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 the 20th lecture in the series „International Voices in Children’s Literature Studies”.
The lecture entitled “Children’s Poetry as a Challenge and a Cultural Phenomenon” will be delivered in English by prof. Krystyna Zabawa (University Ignatianum in Cracow).
The lecture will take place on 17 January 2024 at 18.00 via the MS Teams platform. If you are interested in attending the lecture, please contact dr Elżbiera Jamróz-Stolarska, at: elzbieta.jamroz-stolarska@uwr.edu.pl.
About the lecture:
My talk aims to present children’s poetry as a complex phenomenon that eludes strict definitions and classifications, even if scholars all over the world attempt to define and classify it. Children’s poetry appears as a significant element of every culture; as such it constitutes a challenge for poets, translators, editors, critics, scholars, teachers, librarians… What does it mean? Is it also a challenge for children? Could it be called a cross-cultural and cross-generational phenomenon? It is in this context that nursery rhymes and counting out rhymes, as a part of children’s lore, will be taken into account. The presentation will provide insight into Polish (to some extent also international) research. I will consider the place of children’s poetry in the corpus of poetry as a whole and emphasize the role of illustrations, exploring the possibility of analysing poetic books for children as iconotexts. The examples will come mostly from Polish literature with several significant foreign works translated into Polish. I will also use this opportunity to present a few contemporary Polish poetic books for children that are, in my opinion, of special artistic value.
Bio:
is professor and head of the Literary Studies Department in the Modern Languages Institute at University Ignatianum in Cracow. She graduated from the Jagiellonian University. Her fields of interests include Young Poland and interwar literature, especially poetry, female writers, children’s and YA literature. In 2013 she published the monograph entitled Rozpoczęta opowieść. Polska literatura dziecięca po 1989 roku [A Tale Begun. Polish Children’s Literature after 1989 with regard to Contemporary Culture] and in 2017 – Literatura dziecięca w kontekstach edukacyjnych [Children’s Literature in Education]. She is a member of IBBY Polish Section and IRSCL. She regularly publishes book reviews.
