s literature and its interaction with other art forms.We are currently inviting contributions to a discussion on bildung processes.This recurring research subject connects to changing views on the complex nature of the functions and aesthetics of literature for children and young adults. A renewed focus on bildung is called for by a multitude of new impulses, mainly the digital media development and recent demands on a political literary agenda.Digitalization’s immense influence on children’s literature is visible in the increased visual and digital text forms with various demands on reader participation. Examples of the political agenda range from an outspoken critique of the lack of multicultural representation in children’s literature to ecocritical literary theory, which has recently inspired a vast number of literary analyses. The political trend is institutionalized at the governmental level in the white paper The Power of Culture — Meld. St. 8 (2018–2019) Report to the Storting (Norwegian Parliament), which states that art and culture for children are expected to provide cultural formation and prepare children for participation in democratic, social and economic processes. Still, the value of children’s literature is measured through its aesthetic quality.How do these mixed expectations influence the current understanding of what children’s literature should be and do? How are aesthetical, digital, ethical and political issues negotiated within the texts that they are constituted by?Nordic Journal of Childlit Aesthetics are seeking articles on the following topics:

• What tools characterize children’s literature in different media, and how do they affect the reader?
• How and to what degree do bildung processes define children’s literature? What constitutes the bildung processes today? How do literary bildung structures relate to contemporary trends?
• Whose experiences are presented in children’s literature? How? Who has a voice? How is reader and author identity formed? How do the identity processes relate to bildung processes?
• (How) is the idea of literature’s bildung processes compatible with aesthetic quality and artistic freedom?

Articles exploring related topics may also be of interest.Submit your article or your idea for an article as an email attachment to redaksjonblft@gmail.com by 1 May 2020.Do not include any contact information in the article itself. Please send the title of the article and a brief presentation of the author in a separate file.Nordic Journal of Childlit Aesthetics accepts articles in Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and English. The journal uses double-blind review and publishes articles continuously. The journal is designated scientific level 1 in NSD.For more information, see https://www.idunn.no/blft?languageId=2#/authors