Invitation to participate. Issue 22. Concept and institutional history of children’s literature
The 22nd issue of Children’s Readings focuses on the institutional history of children’s literature and its conceptualization—that is, how, and by what means, individual texts aimed at children are transformed into a single space/field called “children’s literature.” For children’s literature to take hold as a whole, texts that aspire to be part of it need to be understood as intended for children, to fit into existing notions of childhood, and, accordingly, to be supported (or rejected) by publishers and booksellers, educators and librarians, critics and literary historians.
It would seem an obvious need, but no modern history has yet been written of the producers and consumers of children’s books, or of the regulators and “gatekeepers” involved in children’s publishing. For example, there is no institutional history of the publishing houses that produced children’s literature, of the literacy committees, the communities and libraries that organized children’s reading; no history of children’s bibliography and book trade, nor of specialist journals and research institutes. Furthermore, there is virtually no scholarship on the history of ideas about children’s literature in their institutional boundaries and personal experiences.
To begin to overcome these gaps, we propose the following questions for discussion:
Regarding the authorities and opinion leaders—and opinion outliers, outsiders—of children’s literature: how have the individual and group intertwined in these opinions? The public and the personal? Aesthetic and ideological? Which centers of thought can be identified? How did the forms of exchange and circulation of ideas develop? What was the main drive at different stages of the development of children’s literature; what pedagogical convictions were involved? Which “authorial” and publishing strategies were possible in different periods?
How are the institutional bodies of children’s literature formed? What functions is each defined by? How relevant are hierarchical structures, for instance, what is the relationship between pedagogy and children’s literature, adult and children’s literature, criticism and children’s literature, censorship and children’s literature?
Children’s literature is a historical set of rules, procedures, and forms of self-criticism/self-support. How have actors in this field imagined the purpose of children’s literature at different times? How did normative perspectives on it change? What was the competition of normative approaches? Who were their target audiences? Who were the agents of norms?
In addition to articles for the main block, we welcome submissions to the following sections of the magazine: Reviews; Archives; Interviews.
Recommended length: up to 40,000 characters.
The deadline for submitting articles is August 1, 2022.
The deadline for submitting the article’s final version after passing the blind double review process is September 30, 2022.
This issue is scheduled to appear in December 2022.
Please send the articles to the email address of the editorial board: detskie.chtenia@gmail.com.
We are grateful for your cooperation,
DCh Editorial Board
