- Children's Literature, Literature for Young Adults, Picture Books, Graphic Novels, Contemporary Medievalism, Medievalism and Children's Literature, and 24 morePostcolonial Studies (Literature), Popular Medievalisms, Children's Film and Media, Animal Studies, Narratives and Image, Critical Studies of Humour, The Gothic, Monsters and the Monstrous, Posthumans, Deviant Corporeality, Disability Studies, Cultural Studies, Masculinities, Young Adult Fiction, Critical Race, Gender Studies, Gender, English Literature, Transnationalism, Children's and Young Adult Literature, Utopian Studies, Medievalism, Children's Literature and Culture, and Nostalgiaedit
- I began my scholarly life as a medievalist, switching to children's literature when I was employed to teach texts for... moreI began my scholarly life as a medievalist, switching to children's literature when I was employed to teach texts for the young. My work investigates how children's texts engage with and promote ideas and values. I've published widely on colonial and postcolonial literatures, utopianism, and medievalism.edit
Research Interests:
From the Harry Potter series to urban fairy romance, the Middle Ages comprise a rich source of stories, symbols, characters and settings in texts for the young. The Middle Ages in Children's Literature is the first thorough study of... more
From the Harry Potter series to urban fairy romance, the Middle Ages comprise a rich source of stories, symbols, characters and settings in texts for the young. The Middle Ages in Children's Literature is the first thorough study of medievalism for the young -- that is, post-medieval imaginings of the Middle Ages -- in fiction, non-fiction and films.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This is the first scholarly collection of essays on Australian children's literature, edited by Clare Bradford. It incorporates essays by Clare Bradford, Heather Scutter, Robyn McCallum, Virginia Lowe, Richard Rossiter, Alice Mills,... more
This is the first scholarly collection of essays on Australian children's literature, edited by Clare Bradford. It incorporates essays by Clare Bradford, Heather Scutter, Robyn McCallum, Virginia Lowe, Richard Rossiter, Alice Mills, Sharyn Pearce, Leonie Rutherford, and John Stephens
Research Interests:
Media reports have increasingly focused on incidents of bullying and their effects on children, particularly in relation to cyber-bullying and children’s use of social media. Unsurprisingly, narratives of bullying feature prominently in... more
Media reports have increasingly focused on incidents of bullying and their effects on children, particularly in relation to cyber-bullying and children’s use of social media. Unsurprisingly, narratives of bullying feature prominently in recent fiction for the young. This chapter considers a selection of contemporary texts that incorporate narratives of bullying, drawing on Foucault’s theories of knowledge and power, and his genealogical approach to knowledge. We focus on three aspects of bullying narratives: their treatment of the origins and causes of bullying; their representations of the power dynamics involved; and the extent to which narrative outcomes address subject formation and the possibility of change. These texts, and many similar to them, position young readers to understand bullies, the bullied, and the contexts in which bullying occurs.
Research Interests:
In lieu of abstract, here is the first paragraph of the article: The family is the cradle into which the future is born; it is the nursery in which the new social order is nourished and reared during its early and most plastic period.... more
In lieu of abstract, here is the first paragraph of the article: The family is the cradle into which the future is born; it is the nursery in which the new social order is nourished and reared during its early and most plastic period. (Sidney Goldstein, Marriage and Family Living, 1946)1 When Goldstein conceived the metaphor of the American family as the cradle of the future he was writing at a specific historical moment, ‘one to which the stresses of war, the uncertainties of the ensuing peace, and the emerging relationship between ideologies of the family and American national identity together lent an unparalleled ambiguity and anxiety about family life’ (Levey 2001, p.125). Nearly 60 years on, the same conditions seem still to apply not only to the United States, but also to many other countries across the globe. The linking of family to the social well-being of a nation and its individual citizens is a familiar rhetoric employed by politicians, religious leaders, social comment...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... Language, eng. Summary, The first book to assess critically mystery in children's literature, this collection charts a development from religious mystery through rationally solved detective fictions to insoluble supernatural and... more
... Language, eng. Summary, The first book to assess critically mystery in children's literature, this collection charts a development from religious mystery through rationally solved detective fictions to insoluble supernatural and horror mysteries. ...
Research Interests:
Australian texts for the young run the gamut of representational approaches to the removal of Indigenous children. Early colonial texts treated child removals as benign acts designed to rescue Indigenous children from savagery, but from... more
Australian texts for the young run the gamut of representational approaches to the removal of Indigenous children. Early colonial texts treated child removals as benign acts designed to rescue Indigenous children from savagery, but from the 1960s Indigenous writers produced life writing and fiction which pursued strategies of decolonisation. This essay plots the history of Stolen Generation narratives in Australia, from the first Australian account for children in Charlotte Barton’s A Mother’s Offering to Her Children to Doris Pilkington Garimara’s Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, Philip Noyce’s film Rabbit-Proof Fence, and pedagogical materials which mediate the book and film to children. Garimara’s book and Noyce’s film expose the motivations of those responsible for child removal policies and practices: to eliminate Indigenous people and cultures and to replace them with white populations. Many pedagogical materials deploy euphemistic and self-serving narratives which seek to ‘protect’ non-Indigenous children from the truths of colonisation.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Media reports have increasingly focused on incidents of bullying and their effects on children, particularly in relation to cyberbullying and children’s use of social media. Unsurprisingly, narratives of bullying feature prominently in... more
Media reports have increasingly focused on incidents of bullying and their effects on children, particularly in relation to cyberbullying and children’s use of social media. Unsurprisingly, narratives of bullying feature prominently in recent fiction for the young. This chapter considers a selection of contemporary texts that incorporate narratives of bullying, drawing on Foucault’s theories of knowledge and power, and his genealogical approach to knowledge. We focus on three aspects of bullying narratives: their treatment of the origins and causes of bullying; their representations of the power dynamics involved; and the extent to which narrative outcomes address subject formation and the possibility of change. These texts, and many similar to them, position young readers to understand bullies, the bullied, and the contexts in which bullying occurs.
Research Interests:
This essay examines the role played by narratives of magic in constructing girls' power and agency. It argues that fantasy fiction involving girls who possess magical powers is coloured by the anxieties of contemporary societies about... more
This essay examines the role played by narratives of magic in constructing girls' power and agency. It argues that fantasy fiction involving girls who possess magical powers is coloured by the anxieties of contemporary societies about girls who demand and expect autonomy in the real world.
Research Interests:
The American Library Association's Printz Award recognises 'literary excellence' in young adult literature. This essay scrutinises the claim, often made by supporters of the Printz Award, that it honours literary excellence across the... more
The American Library Association's Printz Award recognises 'literary excellence' in young adult literature. This essay scrutinises the claim, often made by supporters of the Printz Award, that it honours literary excellence across the globe. Rather, a close investigation of the Printz's winners and honour books reveals the dominance of US and UK publishing firms in this award. The Australian texts which have been named as Printz Award winners are those most calculated to appeal to US audiences, notably Melina Marchetta's Jellicoe Road, which is replete with allusions to and celebrations of US culture. In this sense, the claim that Printz Award winners represent the best of young adult fiction is merely an indication of the capacity of prizing systems to influence literary production and reception.
Research Interests:
Since Jacqueline Rose published The Case of Peter Pan in 1984, scholars in the field of children's literature have taken up a rhetorical stance which treats child readers as colonised, and children's books as a colonising site. This... more
Since Jacqueline Rose published The Case of Peter Pan in 1984, scholars in the field of children's literature have taken up a rhetorical stance which treats child readers as colonised, and children's books as a colonising site. This article takes issue with Rose's rhetoric of colonisation and its deployment by scholars, arguing that it is tainted by logical and ethical flaws. Rather, children's literature can be a site of decolonisation which revisions the hierarchies of value promoted through colonisation and its aftermath by adopting what Bill Ashcroft refers to as tactics of interpolation. To illustrate how decolonising strategies work in children's texts, the article considers several alphabet books by Indigenous author-illustrators from Canada and Australia, arguing that these texts for very young children interpolate colonial discourses by valorising minority languages and by attributing to English words meanings produced within Indigenous cultures.
Research Interests:
... Grant Bruce, "uniform with this volume" but linked by more than design--the accompanying blurb claims that "Miss Mary Grant Bruce ... into a set of "Deluxe Classic Editions," alongside The Muddle-Headed... more
... Grant Bruce, "uniform with this volume" but linked by more than design--the accompanying blurb claims that "Miss Mary Grant Bruce ... into a set of "Deluxe Classic Editions," alongside The Muddle-Headed Wombat, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, The Magic Pudding, Blinky Bill, and ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... of the Old Testament principle of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," are in sharp opposition to Maggie's feminized and ... Young (1862), make explicit what is hinted at in Mortimer's text, that... more
... of the Old Testament principle of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," are in sharp opposition to Maggie's feminized and ... Young (1862), make explicit what is hinted at in Mortimer's text, that corroborees are to be constituted as a diabolical act; Stephen Bradford, the hero of ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Literacy remains one of the central goals of schooling, but the ways in which it is understood are changing. The growth of the networked society, and the spread of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), has brought about... more
Literacy remains one of the central goals of schooling, but the ways in which it is understood are changing. The growth of the networked society, and the spread of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), has brought about significant changes to traditional forms of literacy. Older, print based forms now take their place alongside a mix of newer multi-modal forms, where a wide range of elements such as image, sound, movement, light, colour and interactivity often supplant the printed word and contribute to the ways in which meaning is made. For young people to be fully literate in the twenty-first century, they need to have clear understandings about the ways in which these forms of literacy combine to persuade, present a point of view, argue a case or win the viewers’ sympathies. They need to know how to use them themselves, and to be aware of the ways in which others use them. They need to understand how digital texts organise and prioritise knowledge and information, and to recognise and be critically informed about the global context in which this occurs. That is, to be effective members of society, students need to become critical and capable users of both print and multimodal literacy, and be able to bring informed and analytic perspectives to bear on all texts, both print and digital, that they encounter in everyday life. This is part of schools’ larger challenge to build robust connections between school and the world beyond, to meet the needs of all students, and to counter problems of alienation and marginalisation, particularly amongst students in the middle years. This means finding ways to be relevant and useful for all students, and to provide them with the skills and knowledge they will need in the ICT-based world of the Twentyfirst century. With respect to literacy education, engagement and technology, we urgently need more information as to how this might be best achieved.
Research Interests:
The need for literacy and the English curriculum to attend to digital literacies in the twenty-first century is well established. Although studies in digital literacies have examined the inclusion of computer games in schools, there has... more
The need for literacy and the English curriculum to attend to digital literacies in the twenty-first century is well established. Although studies in digital literacies have examined the inclusion of computer games in schools, there has not been an extended study of English teachers
incorporating computer games into their teaching and learning through action research projects. This paper outlines the structure and progress of a research project exploring the uses of computer games in English classrooms. We argue that much can be learned about the teaching of both print and digital literacies from examining computer games and young people’s engagement in online digital culture in the world beyond school.
incorporating computer games into their teaching and learning through action research projects. This paper outlines the structure and progress of a research project exploring the uses of computer games in English classrooms. We argue that much can be learned about the teaching of both print and digital literacies from examining computer games and young people’s engagement in online digital culture in the world beyond school.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The need for literacy and the English curriculum to attend to digital literacies in the twenty-first century is well established. Although studies in digital literacies have examined the inclusion of computer games in schools, there has... more
The need for literacy and the English curriculum to attend to digital literacies in the twenty-first century is well established. Although studies in digital literacies have examined the inclusion of computer games in schools, there has not been an extended study of English teachers incorporating computer games into their teaching and learning through action research projects. This paper outlines the structure and progress of a research project exploring the uses of computer games in English classrooms. We argue that much can be learned about the teaching of both print and digital literacies from examining computer games and young people’s engagement in online digital culture in the world beyond school.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This essay examines books for children focusing on Ned Kelly and the Kelly gang, published from 2000 to 2011. Drawing upon theories of narrative, memory and nostalgia it analyses the narrative strategies and visual images through which... more
This essay examines books for children focusing on Ned Kelly and the Kelly gang, published from 2000 to 2011. Drawing upon theories of narrative, memory and nostalgia it analyses the narrative strategies and visual images through which these texts position readers, and their investment in formulations of the Australian nation. The essay argues that these books function as exercises in restorative nostalgia, producing palatable versions of Kelly as an Australian hero, and articulating connections between the Kelly legend and Australian national identity. By foregrounding Kelly's Irishness and by representing him as a “good badman”, these Ned Kelly narratives for children, which range across fiction, non-fiction, picture book and play script, reinscribe versions of national identity which occlude more complicated narratives. In particular, their emphasis on struggles between Irish and English settlers, and between selectors and squatters, displaces Indigenous histories, colonial violence, and systemic discrimination against those deemed outsiders to the nation.