Call for Papers: “Herr Fischer, wie tief ist das Wasser?” – Children's and Youth Media in Exile: Inter- and Transmedia Perspectives
Göttingen, 26 and 27 September 2024
The year 1933 marked a radical change of life in Germany, especially for children. Adults, families and even children were forced to flee Germany. They emigrated to countries all over the world. Many exiled artists from all professions have dedicated their work to the perspectives and lives of these children and young people. The conditions for producing and distributing books and other media for children varied greatly from country to country and also depended on biographical conditions such as gender, age, religion and ethnicity. Beyond all these differences, the context of exile is in one way or another constitutive for all these texts and media. In them, the artists have taken up the changes in artistic forms and the socio-pedagogical developments that have occurred since the 1920s. These have resulted in new ideas and new forms of literature for children and in new media like radio and cinema. There is still a lack of trans- and intermedia analyses in this field. Other contexts (e.g. Benner: 2015, Fernengel: 2008, Mikota: 2004) of children's and youth media in exile have already been researched. The current volume of the Society for Exile Studies is dedicated to the topic of exile in children's literature (Bannasch et al.: 20-23).
The aim of the conference is to deepen the understanding of exile literature and exile media for children in a diachronic and transmedial perspective. In a further step, it will be possible to consider the reception of exile in children's literature and media up to the present. The conference is organised by the Working Group (Arbeitsgemeinschaft) “Frauen im Exil” of the Society for Exile Research (Gesellschaft für Exilforschung) in cooperation with the Institute for German Language and Literature at the University of Hildesheim and the Collection of Historical Children’s and Youth Literature at the Georg-August University of Göttingen. It is dedicated to the production and distribution practices of children's media of exile and the reception of exile in children's literature. In addition to the artistic artefacts, the networks of exile and their significance for artistic production will also be under consideration. In particular, the precarious and ambivalent relationship between being exiled and acculturated is analysed. Postcolonial and gender-theoretically informed research will help to open up relevant and critical perspectives on exiled children's media and their authors. Particularly welcome are intersectional perspectives on how migration, exile, racism, sexism, and classism become intertwined in exile media.
Contributions from a cross-genre as well as inter- and transmedia perspective are therefore welcome, for example on the following topics:
- Heterotopias/heterochronies, third spaces of exile and place-making through children's and youth media of exile
- Intersectional perspectives on race, gender, class, age and disability in children's media of exile
- Aesthetic and social positioning of emigrants in (colonial) host societies
- Translations as a process of hybrid acculturation
- Media changes in artistic forms of expression in exile, e.g. as a result of technological advances (comics, photobooks, radio plays, etc.)
- Changes in the concept of genre in exile
- Inter- and transmedia studies on the reception of children's media in exile, e. g. adaptations of exile novels in the GDR
- Relationships between text and image in children's media; illustrations
- Distribution networks in exile (publishing houses, institutions, libraries, magazines, etc.)
Those wishing to contribute could include the following:
fiction, non-fiction (e.g. E. Gombrich: "Kleine Weltgeschichte der Kunst", H.J. Kaeser: "The Wonder Lamp", K. Loewenstein: „Karl Marx erzählt für die Jugend", K. Pahlen: "Ins Wunderland der Musik"), translations (e.g. L. Gombrich: "Till Eulenspiegel". Fairy tales edited by H. Scheu-Riesz, B. Schönlank: "Tolstoy: Stories and Fairy Tales"), picture books (e.g. W. Trier: "8192 crazy costumes in one book"), photo and art books (e.g. H. Rox "Tommy Apple" / "Banana Circus", T. Gidal "My Village In...", photo books by Ylla, H. Vogler/ J. R. Becher: "Kampf"), comics/graphic novels, illustrations (e.g. of fairy tales by Fritz Kredel, H. Weissenborn, J. Scharl, "Don Quixote" by H.A. Müller), school reading books (e.g. by T. Richter or F. Leschnitzer), films ("Heil Hitler! Ich hätt gern n paar Pferdeäppel"), radio plays (e.g. A. Seghers: "Ein ganz langweiliges Zimmer"), theatreplays (e.g. M. Steffin: "Wenn er einen Engel hätte"), poetry and magazines.
Organizers: Dr. Wiebke v. Bernstorff, Prof. Dr. Burcu Dogramaci, Dr. Hartmut Hombrecher, Dr. des. Helene Roth, Finja Zemke, M.A/M.Ed.
Please send proposals (max. 1 page) with a short biographical note by 31 July 2023 to Dr. des. Helene Roth: helene.roth@kunstgeschichte.uni-muenchen.de
Acceptances will be sent out in October.