Time: 7–10 May 2025
Venue: Rijeka (Croatia)

CfP

Children’s literature is profoundly complex. Regardless of whether its study concerns a synchronic cross-section and observations immersed in cultural practices or a diachronic overview of the genesis of certain genres, a full understanding of the field depends on both aspects of study. Literary-historical approaches, as well as literary-theoretical analyses, contribute jointly to a better understanding of children’s literature. While they use different theoretical perspectives and methodologies, they are ultimately interdependent. 

Our aim in this conference is therefore to attempt an all-encompassing overview of the topic and to create an image of the past (continuity or discontinuity, the problem of cultural memory, extinct literary genres in children’s literature), to understand the present (contemporary circumstances of the production and development of children’s literature, new themes, poetics, literary genres, and stylistic paradigms), and to predict the future of the development of children’s literature, as well as its research.

Genre approaches have proven to be dominant in the history of children’s literature research (Westmen 2013, Majhut 2022). However, the process of periodisation at a certain moment led strongly not only to strengthening the national tradition of children’s literature, but also to achieving the autonomy of the field of children’s literature. In the context of Croatian children’s literature, Milan Crnković’s periodisation from 1971 has had the strongest influence on achieving the autonomy of this field. For this reason, the theme of this year’s international conference is inspired by the research work of Milan Crnković (1925 - 1998), a pioneer of academic research into children’s literature in Croatia. His works laid the foundations that continue to be the starting point for researchers of Croatian children’s literature. He devoted himself comprehensively to the research of children’s literature, with the aim of presenting a complete picture of its development (Hranjec 2009), grounding his analysis on the aesthetic dimension of a literary work. He is the author of the first university textbook on children’s literature, he produced the first systematic periodisation of Croatian children’s literature, coined the term malešnica (nursery rhyme), and contributed in many other ways to the field of children’s literature research.

A native of Apatija near Ludbreg, Crnković spent his entire working life in Rijeka as a teacher in what was then the School of Economics, and later at the Faculty of Pedagogy and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Studies. In addition to his academic work, Milan Crnković was also the editor of the World Novels Library (Biblioteka svjetskih romana) of the publishing house Otokar Keršovani, translated from French, English, German, Russian, and Italian. He also wrote poems (his collection Godovi was published in 1966) and plays that were mostly left unpublished (Nosić 2009).

Suggested conference topics:

1. Legacy and heritage of Milan Crnković Milan Crnković’s:

• fundamental contributions to the research of children’s literature and their influence in the Croatian context
• work in the context of turmoil in modern Croatian history
• literary-theoretical and literary-historical positions (stance toward Antun Barac, the Zagreb Stylistic School, Marxist literary theory – especially advocacy of the fairy tale, awareness of the need to revalue the period)
• contributions to scientific and professional journals and the development of academic periodicals
• efforts to affirm Croatian children’s literature in the international context
• literary, translation, editorial, and anthological work
• contribution as a teaching expert to children’s literature

2. Beginnings and development of the periodisation of (national) children’s literature

• the first researchers of children’s literature
• the first histories of children’s literature
• the first critics of children’s literature
• theoretical and methodological tenets of children’s literature research in the past
• questioning existing periodisations and new periodisation models
• translation literature and its involvement in periodisations
• translations and their role in the development of national literature
• overview of the foreign canon within national literature

3. Research of genres and types of children’s literature

• types and genres of children’s literature according to Milan Crnković
• genre systems of children’s literature in national corpora – state of research
• children’s, young adult and other genres/types, their meeting points, and differences
• children’s and adolescent literature in contact with popular literature
• reading and publishing practices of oral literary forms today
• reading and publishing practices of children’s literature in the digital age
• transformations of genres/types in the postmodern context

4. Intermediality of children’s literature

• hypertext and poetics of children’s literature
• children’s literature and film – order of reception and transmediation
• children’s literature and theatre – adaptations and transformations
• the picturebook as a subject of research and its relation to children’s literature
• literary illustration for children and/or adults and visual transformations of the meaning of a literary work
• film and theatre adaptations of picturebooks
• children’s literature and music, dance, opera, musicals
• children’s literature and comics

5. Teaching children’s literature at university

• Milan Crnković’s contribution to the development of university teaching of children’s literature
• representation, topics, and key points of children’s literature courses within university curricula
• postgraduate education in the field of children’s literature
• theoretical approaches to children’s literature and related literary systems in university teaching
• development of basic scientific research skills for the study of children’s literature and culture within the framework of university studies
• position of children’s literature in the education of mother-tongue and foreign-language teachers
• teacher training in promoting interculturality through children’s literature
• criteria for choosing literary titles in children’s literature courses
• concepts and criteria for choosing literary titles on school reading lists

We invite you to submit a 250-word abstract of your presentation and up to 5 keywords via the official conference email: konferencija.hidk.2025@gmail.com. The abstract submission deadline is extended until 20 January 2025. Authors will be informed of the outcome of their submissions by 3 February 2025.

Official conference languages: Croatian and English

(Quelle: Aussendung)