CFP - The Child and the Book 2014: Time, Space and Memory in Literature for Children and Young Adults

Call for Papers
The Child and the Book Conference
April 10-12, 2014
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

The conference theme is “Time, Space and Memory in Literature for Children and Young Adults.” Proposals are invited on the overall theme and associated topics in the context of international literature for children, and also in relation to print and other media.

Apart from being inextricably interwoven in all aspects of life, time, space, and memory are nowadays at the core of many scholarly disciplines. The purpose of this international conference is to bring together scholars from different countries who are especially interested in theoretical and critical reflections on the ways that time, space, and memory are deployed in literature and media for children and young adults. We also aim to promote further the discussion on a series of shared issues and to prompt participants coming from different backgrounds to engage with one another. The hope is to bring about a heightened appreciation of the variety of approaches that are possible in each case. We welcome analyses from different epistemological perspectives, as long as there is an explicit critical-literary dimension to the discussion. Possible themes may include but are not limited to:

• Definition of time, space and memory: theoretical problems, implications, consequences
• Travels in time and space
• Aspects of chronotope in literature and media for children and young adults
• The articulation of time and space through narrative modes
• The artistic expression of temporal and spatial relationships in literature and media for children and young adults
• Utopias, heterotopias, dystopias
• Marginal, secluded, or secret spaces in children’s and young adult literature
• Textual transformations in children's literature through time: adaptations, translations, retellings, metanarratives
• Children’s books through time: the evolving nature of books for children, the commodification of traditional stories
• Memory: true or constructed in literature for children and young adults
• Literature for children and young adults and the past: representations of history, historical novels, historiographic metafictions
• Genres of life-writing in literature for children and young adults: biography, autobiography, memoir

The proceedings of the conference will be published in book form, in a prestigious international publication to be determined.

Language of the Conference: English
Abstract submission deadline: 5 February 2014 (proposals are now being accepted)
Notification of acceptance: All abstracts will be peer-reviewed, and notification of acceptance will be sent before the end of February 2014.

Please send abstracts of c. 300 words (for a twenty-minute paper) and a short biographical note (c. 100 words) as e-mail attachments (Word format please) to both convenors, Vicky Patsiou (vpatsiou@primedu.uoa.gr) and Tzina Kalogirou (gkalog@primedu.uoa.gr).