<TITLE: New Perspectives on Children's Literature
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: humanities
DISCIPLINE: cultural studies
EVENT TYPE: seminar discussion
FILE ID: USEMD150
NOTES: seminar includes presentations USEMP07A-B (not transcribed: read from notes)

RECORDING DURATION: 18 min 26 sec

RECORDING DATE: 27.4.2005

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 13

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 4

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Polish; ACADEMIC ROLE: junior staff; GENDER: female; AGE: 31-50

S2: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Swedish; ACADEMIC ROLE: junior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 51-over

S3: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: German; ACADEMIC ROLE: junior staff; GENDER: female; AGE: 31-50

S4: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: junior staff; GENDER: female; AGE: 31-50

SU: unidentified speaker

SS: several simultaneous speakers>


<S1> my er name is <NAME S1> and i'm teaching polish language and literature here at the slavonic philology department and it is my great pleasure to welcome (to take part in) this seminar one day seminar in spite of we were thinking that it will be a little bit longer we had on our list er er more people who couldn't come and they er apologise us er we have er one more in fact one more speech of professor <NAME> who is on not on this list first of all i have to also apologise that according to programme we are missing the first speaker kaisu rättyä who is a director of institute of finnish children's literature and she prepared she was preparing a er paper metafiction in finnish children's literature but she can't come and we don't have her paper er but er <COUGH> as a erm second person we welcome <NAME S2> from swedish philology from our university and he will give the paper children's literature in post-war er era in sweden and then <NAME S3> from germany she represents german philology here and er she will er she will be talking <COUGH> on the theme on the representation of emotions in literature for young adults new approaches through cognitive narratology <COUGH> and then afternoon session will start with <NAME S4> who's working in our university at our university also in the department of literature and art er she's from finland and er she will give the paper the innocence of childhood the romantic vision challenged by philip pullman and then i will give you paper from polish @perspective@ it's er towards a modernistic fairy tale the trilogy of jan brzechwa mr kleks' academy travels and triumph as a polish harry potter but with a question mark so this is can be discussed also with you it's only suggestion and as the last one who will be also not here physically with us but he left us his paper so this paper will be read by @someone@ david robertson from english philology from also from our er er university er he will be talking or someone will be @talking@ er the theme abjection in english children's literature and something very important we put below that this international seminar is you see we have perspective from five countries <COUGH> have been organised by our department of modern languages and translation studies with the cooperation of the finnish institute for children's literature so there's staff of the university of tampere presenting different languages slavonic polish and we have to also apologise for there will be no russian @perspective@ and german english and swedish will take er part in this er seminar i hope that you will enjoy and you will be mhm erm er you will take a part in the discussion so please put the questions and er because there are not many papers in one session we will try to give a time for talking er i think it will be er inspiration and it will be fruitful so you are welcome and i will invite now the first speaker <NAME S2> with er children's literature in post-war era in sweden please <NAME S2> the floor is yours </S1>

<PRESENTATION USEMP07A by S2, NOT TRANSCRIBED>

<S2> now you know @everything@ <SS> @@ </SS> the post-war @swedish@ [conflicting view] </S2>
<S1> [thank you very much] <S2> @yeah@ </S2> for very interesting and inspiring paper do you have any questions <P:06> i think that that (appealed to) many levels of er interpreting children's literature and then something like doing (split) between pedagogy and literature <S2> yeah </S2> of course and this kind of <S2> [yeah] </S2> [socialisation] and to take a child as a social-cultural phenomenon not only from didactic point of view but pedagogy as you mentioned <S2> yes </S2> yeah <NAME> but also <NAME> mhm-hm <S2> mhm-hm </S2> <COUGH> , you were talking also (about genres) [maybe (that)] </S1>
<S2> [yes well there are] different ways of </S2>
<S1> very [different @@] </S1>
<S2> [presenting literature but] you know i have i have this sociological interest in <S1> [uh-huh] </S1> [literature] because that is my er main interest er when i deal with er erm other literature too <S1> [(that's right)] </S1> [so i think] there are many interesting <S1> [mhm] </S1> [aspects] of er children's literature and er in this particular <S1> mhm </S1> aspect er er the the way it , it has been adapted to , to to political and er social needs in the society or </S2>
<S3> but there has been er in germany maybe a comparable scandal erm <S2> mhm-hm [mhm mhm-hm mhm] </S2> [the @same as@ you mentioned in the beginning] it's not but the interesting thing it's it's not related to to erm well sexual issues but it's related to erm capitalistic issues because some year i think it was three years ago book has been published erm er where well it's like erm well like a guide guide how to er how children can learn to to er shop to er er so to to buy things and to buy goods in shops and and it was er in a way it was well it did deconstructed the capitalistic @@ er point of view but obviously people and er e- especially teachers parents some parents they misunderstood it and they really they they er they thought that oh wow now now our child is is is corrupted but in a way how it was done it was really that that in fact it it really did @@ it to- took all the fun away from shopping so it was a really really er funny funny book and and and and it erm the author a- also well organised some some happenings @in schools@ er so it was er comparable to <S2> [mhm-hm] </S2> [this] what you mentioned so i think sex and shopping is may- @or may be really@ </S3>
<SS> [@@] </SS>
<S2> [yeah these are the the the hot- the hottest issues @@] </S2>
<S1> [hot hot issues provocations hottest @hottest issues@ probably yeah] </S1>
<S2> <COUGH> <S1> mhm </S1> yeah </S2>
<S1> any new ideas comments </S1>
<P:05>
<S2> yeah </S2>
<S4> i'm not quite sure how to put the question but i would like to hear something more about er of the (<NAME>'s) er adaptation theory why it was so so popular and er how it came er in sweden er you could er get rid of it @in the end@ </S4>
<SS> [@@] </SS>
<S2> [yeah yeah] well @@ i'm not sure that @it's been gotten rid of@ completely but i i think in in the research of children's literature trends have played an important part and maybe that was the natural starting point if if the didactic pedagogical mhm aims and purposes of children's literature is very strong and all these ideas of adaptation how , er , children as as the receivers of a particular lit- literature how this these all these mechanisms are , being manipulated and and er and so on so well , i think that , because of trends going on also in other research fields many people have started to think about children's literature as a literature erm worth something of its own wh- which has an a value of its own and you could you could apply all the normal literary theories perspectives methods to understand er and that's why i think narratology has become more popular and how to understand in what way a story is written and composed and er maybe that is the i have the impression that this is the the trend that you can see now that you apply normal literary theories even on children's literature you don't consider it as something too particular just because it has this particular group as the receivers of the <SS> mhm-hm mhm </SS> erm <S4> [mhm] </S4> [literature] but er </S2>
<S4> er do you think that er in the frame of adaptation theory the erm view of child is er something that er er child is made lacking power that the child is made lack- powerless because er thinking of pow- what kind of reader child is <S2> mhm </S2> that means that er she or he is made a little powerless </S4>
<S2> no i don't i don't think i think in general i i mean children they do lack power <SS> [@@ mhm] </SS> [but i don't see] i don't see any solution to that <SS> [@@] </SS> [no matter what kind of investigative] m- methods we use because that's that's a fact whether we like it not that <S4> yes </S4> for a certain period of @time@ <S4> mhm </S4> every person that grows up w- we we we lack <S4> yes yes </S4> a kind of power that erm well we erm we belong to a category that must be @protected by@ <S4> [yeah yeah yeah yeah but] </S4> [@the adult world@ er and] we we couldn't so so i think this erm drive that you see and these ideas about erm children lacking power i think er i don't think we will nor politically or or mhm erm <S4> mhm-hm </S4> to understand literature better i don't think this is not the way we should think about this <S4> [yeah yeah] </S4> [problem so i don't] think that any any theories about adaptation or or <S4> yeah </S4> i think it's , do you personally think it's it's wrong or or er or do you think the these theories <S4> er </S4> misinterpret literature for children because [of] </S2>
<S4> [er] my point was only that that er because er when adaptation er is made to a text or if you make <S2> [yeah] </S2> [a] text in the w- er thinking about er that you adapt it to children <S2> yeah </S2> so <COUGH> the you are restric- er there is a restriction <S2> [yeah yes that's right] </S2> [of things er] if if you don't er er think that child- child can understand these and those things <S2> [yeah sure yeah] </S2> [that and so on] er and so when a child cannot gain knowledge <S2> [yeah] </S2> [as much] as as adults so she is made a little more powerless than <S2> <COUGH> [yeah] </S2> [there] is the an other kind of view of <S2> yeah </S2> writing literature </S4>
<S2> yes in that sense maybe maybe research also could er contribute to a kind of manipulation of children because you you , you start you you study very clearly all these techniques <S4> mhm </S4> to adapt <S4> mhm </S4> the world <S4> [mhm mhm] </S4> [to the children] i mean that would be a kind of adaptation that you see in er in in erm totalitarian societies where they also <S1> [mhm] </S1> [adapt] the world [@picture@] </S2>
<SS> [mhm mhm] </SS>
<S4> that is what i [mean yeah yeah] </S4>
<S2> [you know they adapt] the world picture to to people [so yes] </S2>
<S4> [a special type of] those special [(xx)] </S4>
<S2> [yes] but that was also the reaction as i see it from some of the people even at at the beginning of the 20th century that the adaptation was a way of , of of erm , er well not manipulating perhaps but er , not understanding the child's possibilities abilities to to to to read and understand and think and and so on but erm well </S2>
<S1> if i can add something (about) adaptations because it's some- if we are talking about adapting point of view about pedagogy you know at school for example textbooks i well i i i think from this er polish perspective it's also interesting the the problem of adaptation not according to political reasons but also like you said social rea- realism but if you were taking let's say textbooks if you are ch- we are choosing something there are some three categories which we found in poland one was accustoming like to take some foreign topics and to make them familiar to our own country like nativeness familiarity yeah the other one was purification and this is something like to make like clean up @@ from ideology and the the other one was like we are talking now accessible to young reader and this is something one it's somehow diffic- difficult with the s- syntax or er topics which <S2> [mhm] </S2> [may be] it's too cruel because of vi- violence <S2> [@mhm@] </S2> [and] sexu- sexual prob- problems so there was like a in general it was taken as a category categories <SU> mhm </SU> of adapt <S2> mhm </S2> text but mu- much more from the school point of view from education but er it's also er concerning with this political system of course because [in each period like in much in the social realism let's say also from polish perspective there is very] </S1>
<S2> [yeah yeah yeah yes adaptation er] </S2>
<S1> clear examples which gives you the type of heroes who are working @(xx)@ <S2> mhm-hm </S2> in this kind of <SIC> proletariatic </SIC> way and to be the leader be the the winner and so on but er it's also selected selective way of to choose <S2> mhm </S2> erm put text to anthology yeah to collection of the stories short stories why those one was chosen and not the other one it's a just it's correspondent to what you mentioned about this say about pippi longstocking pippi <FOREIGN> långstrump </FOREIGN> about the er anarchistic or revolutionary hero let's say <S2> [mhm] </S2> [if you will] talk about a type of c- cha- character in that way it could be erm <S2> mhm </S2> interpret , in [that way] </S1>
<S2> [yeah] it seems to be a very complex erm <S1> [mhm yeah yeah mhm] </S1> [phenomenon adaptation in in in] erm a variety of <S1> [yeah mhm-hm] </S1> [aspects erm] a a more er banal thing <S1> mhm-hm </S1> er yeah i mean you change certain thing i- pippi longstocking which is an international figure <S1> yeah </S1> she's been translated into i don't know how many languages but when when she was <COUGH> translated into french , you know in the swedish original version pippi longstocking she's extremely strong and she's lifting er er her own horse like <S1> [mhm mhm] </S1> [it's it's no] no problem for her but in the french version she only lifts a pony <SS> @@ </SS> @and@ and in germany you see well you have to defend yourself @@ in the odig- original version i think pippi she she eats what we called erm er you know a poisonous mushroom that is very dangerous and and as a as a child in sweden you go out into the woods with your parents you are always teached that never touch this @mushroom it'll kill you@ er but pippi she eats that @and er@ nothing happens <SS> @@ </SS> so but in germany i think they also changed this mushroom into a more normal [you know a kind of mushroom that you normally eat because] </S2>
<SS> [@@ yeah] </SS>
<S3> well </S3>
<S2> well you didn't [want to risk any dead children @@] </S2>
<S3> [yeah yes we don't we we don't get] enough er er pedagogical er mhm erm er edu- er well we don't get enough er knowledge about mushrooms at school so <SS> [@@] </SS> [a- and children's literature children's literature can't can't well give us] enough information so it has to be (xx) it's too dangerous that's the <S2> [yeah] </S2> [the] @pedagogical aspect@ </S3>
<S2> [but maybe you in germany you're you're nowadays] </S2>
<S3> [because the chi- schools lack] the schools lack the @knowledge@ </S3>
<SS> [@@] </SS>
<S2> [i think you] you you in germany you're nowadays as good as the swedes to teach the world how to live and @how to think@ </S2>
<SS> [@@] </SS>
<S3> [teaching how to survive how to survive] [@how to survive@] </S3>
<S2> [you've] you've @learned the lesson well@ </S2>
<S3> yeah and maybe there are no er anymore any dangerous mushrooms in [children's books] </S3>
<S2> [no no] the c- no that's right you have so many big cities no mushrooms <COUGH> </S2>
<SS> [@@] </SS>
<S3> [this this problem is is] [is solved] </S3>
<S2> [we still have big] forests you know in sweden dangerous @places@ , yes </S2>
<S1> okay any other comments and questions , <COUGH> okay so thank you very very much for a very inspiring paper <NAME S2> [thank you] </S1>
<S2> [yeah] thank you also </S2>
<S1> and now <S3> mhm-hm </S3> . according to programme er thank you according to programme we invite <NAME S3> from germany she'll be talking about er representation of emotions in literature for young adults new approaches through cognitive narratology </S1>

<PRESENTATION USEMP07B by S3, NOT TRANSCRIBED>

