The Editors are seeking chapters for a collection provisionally entitled AI in Contemporary Youth Literature and Film: Essays from Around the World, which aims to be a timely additional resource to the field of children’s and YA scholarship as well as a resource for anyone interested in AI and youth. We have preliminary interest from McFarland (USA) for publishing the volume. 

Speculative fiction and science fiction adventures have always been a staple presence in Children’s and Young Adult (YA) literature but, in recent years, there has been an exponential increase in the number of works dealing with Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the form of androids, robot animals, parallel technological worlds, and the like. Arguably, one of the main contributing factors is the technological development that resulted in the widespread use of ChatGPT, not to mention the seemingly endless uses that AI can have, from education to space exploration. 

Canonical literary works like I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (1950) and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968) posited the relationship between humans and machines as a central theme. This has found fertile ground in children’s and YA books and films as well, where core topics include what it is to be human and finding one’s identity and place within society. 

AI is a timely matter to consider in the literary-cultural sphere within Children’s and YA literature and films not only because of the increasing relevance that these cultural products have been acquiring – including within the adult audience – but also because the young are growing alongside AI, and we should wonder what and how we are telling them about it. To foster a conscientious use and positioning of AI in young people’s lives, it is necessary to make a point of discussing what cultural products offer to the young. This will also help to trace the (in)advisable paths that future works may take. To cite only a few examples, recent scholarship like Posthumanist Readings in Dystopian Young Adult Fiction: Negotiating the Nature/Culture Divide (Lexington Books, 2019) by Jennifer Harrison, Posthumanism in Young Adult Fiction: Finding Humanity in a Posthuman World (UP of Mississippi, 2018) edited by Anita Tarr and Donna R. White, and Technology and Identity in Young Adult Fiction: The Posthuman Subject (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) by Victoria Flanagan have already begun to ponder AI. This edited volume hopes to expand the topic to consider AI in not just YA literature, but also in film and works for even younger audiences. 

This edited volume aims to provide a wide geographical overview of the presence, representation, and relevance of AI in contemporary Children’s and YA literature and film from a literary-cultural perspective which welcomes interdisciplinary theoretical approaches (including but not limited to fields such as Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, Visual Studies, Film Studies, Gender Studies, Psychology, and Philosophy). Chapters, written in English, will focus on literary-cultural theoretical reflections and/or analyses of case studies drawn from contemporary children’s and YA fiction and films. Theoretical considerations and analyses other than/not limited to a Posthumanist perspective are especially welcome. 

Scholars and researchers at all stages of their career and based in English- and non-English-speaking countries are invited to submit a proposal. 

Topics of interest primarily include, but are not limited to: 

• AI and relationships (family/friendship/romance) 
• Relational identity of human, partly human, and non-human characters 
• AI establishing or being used in relationships, or AI as an intruder 
• AI as mediator of subjectivity 
• AI and queerness 
• AI and the sense of belonging to a group 
• The visual representation of androids, robot animals, robot plants, and other technological creatures 
• The visual representation of AI and ‘classic’ human, animal, or vegetal features 
• How AI may redefine the categories of ‘human’, ‘animal’, and ‘vegetal’ and how to identify AI as such 
• Limits of the visual representation of AI 
• Augmented reality and the representation of AI 
• Skills and functions of AI and non-AI characters in interaction with each other 
• The role of AI on page and screen 
• The perspective of AI in relation to other characters 
• AI and agency 
• AI suggesting (in)action to other characters; AI empowering or degrading other characters; AI as a driving force, agent, and thinking entity in relation to other characters 
• Limits about where and what AI can act and think, and how AI acts and thinks 
• Human, socio-political, and gender bias or other influence in relation to AI’s agency and thoughts 
• Other characters and AI’s capabilities 
• Philosophical, ethical, and political issues of AI in literature and films for and about youth 
• The nature (subjectivity) of AI 
• Framing AI within specific cultures or moral values 
• AI and its governmental (mis)uses 
• ‘Smartness’ of AI and sociological/readers’/characters’ expectations 
• AI (mis)use and paranoia revealing societal beliefs about the ethics of young people 
• AI as a vehicle of a paternalistic, sexist, or other kind of exclusive mindset

If you are interested in contributing a chapter, please send the following (in English):  

• A 350-word abstract together with 4-5 keywords plus key references (max 6 volumes) 
• A 100-word bio-note 

to Dr. Sara Pini (sara.pini7@unibo.it) and Dr. Emily Midkiff (emily.midkiff@und.edu) by 30 June 2025. 

Timeline: 

• You will be notified whether your proposal has been accepted or not by 10 August 2025. (Please note: although we would like to include all contributions into the volume, we are bound to select only a few to comply with McFarland’s length standards and to put together a collection as coherent as possible.) 
• Full chapters (max 6,000 words) are due by 15 November 2025. 
• Expected publication: 2026 

If you have any questions, feel free to write to sara.pini7@unibo.it. 

(Quelle: Aussendung)