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SUMMARY:A BUG’S LIFE: Creeping and Crawling through Children’s Literat
 ure - Speaker to be confirmed
DTSTART:20171104T090000Z
DTEND:20171104T180000Z
UID:TALK78441@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lucian Stephenson
DESCRIPTION:The Smithsonian estimates that there are 10 quintillion insect
 s alive at any one time. Although not quite as populous in the pages of ch
 ildren’s fiction\, insects are nevertheless surprisingly common characte
 rs. From James’s peach-bound travellers to Wall-e’s cockroach companio
 n\, insects abound in stories for children. Yet while literary representat
 ions of the wider animal kingdom have garnered significant scholarly inter
 est\, there has been little attention paid to the anthropomorphized insect
 \, perhaps in keeping with the rather awkward and contradictory cultural p
 lace of six-legged animals. Insects are essential to the maintenance of a 
 functioning ecosystem but they can engender significant anxiety in humans.
  That might explain why so few young people choose to be entomologists\; t
 hey ‘are like endangered mammals such as tigers and polar bears … on t
 he verge of extinction’ (Leather\, 2007). In the face of an undervalued 
 subject\, what part does – or can – children’s literature play in in
 troducing children to the wonders of insect life and in educating them in 
 their importance? Are our conflicted associations with insects formed in t
 he spaces of the classroom and childhood stories? Is insect life neglected
  in school curricula on the one hand and too unrealistically anthropomorph
 ised in fiction on the other?\n\nThis one-day symposium explores the repre
 sentation of insects in literature for young readers from a variety of ang
 les and includes a guest appearance by *Maya Leonard*\, the author of Carn
 egie-nominated _Beetle Boy_.\n\n"BOOK HERE":http://bit.ly/2w3ES31\nTickets
  £15/Students £10
LOCATION:Boulind Room 6/7\, Homerton College\, Hills Road\, Cambridge\, CB
 2 8PH
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