The Centre for Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Wrocław has the honor to invite you to another lecture
in the series „International Voices in Children’s Literature Studies”.
The lecture entitled “Tangled Voices/Hidden Lives: Methodological Possibilities in the Children’s Archive” will be delivered in English by dr Emily Murphy (Newcastle University, Great Britain).
The lecture will take place on 13 January 2023 at 18.00 via the MS Teams platform. If you are interested in attending the lecture, please contact dr hab. Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak, prof. of the UWr, at justyna.deszcz-tryhubczak@uwr.edu.pl.
What is a children’s archive and how do we listen to the voices in it? With the continued growth of the field of children’s literature, special collections of archival material have not only developed but received national and even international recognition. The International Youth Library, Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books, and the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection are just a few. However, these collections tend to focus more on original materials by authors and illustrators, only including the voices of children through the materials sent by young readers in the form of fan mail, thank you letters, or school projects. How do we disentangle the child voice from the adult narratives that shape and give structure to these collections? In this talk, I explore the methodological possibilities of a participatory lens for recovering historical children’s voices. I consider the ethical implications and entangled nature of author- child-researcher, drawing on examples from special collections of children’s literature as well as smaller community-based collections that contain children’s original materials. In doing so, I draw out the meaning of the children’s archive and explain how its unique structure requires equally unique methodological practices.
Emily Murphy is Senior Lecturer in Children’s Literature at Newcastle University (UK). She is the author of Growing Up with America: Youth, Myth, and National Identity, 1945 to Present (2020), which was the winner of the 2021 International Research Society for Children’s Literature Book Award. Her current research includes a new monograph, The Anarchy of Children’s Archives: Children’s Literature and Global Citizenship Education in the American Century, as well as a two-year research project, “Beyond the School Gates: Children’s Contribution to Community Integration,” which was funded by the British Academy and Nuffield Foundation as part of their Understanding Communities scheme.
