CFP - Shifting Landscapes: Diversity, Text and Young People

CALL FOR PAPERS
The AUSTRALASIAN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ASSOCIATION FOR RESEARCH (ACLAR) CONFERENCE, 13-15 July 2016
Shifting Landscapes: Diversity, Text and Young People

Questions of diversity are not new in children’s and young adult fiction, however recent years have seen several notable and significant ‘shifts’ in the literary landscape surrounding these fields of practice: the rise, acceptance and popularity of LGBTI fiction for young adults, the reimagination of the picture book genre, the challenging of accepted definitions of "young adult," the role of multimedia texts in the transgression of boundaries, and the collapsing of traditionally held binaries surrounding issues like race, sex, gender and power have all contributed to the construction of writing for children and young adults as an increasingly diverse field of practice and study. This conference seeks to explore just a few of these "shifting landscapes," through the presentation of cross-disciplinary and diverse papers addressing the central strands below.

Location: Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga NSW
Wagga Wagga is the largest regional city in New South Wales and was the site of the first ACLAR conference in 1998. Flights from Sydney or Melbourne take 1 hour 10 mins. Driving from Sydney takes 5 hours 30 mins, from Melbourne 4 hours 30 mins and from Canberra 2 hours 45 mins.

Keynote speakers:
Prof Kenneth Kidd, University of Florida
Dr Erica Hateley, Sør-Trøndelag University College
Dr Irini Savvides, Meriden, Sydney

You are invited to interpret the conference theme creatively and cross-disciplinary submissions are particularly welcome. Individual submissions will run for no more than 20 minutes, with additional time for questions. Panel submissions are also invited and should consist of a single abstract of up to 500 words, detailing up to 3 speakers and the contribution each of them will make to the topic.

Abstracts might engage with, but are not limited to, the following:

• changing representations of gender, race, class, age, nation, ability
• literary texts in and about regional communities
• innovation in Indigenous texts
• literary texts and narrative therapy
• the gothic in texts for children and teens
• censorship, advisories and trigger warnings
• representations of demographic change: tree changing, sea changing
• publishing, retailing and marketing outside capital cities
• archives and the digital environment
• refugees, literary texts in community languages, the changing role of libraries
• digital diversity: ebooks, apps, games and multi-literacy
• "Have you read this week’s text?": close reading, distant reading
• ecocritical perspectives

Abstracts (individual 300 words; panel 500 words) are due by: 15 December 2015.

Please email abstracts and direct any further enquiries to Dr Mark Macleod mmacleod@csu.edu.au.