Nordic Journal of Childlit Aesthetics is an international open access journal. The aim of the journal is to develop cross-disciplinary discussions on children’s literature and its interaction with other art forms. We are currently inviting contributions to a discussion on space, place and geography in children’s literature.
Place and space in children’s literature have always been of interest for scholars within the field. The ever-growing interconnection of the world, environmental issues, the still ongoing decolonization and modern migration as well as new research possibilities due to technological advances (digital humanities) call for renewed engagement with spatial aspects in children’s literature.
The Nordic Journal of ChildLit Aesthetics invites scholars to explore questions as, but not limited to:
- What are space and place in children’s literature, in comparison to literature for
adults? - How does fiction produce “child space”?
- In what way is the representation of places entangled with power?
- What is the role of maps in children’s literature?
- How are places shaped by literary imagination and how do they shape literary space?
- What does the geography of a certain genre, author or national canon look like?
- In what way are places gendered in children’s fiction?
- How has the geography of children’s fiction changed?
These and other questions may be addressed through theoretical concepts as e.g. cognitive mapping (Jameson), the map and the tour (de Certeau), production of space (Lefebvre), “geographical inquiry into historical experience” (Said), projected places (Piatti), heterotopias (Foucault), chronotopes (Bakhtin), critical cartography (Harley), geocriticism (Westphal), topophrenia (Tally) and topophilia (Tuan).
Abstract submissions of around 350 words, outlining the article’s central problem statement and its core theoretical underpinnings are invited.
Abstract submission deadline: May 1st, 2021.
Notification of acceptance will be e-mailed to submitters latest by June 1st 2021. The deadline for the submission of the full article (30 000 signs including spaces) is December 1st 2021.
Series editors: Tatjana Kielland Samoilow & Martin Blok Johansen. Submit your article or your idea for an article as an email attachment to tatjana.samoilow@ntnu.no and blok@via.dk by May 1st 2021.
Do not include any contact information in the article itself. Please send the title of the article and a brief presentation of the author in a separate file.
Nordic Journal of Childlit Aesthetics accepts articles in Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and English. The journal uses double-blind review and publishes articles continuously. The journal is designated scientific level 1 in NSD (Norway and Sweden), the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science’s Authorization list for serials (Denmark), and in Publication Forum (Finland).