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SUMMARY:The Childist Turn in Children’s Literature Studies - Justyna Des
 zcz-Tryhubczak\, Anglia Ruskin University and University of Wroclaw 
DTSTART:20180530T160000Z
DTEND:20180530T173000Z
UID:TALK103030@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lucian Stephenson
DESCRIPTION:Despite its rightful concern with childhood as an essentialist
  cultural construct\, the field of children’s literature studies has ten
 ded to accept the endemicity of the asymmetrical power relations between c
 hildren and adults almost without question. It is only recently\, under th
 e influence of children’s rights discourses\, that children’s literatu
 re scholars have developed concepts reflecting their recognition of more e
 galitarian relationships between children and adults. I argue that a radic
 al change in the perception of these power differentials has to occur in s
 cholarship itself: at the time of the growing support for protagonist- and
  rights-based ideology in childhood studies\, our field would benefit from
  opening up\, albeit critically and cautiously\, to participatory methods 
 that engage young readers as co-researchers having a say in designing\, co
 nducting and disseminating research aimed at exploring the significance of
  texts addressed to them. Thanks to such an intergenerational focus\, chil
 dren’s literature studies may become a socially and politically transfor
 mative venture with reverberations beyond academia. I substantiate my prop
 osition—both its positive outcomes and potential difficulties—by refle
 cting on _ChildAct - Shaping a Preferable Future: Children Reading\, Think
 ing and Talking about Alternative Communities and Times_\, a participatory
  reader response project I am co-organizing in Cambridgeshire in 2017/2018
 . \n\n*Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak* is Associate Professor of Literature and
  Director of the Center for Young People’s Literature and Culture at the
  Institute of English Studies\, University of Wroclaw\, Poland. She is the
  author of _Yes to Solidarity\, No to Oppression: Radical Fantasy Fiction 
 and Its Young Readers_ (2016). Her research focuses on speculative fiction
 \, utopianism\, and participatory and child-led approaches. She is current
 ly a Marie Sklodowska-Curie visiting fellow in the Department of English a
 nd Media\, Anglia Ruskin University. \n
LOCATION:Mary Allan Building room 104\, Homerton College\, Hills Road\, Ca
 mbridge CB2 8PQ
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