Science in Anglophone and Chinese Children’s Literature (Sue Chen)
This lecture will focus on the transnational circulation of scientific knowledge across cultures by examining Anglophone and Chinese children’s literature published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to analyse how these texts mediated scientific knowledge and represented children’s relationship with science and the environment. How are complex abstract scientific ideas demystified, simplified, and “translated” for a child audience, both literally and figuratively? What rhetorical strategies are employed in children’s texts to help readers develop a scientific understanding of nature, impart environmental awareness, and foster a child reader’s sense of place? How are narrative techniques such as anthropomorphism and the dialogue format used to persuade readers to accept the values that are being imparted? The talk will investigate how children’s texts reveal the ambivalences and complexities of adults’ expectations about children’s roles within the natural world.
Transnational children’s literature – historical and contemporary perspectives (Nina Christensen)
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Cognitive Biases in the Translation and Dissemination of Chinese Children’s Literature (Derong Xu)
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Transnational comics magazines – Mickey Mouse in 1930s-1960s France, Italy and Spain (Eva Van de Wiele)
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Engaging Children in Ethical Causes: Transnational Obligations in Antislavery and Pacifist Children's Literature (Courtney Weikle-Mills)
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