Between Past and Future: Liberating the Post–Socialist World through Children's Literature I

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Affiliate Organization: Childhood in Eastern Europe and Russia (ChEEER)

Brief Description

In the socialist world, children’s literature not only served the official discourse, but also created spaces for intellectual freedom. The roundtable proposed will explore the continuation of this tendency in contemporary post-socialist cultures, using examples from children’s and crossover literature of Armenia, Belarus, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Russia. How does children’s literature foster liberal thinking in an epistemic transition between reflecting on the past and facing the future?
Section I of this roundtable will address contemporary texts about growing up during past crises and transitions: in the wartime of the 1940s and the 1990s, during postwar years, in the late Soviet Union, and after the breakup of Yugoslavia. What does this experience mean for young audiences in contemporary sociopolitical contexts? Roundtable participants will discuss issues related to the formation of memory, social criticism, transnational and gender identities. Another focus will be on a variety of genres dealing with the past from a perspective of children or young adults: fictional novels, fan fiction, autobiographical texts, and narratives based on witnesses’ memories.
The roundtable format will allow participants to touch on a wide range of texts and issues.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 21st Century

Chair

• Marina Balina, Illinois Wesleyan U

Roundtable Members

• Andrijana Kos-Lajtman, U of Zagreb (Croatia)

• Danijela Lugarić Vukas, U of Zagreb (Croatia)

• Maria Mayofis, Amherst College

• Polina Popova, U of Illinois at Chicago