At beginning of term, we received sad news of the passing of our friend and colleague, Dr Pat Pinsent—you can read the obituary here.
With the blessing of Pat’s daughter, Frances, we have now confirmed the date of a memorial service. The memorial takes place in the Chapel at Digby Stuart at the University of Roehampton and will be followed by a children’s literature conference in Pat’s memory.
Friday 17th November 2023
1.15 to 2.15 Memorial Service for Pat Pinsent at Digby Stuart Chapel, University of Roehampton.
2.15-2.45 Refreshments
2.45 to 6.00 NCRCL Conference in Memory of Pat Pinsent – in the Chapel and Covent Parlour, Digby Stuart College, University of Roehampton and online
Confirmed papers:
Alex Bubb: Eastern Classics for English Children: the Qur’an and the Ramayana as School Prize Books
Kirara Akashi: Edward Gorey’s Neo-Victorian Picturebooks: Unravelling the Dark Humours of Childhood Culture.
Catherine Archer: “In the first rank of books that influenced my girlhood”: why Charlotte Mary Yonge at 200 still matters.
Lisa Sainsbury: Troubling Optimism – Eeyore’s Tail and Tokens of Pessimism in Children’s Literature.
Mark Carter: G is for Gas Mask, Z is for Zeppelin: ABC Books of the First and Second World Wars.
Ian Kinane: An Ambiguous Ecopoetics? Rereading Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree Series in Adulthood.
If you would like to join us for the service or conference, please find booking options at the link below:
Sarah Pyke—MA CHL and PhD alumna—is running a London Rare Books School course on children’s books from 26-30 June 2023. It’s pitched at MA level but is an introduction to the field, with an emphasis on materiality and book historical / bibliographical approaches. They will have a mixture of guest speakers, seminars and handling sessions, as well as visits to Peter Harrington rare booksellers and the Society of Friends’ Library.
NCRCL members (and MA/PhD alumni) contributing to sessions include: Kay Waddilove on career novels; Emily Corbet on paratexts and 21st century trans YA and Mark Carter on ABC books.
The Centre for Childhood Cultures based at Queen Mary University of London have just released their 2021/2022 programme of events including NCRCL’s Dr Alison Waller talking about Reading and Covid-19.
Alison Waller, Young People and YA Fiction in the Time of Covid-19
Thursday 28th October 5:00-6:30 pm.
Hybrid: GC203, Graduate Centre, Queen Mary University of London and online.
Researchers have argued that reading has provided ‘refuge’ for young people during the Covid-19 pandemic (Clark & Picton 2020), but there are still concerns about adolescent mental health following this period of disruption to ‘normal’ life. There are signs that the crisis is in retreat in the UK, but the future is uncertain. In this talk, I will discuss my British Academy-funded ‘Reading for Normal’ project, which offered enthusiastic teen readers a temporary community for talking about their own lives in relation to YA fiction during a period of lockdown. I will argue that reading contemporary British realist novels offered these young people recognisable versions of their own pre-pandemic worlds, and that exploring moments of ‘ordinariness’ together benefited them in various ways. I will also interrogate the notion of ‘normal’ and suggest ways that reading YA fiction might help enthusiastic teen readers do the same.
Dr Alison Waller is a Reader in Children’s Literature, English and Creative Writing at the University of Roehampton. Her latest monograph, Rereading Childhood Books: a Poetics (Bloomsbury 2019), examined how adults negotiate relationships with books from their pasts and she is now collaborating with schools and young people to create digital YA reading communities for her Covid-19 related project, ‘Reading for Normal’.
This event is free. Please book via Eventbrite and specify whether you are attending online or in person: https://bit.ly/3mIJxjY
11-20th November, Queen Mary is holding a series of events as part of Being Human Festival. These include Reimagining my city, a zine-making workshop for 7-13 year olds drawing inspiration from historical magazines created by East London children on the 13th, and How Queer Everything is Today!, a museum-wide programme of events at the V&A engaging with the world of Lewis Carroll, organised by us (Lucie and Kiera).
Other relevant events reflect on the publication of child poetry anthology Stepney Words in 1971 and subsequent school strikes, and the premier of a new film by young writers from Barking and Dagenham. The full programme of events is available on the Queen Mary and Being Human Festival websites: https://bit.ly/3FvjB45
All events are free but need to be booked via the links above.
9th May 2022 Centre for Childhood Cultures annual lecture:
Professor Erica Burman, Putting ‘Child as Method’ to Work?
Queen Mary University of London venue tbc, 6pm.
In this lecture, Prof Burman will outline the conceptual resources informing ‘Child as method’, an analytical approach she has developed. Drawing on postcolonial and migration studies, ‘Child as method’ explicates the necessary inscriptions of ‘child’ and ‘development’ across economic, sociocultural, and individual trajectories that position children and childhood as a key contributor to, and reflection of, wider geopolitical dynamics. In addition, Prof Burman will offer some examples of the interpretive and methodological possibilities of ‘Child as method’, alongside some further discussion of its other analytical contributions.
Save the date, further details and how to book will be circulated nearer the time.
Finally, two of the Rethinking Childhood Today series, Understanding Experience: Approaches to the Histories of Childhood and Youth and Putting ‘Children First’? Tentative Explorations of Alternative Imaginaries were recorded and are available via our website (under the event listings):
YA Studies Around the World is a digital conference hosted by the YA Studies Association from 2-6 November. The conference offers a variety of fantastic opportunities to engage with YA and YA studies, both asynchronously and synchronously. Over the five conference days, there are twenty-eight live events — roundtables, panels, workshops, socials, and one rather special book launch — for you to enjoy. Each of the live events are being recorded and those recordings will be available for registered attendees to watch and rewatch at their leisure.
The conference begins on Monday 2nd November, but registration remains open until Friday 6th November. Once registered, you can access all conference materials including recordings until the end of November.
We have great pleasure in inviting you to join us for the launch of Aidan Chambers’ new book, The Age Between: Personal Reflections on Youth Fiction.
This event is being hosted in conjunction with Fincham Press as part of YA Studies Around the World, an online conference considering young adult literature, media, and culture.
This free-ticket event will take place online Wednesday 4 November 18.30-19.30 GMT.
It will feature:
An introduction by Lisa Sainsbury, Director of the NCRCL
Aidan Chambers in conversation with his editor, Alison Waller
Q&A
Winner of the Carnegie Medal, Printz Award and Hans Christian Anderson Award, Aidan Chambers is a longstanding friend of the NCRCL whose critical and creative work will be familiar to many NCRCL members and supporters. In this series of essays, Chambers explores the history and form of classic texts such as J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Anne Frank’s Diary, and Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War. He also examines his own fascinating experiences of reading and writing youth fiction, weaving these together with fresh insights from narrative theory, anthropology and neurology.
Two PhD students embark on a field trip to Newcastle to talk all things children’s and YA literature
‘Building New Communities in UK Children’s Literature Research: A Colloquium for Contemporary Issues in the Field’ was organised by Cambridge doctoral student, Andy McCormack, to bring together PhD students and academics from Roehampton, Newcastle, Glasgow and Cambridge universities. It was hosted by Newcastle University and Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books, and so fellow PhD student Harriet Salisbury and I ventured north to meet new people, share our research and enjoy all that the colloquium had to offer. As it turns out, the colloquium had plenty to offer!
A Distance Learner Finds Her Way to Roehampton At Last!
One of the most delightful aspects of the Roehampton Distance Learning program is the opportunity to chat with our tutors on the phone during the semester. Now, double that pleasure for an actual onsite visit, which I did last month for the ‘Being Human in YA Literatures’ symposium and the MA Open Day. I used these events as my ‘excuse’ and Virgin Atlantic was happy to carry me across the Pond from Boston. Here, I share my experiences of both events.
On Saturday May 18th 2019, members of the NCRCL gathered at the gleaming Duchesne building at the University of Roehampton for their annual MA Open Morning. After informally gathering over tea, coffee and pastries amidst a colourful display of vintage and contemporary children’s books, the members headed to the lecture theatre where the director of the NCRCL, Lisa Sainsbury, welcomed the group and began the morning’s programme. The group comprised of potential and current MA students as well as some distinguished alumni, and so Lisa explained about the different modules available to those starting the course in September. In addition, Nicki Humble and Alison Waller also spoke about their courses and their respective current research projects: Nicki on the presentation of craft and hobbies in 20th Century Children’s Literature, and Alison on her recent book Rereading Childhood Books: A Poetics.
NCRCL Blog 