The International Research Society for Children's Literature

International Research in Children’s Literature

The International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) was established in 1970 and is a leading association for scholars of children’s literature. The study of children’s literature is increasingly being recognised as an integral part of literary studies, and the rapid expansion of the subject area highlights the need for a scholarly journal that is international in scope. Following our announcement at IRSCL’s 18th Biennial Congress in Kyoto, we are now inviting submissions for the inaugural issues of International Research in Children’s Literature.

This new journal, from Edinburgh University Press, aims to be essential reading for literary scholars in the field of children’s literature. It will publish material from the IRSCL conferences, along with other, open, submissions, subject to selection, rigorous peer review and possible revision; book reviews will also be an important part of the journal’s work. There will be four issues in a biennium: three will follow on from the biennial congress theme, with the fourth being a special issue. The first issue will be published in July 2008.  Submissions are welcomed from all scholars of children’s literature; and are not limited to those who presented papers at the Kyoto congress.  
Publishers and authors are warmly invited to send books for review, to the Reviews Editor, Vanessa Joosen, at the address below.

To launch the journal, we now encourage explorations of the theme:
Power And Children's Literature: Past, Present And Future.

Children’s literature has the power to help child readers to create diverse and free images of themselves, and to recognize the process of growing up and forming their identities. It can also give  them consolation and vital energy. On the other hand, children’s literature has the aspect of serving state propaganda, imposing the social and moral codes of the dominant culture on child readers, and potentially depriving them of their imaginative power, sensitivity and ability to think for themselves. Bearing these positive and negative aspects in mind, articles will examine the power of children’s literature in the past and the present, and explore the possibilities for children’s literature in the future.

Possible aspects include: representations of power in children's literature, production and power in children's literature, visual images and power in children's literature, and theories of power and children's literature.

Submissions might focus, for example, on topics such as:

Representations of Power in Children's Literature

  • Gendered power: patriarchy and children's books; feminisms and children's literature; sexuality and power relations.
  • Subjectivity and power: identity-formation; the politics of play; queering the child subject; children and sociality; power relations in families.
  • Racialised and nationalised power: race relations, postcolonialism, neo-colonialism; whiteness and power; children's literature and national ideologies; children's books as propaganda; political dissent in children's books.
  • Class and power: social class; class distinctions; reader positioning and class; children's literature as a middle-class activity; economics and children's literature; work in children's books.
  • Utopian and dystopian tropes: imagined futures; new political and cultural formations; the posthuman; alternative societies; changing power relations and children's books; new technologies and power; directions in national literatures. 
  • World politics and power: eco-criticism and children's books; nature, culture and power; world power blocs; terrorism and anti-terrorism; refugee narratives; global media and power; the 'war on terrorism' and children's literature; global politics and children's books.

Production and Power in Children's Literature

  • Power in writing and publishing: self-censorship by authors and illustrators; publishers and the state; censorship and its operations; dissemination of books.
  • Institutions and power: schools, library systems, publishers, booksellers; the dynamics of choice; children and their reading; books as cultural capital.
  • Child readers and power: children’s access to books; children as consumers; reader positioning and power.
  • Language and power: the hegemony of English; power and translation, cultural inflection and transgression; standard and non-standard languages and power; dialects and minority languages; status, power and language.

Visual Images and Power in Children's Literature

  • Power in picture books and illustrated books: relationships between gender and power; power and interpersonal relations; the power of play; picture books and cultural discourses.
  • Comics (including manga and graphic novels) and popular culture: historical perspectives; comics and subversion; hybridity, comics and picture books; ideologies and comics; politics and comics; comics and social class.
  • The power of performance: children as performers; the history of childhood on stage, film and television; adapting and representing childhood in film/TV/stage; bodies and performance.
  • Subcultures and power: processes, ideas and ideologies in animations; childhood as represented in animations; child-adult dynamics in animations; cultural translation in animation and anime.
  • The power of video games: online communities at play; games, gender and race;   power-politics and video games; video games in children's books; films and video games; video games as consumer products.
  • The power of photography: photographers and power; photographs in children's texts; photography and empire in children's books; photographic manipulation; identities and child subjects in photographs; documenting difference in photographs.

Theories of Power and Children's Literature

  • Psychoanalytic theories and power: displacement theory; repression and children's books.  
  • Theories of mass media and children's literature: sociologies of reception; power, resistance and child audiences; popular texts and power.
  • Theories of discourse and power: discourse analysis; dominant discourses in children's books; narratives and power.
  • Theories of canon-formation and children's books: how canons form; relations between canons and cultural/political power; institutions and canon-formation; national and international prizes and the canon.

Deadline and addresses for submissions

The deadline for the receipt of articles for consideration is 15 October 2007.

Please send these to the Congress Editor, Pamela Knights (pam.knights_at_durham.ac.uk), copied to the Senior Editor, John Stephens (john.stephens_at_ humn.mq.edu.au). [Please substitute ‘@’ for ‘_at_’ in the email addresses: this is our attempt to deflect some spam.]

Please include ‘IRCL’ in your subject line, and give some brief information about yourself and your paper in the main body of the email. Any questions about submissions should be directed to Pamela Knights at the given address.

Please send books for review to the Reviews Editor, Vanessa Joosen (vanessa.joosen_at_ua.ac.be), at:

Universiteit Antwerpen,
Prinsstraat 13 / R 214,
2000 Antwerpen,
Belgium

NOTE
Please download full guidance on preferred style and submission of images here.

Key general points

  • Name and affiliation: to appear only on title page
  • Length: 5-7,000 words, including all notes and list of works cited
  • Language: English; computer set to UK spelling (-ise; -our [endings])
  • Font: 12-point; double-spaced; only one space after full-stops
  • Indent first sentence of each paragraph, including the first paragraph on a page or after a sub-heading
  • References: name/short-title + list of works cited
  • Notes: endnotes, not footnotes. Please do not use an automated word-processing system.
  • Single quotation marks throughout, with double quotes for an inner quote
  • Permissions: it is your responsibility to gain permission to reproduce copyright text and images, and to pay permission costs; permissions must be cleared before publication
  • Images. Send low resolution images (small jpegs), in a separate attachment. If the article is accepted, high quality images will be required.
  • Submit article as email attachment: WORD doc, or (for Macs) RTF; with IRCL in the subject line.
  • Your article should not have been published elsewhere, or be currently under consideration by another journal.