Barnboken – Journal of Children's Literature Research
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Christopher Kelen & Björn Sundmark (red.), Child Autonomy and Child Governance in Children's Literature: Where Children Rule
No full textReview/Recensio
Monstret, barnet och disciplineringens konsekvens: Intermedial dialog i Allan Rune Petterssons berättelser om Frankensteins faster
No full textTitle: The Monster, the Child, and the Consequences of Discipline. Intermedial Dialogue in Allan Rune Petterson’s Novels about Frankenstein’s AuntBetween Allan Rune Pettersson’s novels Frankenstein’s Aunt (1978) and Frankenstein’s Aunt Returns (1989) there emerges a contradictory view on discipline. Whilst being a dominant motif in the first novel, discipline of the monstrous is dissuaded from in the second. The aim of this article is to explain this contradiction through an analysis of the meaning ascribed to the monstrous body in the two novels, respectively. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s monster theory and Michail Bachtin’s work on the chronotope is used whilst intermedia theory provides a framework to explain the relation between the novels in the light of a TV series based on the first novel.The first novel creates a gothic chronotope where the protagonist Hanna Frankenstein aims to atone for her nephew’s sins in the past (his creation of Frankenstein’s Monster). In the novel, the monstrous body is assigned meaning through a correlation with the discourse on the child which, thus, legitimizes her acts of disciplining the monsters. In the TV series, monstrosity is described a result of loneliness and consequently, the function of discipline is altered. The Monster falls in love with a human girl, and aunt Hanna aims to turn him into a ladies man. Finally, a wedding between the Monster and the human girl marks a harmonious ending where monstrosity is obliterated altogether.In the second novel, the Monster and his bride live a bourgeois life and aunt Hanna accuses them of betraying their individuality. However, their lifestyle is the result of her own acts of discipline in the first novel. She therefore has to atone for new sins in the past, only now committed by herself. The second novel thus reinvents the gothic chronotope and also interprets the first novel in the light of the TV series, which provides a missing link between the novels. In the end, the second novel advocates the co-existence of the monstrous alongside the human
Hva er det med monsteret? Fryd, frykt og ”andregjøring” i Når alle sover (2011)
No full textTitle: What’s the Deal with Monsters? Fright, Frolic and “Othering” in Når alle sover (2011)This article explores how othering is at play in Nikolai Houm and Rune Markhus’ picturebook Når alle sover (2011), which features a monster. By use of picturebook analysis and theory on othering, “the other”, monsters and affects, we seek to examine which role a monster may play in a picturebook, and what makes the monster character in a children’s picturebook powerful and relevant. Our findings suggest that the monster's role is not to scare the child reader, but rather to develop an often taboo-ridden topic, namely othering. The monster stands out from the crowd, and the majority group excludes it. With its many deviating features, the monster functions as a powerful character that challenges the reader’s prejudices around “us” and “them”. Our conclusion is that the monster can be a flexible literary tool for conveying certain difficulties and concerns. Very often, the monster is used to question ethical topics in our society such as xenophobia and othering
Anna Feuerstein & Carmen Nolte-Odhiambo (red.), Childhood and Peethood in Literature and Culture: New Perspectives on Childhood Studies and Animal Studies
No full textReview/Recensio
Var befinner sig den svenska bilderboksforskningen? En kartläggning av bilderboksforskningens etablering och expansion
No full textTitle: An Overview of Picturebook Research in Sweden. Establishment and ExpansionAbstract: Picturebook research in the Nordic countries is in a vital and interesting phase, characterized by both established positions and expansion. The article discusses the development in the field, from the stage of initiation in the early 1980s to becoming an established and varied research area. A number of disciplines and lines can be traced in picturebook research today. While some researchers have focused on the history of the media, others have studied the complex relationship between the text and the images or tried to develop the theoretical framework of the medium. Another prominent approach is to investigate what happens in the reading experience and process and how picturebooks might develop children's literacy skills. Despite discipline or focus, picturebook research in Sweden has established itself as a special research field within children's literature research. While mainly discussing Swedish research, the article also attempts to demonstrate connections and differences with the research field in the other Nordic countries
Samlingsrecension: Vampyrer och gotisk barnlitteratur/Review Essay: Vampires and Children's Gothic
No full textReview Essay/Samlingsrecensio
Leken i antropocen: Skräpestetik i Barbro Lindgrens Loranga, Masarin och Dartanjang (1969) och Loranga, Loranga (1970)
No full textTitle: Play in the Anthropocene. Waste Aesthetics in Barbro Lindgren’s Loranga, Masarin och Dartanjang (1969) and Loranga, Loranga (1970)The article examines the ecological and aesthetic dimensions of trash in Barbro Lindgren’s children’s books Loranga, Masarin och Dartanjang (1969) and Loranga, Loranga (1970). It investigates how Lindgren develops a waste aesthetics by inscribing the child, the play, and the children’s book in a contemporary environmental critique of waste disposal. I argue that her aesthetics differs from the established image of political children’s literature around 1968.The article contributes to the growing field of waste studies, a research area intertwined with material ecocriticism and modernity studies. Stories that connect waste with play and fantasy have the ability to work as counter-narratives and bridge the gulf between human culture and non-human nature. In a traditional environmental discourse nature is configured as a passive victim of exploitation and contamination. These kinds of narratives are performative in their disenchantment of the human-nature relationship, and perpetuate alienation and disinterest. Lindgren’s waste aesthetics, on the other hand, encourages a productive relationship to trash and Loranga, Masarin och Dartanjang and Loranga, Loranga are examples of counter-narratives.
Ljudet som pusselbit: Multimodal auralitet i Martin Widmarks och Helena Willis Schlagersabotören (2012)
No full textTitle: The Sound as a Clue. Multimodal Aurality in Martin Widmark’s and Helena Willis’ SchlagersabotörenAbstract: Research on multimodal narration in illustrated children´s books and picturebooks have mainly focused on the relations between the text, the illustrations and the book itself as a medium. Relatively few studies discuss the importance of sound in this context. In this article, however, I examine what Irina Rajewsky refers to as a medial configuration presented by an illustrated book for children and an accompanying CD including the narrator’s voice, songs and music. Drawing on the concept of aurality and Lars Elleström’s model for intermedial analysis, I analyze how text, illustration, and sound mediate a detective story for children: Martin Widmark’s and Helena Willis’ Schlagersabotören (2012). The concluding discussion combines perspectives from both genre theory and intermediality studies: In which way can auditory text and non-verbal sound present the young reader with some of the clues needed in a detective story? Two major functions of sound as a medium can be identified. Firstly, non-verbal sound helps the reader distinguish between the different diegetic levels in the story, thereby focusing the locked room so typical of the detective story. Secondly, auditory text and vocal pitch help the reader perceive some of the anger and frustration among the suspects in that room. Sound, together with text and illustration, presents the reader with a mystery, but also with the cognitive tools to solve it