Rebecca Sutton, PhD student with the NCRCL, reports on her experience of our 2017 PhD Day, which she organised this year.
Illustration by Anne Malewski
The annual NCRCL PhD Day went ahead on Thursday 18th May in the pristine new Elm Grove Conference Centre at the University of Roehampton. It was a day of eight stimulating presentations by current PhD students and one soon-to-be PhD student. Here is an overview of the presentations, in the running order of the day, so you can get an idea of our current research projects:
- Rebecca Sutton: “Inside/Outside: Contested Space in Young Adult Literature set in Israel/Palestine”
- Sarah Pyke: “An “archive of me”: Constructing queer adult subjectivity through an oral history of adolescent reading”
- Aliona Yarova: “Narrating Humanity: Children’s Literature and Global Citizenship Education”
- Erica Gillingham: “Princesses and Hard Core Lady-Types Fall In Love: Pictorial Representations of Same-Sex Attraction in All Ages Comics”
- Sinéad Moriarty: “P-P-P Pick up a Penguin: Antarctic Penguin Stories for Children”
- Manuela Salvi: “The Secret School of the Mooning Guerrillas: a Creative Project on Children’s Fiction, Age Banding and Censorship”
- Anne Malewski: “Playing Adults: Camp Wildfire and KidZania”
- Emily Corbett: “Transgendered Identity and Bio-Social Determinism in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction”
It was exciting to share our research with each other and to see the sheer diverse nature of the research projects that we as the NCRCL research community are conducting, and to observe the passion, creativity, and academic rigor with which each project is being undertaken. I felt very proud to be part of such an innovative and inspiring research group.
It was especially great to welcome Aliona Yarova who, working between Sweden and the UK, came all the way from Sweden to present her research, and two new students starting with us this autumn – Emily Corbett (recipient of the Jacqueline Wilson Scholarship) and Harriet Salisbury (recipient of a TECHNE Studentship).
The theme for the third NCRCL Bake-off was ‘Food in Children’s Literature’. There were Google Buns from The Magic Faraway Tree, Seed Cake from Swallows and Amazons, Bruce Bogtrotter’s Chocolate Cake and Honey Cakes for Miss Honey from Matilda, and finally Carrot Cake from The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake. Alison Waller and Lisa Sainsbury were the judges and prizes were awarded for: Best Reflection of Theme, Best Taste and Best Presentation.
It was a great day for both academia and for baking! I can’t wait until next year.
Rebecca Sutton is a first-year PhD student at the NCRCL. Her research is centered around contested space and identity in Young Adult Literature set in Israel/Palestine.
Photographs taken by Rebecca Sutton.
