International Workshop Politics of Text and Image in Children’s Culture: Contemporary Eastern Europe and Beyond
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and International Youth Library in Munich, July 18–19, 2024.
- Abstract
- Keywords
- children’s literature, picturebook, politics of text, politics of image, Eastern European children’s culture, ideology, propaganda, censorship, empathy, empathetic reader, children’s activism.
- Table of contents
- no
Politics and its influence on contemporary children’s literature is one of the pressing topics in current Eastern European scholarship.1 In her numerous works, one of the conference organisers, Marina Balina (Illinois Wesleyan University), has addressed aspects of political influence on children’s audiences through print and images in different periods of Russian history (see, e.g., Balina 2019, 2020, 2023.) Svetlana Efimova’s (LMU Munich) research on the intersection of the emotional and political dimensions in children’s literature is integral to her current scholarly interests. In several of her recent publications, Efimova explored strategies of political influence using various materials, from the Russian ABC books of pre-revolutionary times (Efimova 2021) to contemporary war-themed Ukrainian picturebooks2 for children (Efimova 2024, forthcoming). The scholarly interests of the organisers intersected in the media and visual aspects of children's and young adult literature and culture. Focusing on this topic, Efimova and Balina organised an international workshop “to discuss the new picture of the world being constructed for today’s young readers/viewers by diverse authorities and various actors involved in creating literature and culture for children” (Balina, Efimova 2024). The workshop took place at the International Youth Library in Munich; the fifteen invited scholars came from Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Poland, and the United States. Their research perspectives combined a focus on Eastern Europe with an interest in the global and theoretical dimensions of the interaction between children’s literature and politics.