Maria started following the work of Judith Inggs, University of the Witwatersrand, School of Language and Literature Studies.
Maria started following the work of Debbie Pullinger, University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education.
Maria started following the work of 5 people.
- Children's Literature
- Children's Literature & Culture
- Children's and Young Adult Literature
- Children's reading
- Cognitive Literary Theory
- Education
- Fairytales
- Fantasy Literature
- Harry Potter studies
- Intermediality
- Literary Criticism
- Literary Theory
- Literary Translation (Translation Studies)
- Narrative Theory
- Philosophy Of Education
- Picture Books
- Russian Children's Literature
- Russian literature (Literature)
- Scandinavian Literature
- Swedish Literature
- Transmediation
- Visual Literacy
Maria
Most recent publication http://www.springerlink.com/co
Papers
Guilt, empathy and the ethical potential of children's literature
Barnboken - Journal of Children's Literature Research, 2012:1
The paper takes as its point of departure cognitive criticism, the direction of inquiry that investigates readers' cognitive and affective engagement with literature, partly based on recent brain research. It argues that for young readers who may not yet have developed full comprehension of fundamental moral issues and who have not attained the literary competence necessary to understand fictive characters' mental processes, representation of emotions in literature may produce a problem. Since guilt is a complex social emotion, involving a reconciliation of several contradictory goals, such representation demands well-developed empathy and advanced mind-reading skills, as well as factual knowledge of relevant legislation and understanding of moral implications of crime, guild and remorse. The paper examines these issues through a reading of two texts for young audience, Forbidden (2010), by Tabitha Suzuma, and His Dark Materials trilogy (1995-2000), by Philip Pullman. The former is totally focused on guilt, in legal as well as moral sense, experienced by two siblings who enter an incestuous relationship. In the latter, guilt is less conspicuous, yet proves on closer consideration to be a major plot engine in the protagonist Lyra's physical and spiritual quest. While Suzuma's novel has an overt educational agenda, it is ambiguous in supporting young readers' ethical position towards the protagonists' guilt. In Pullman's trilogy, guilt becomes closely connected with the fundamental philosophical issues of determinism and free will. Although Pullman does not provide any clear-cut ethical guidance either, the use of emotion discourse, or emotion ekphrasis, is more subtle, not least because the genre allows a outward projection of emotions in the form of daemons. Lyra's guilt becomes a driving engine in her maturation process. The ultimate argument of the paper is that literature provides an excellent training field for young readers' developing of empathy skills, and the vicarious experience of guilt exposes readers to a wide range of ethical questions.
Children's Literature
Forthcoming in Routledge History of Childhood in the Western World, ed. Paula Fass
Reading other people’s minds through word and image
Children's literature in education 2012:2
The articles considers how emotions can be conveyed through the interaction of word and image in picturebooks addressed to young readers. The theoretical framework employed in the article develops ideas from cognitive literary theory adapting it to the specific conditions in which there is a significant difference between the sender's and the recipient's cognitive level. The concept of emotion ekphrasis is used to demonstrate the various ways of representing emotions, and a special attention is paid to the issues of mind-reading, empathy and other aspects of recipients' affective engagement. The theoretical argument is illustrated by picturebooks by Max Velthuijs, Shaun Tan, Anthony Browne, and Maurice Sendak.
The development of children's fantasy
In: Cambridge Companion to Fantasy, edited by Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James. Cambridge University Press, 2012 ISBN 9780521728737
"I spy Rumpelstiltskin": Playing games with the reader in The Witch’s Boy
In Marvels & Tales 2011:2 (pp. 316-328) A special issue dedicated to Jacques Barchilon. DOI: 10.1353/mat.2012.0003
On re-reading The Witch’s Boy (1995) by Michael Gruber, you notice how skilfully the obvious fairy-tale intertexts are hidden, foreshadowed and successively revealed in the text, causing both a joy of recognition and an irritation of one’s failure to anticipate the apparent. While intertextuality is frequently regarded as enhancing the artistic qualities of a literary text, it is at the same time a means of manipulating readers toward specific interpretations. The eclecticism of the novel is characteristic of postmodern writing. Some intertexts are explicit, some hinted at, yet others demanding deeper acquaintance with intertexts. The reader is expected to recognize the rich layers of famous fairy tales, but these are in the novel fractured, deconstructed and reassembled in a fascinating as well as a disturbing manner. There is, further, an overarching structure that both confirms and subverts the familiar fairy-tale pattern. With the help of the various intertextual and reader-response theories, the essay will explore how the novel invites readers to participate in a game of (mis)recognition and (mis)interpretation.
“Must we to bed indeed?” Beds as cultural signifiers in picturebooks for children
New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship 2011:2
DOI:10.1080/13614541.2011.624940
The materiality as a characteristic feature of the picturebook does not only imply its existence as an artefact, but also its ability to represent a material world through images in a more direct and immediate manner than verbal texts. This paper considers the representation of beds in picturebooks from two discreet yet closely connected perspectives: semiotics and cultural geography. The concept of place and space in a broad sense is central for the argument. Beds constitute a young child’s closest surroundings and are frequently the only private space available. At the same time, beds are areas of power struggle between child and adult, as well as a border between self and the world, private and public. The paper discusses, firstly, the physical aspects of the represented objects: their form, size, position on the page and spatial relationship to other objects and characters, which all create a sense of space. Secondly, it probes into the function of the objects, such as their cultural connotations, significance for the narrative and metaphorical implications.
Visualizing people: multimodal character construction in Astrid Lindgren’s works
In Beyond Pippi Longstocking: Intermedial and International Approaches to Astrid Lindgren's Work edited byBettina Kummerling-meibauer and Astrid Surmatz, Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-88353-5
The identification fallacy: Perspective and subjectivity in children’s literature
Telling Children's Stories: Narrative Theory and Children's Literature, ed Mike Cadden. University of Nebraska press, 2011
The title of my essay alludes to one of the seminal works of New Criticism, “The Intentional Fallacy” (Wimsatt and Beardsley 1954). Its main point is that real, flesh-and-blood authors and their presumable intentions are insignificant in considering literary works. Instead, as we know, New Criticism focused wholly on the literary work itself, speaking about the text’s intentions and also introducing the concept of the implied author, the authorial agency within the text, expressing the text’s, rather than the real author’s ideology (see e.g. Selden 1997).
In children’s literature research, the intentional fallacy has been still more tenacious than in general criticism, because of the universal belief in the children’s author’s urge to instruct and educate the reader. Still today we currently encounter statements about children’s authors as mouthpieces for socialization; and we can also come across questions, put by schoolteachers as well as empirical researchers: “What did the author want to say with this work?” The question is in fact illegitimate, since it presupposes that the author indeed wanted to say something, which, from the New Critical point of view, is of no consequence.
I would like, however, to draw our attention to yet another common fallacy, which, perhaps more than any other critical stance, reveals a striking inconsistency between children’s literature research and literacy education, demonstrating once again the notorious “literary-didactic split”. It is habitual in teaching children’s literature to children to encourage them to “identify” themselves with one of the literary characters, normally with the protagonist and/or the focalizing character, that is, adopt a fixed subject position imposed by the text. In contrast, contemporary scholarly studies, especially those leaning on narratology and reception theory, emphasize the importance of the readers’ ability to liberate themselves from the protagonists’ subjectivity in order to evaluate them properly (see Stephens 1992, 47-83). This ability is an essential part of reading competence, which facilitates sophisticated readers’ ideological and aesthetic understanding of the text.
Reading other people’s minds through word and image
This paper is in Portuguese. A revised English version will hopefully appear soon.
Time of Turmoil
Introduction to CONTEMPORARY ADOLESCENT LITERATURE AND
CULTURE: THE EMERGENT ADULT edited by Mary Hilton and Maria Nikolajeva. Ashgate (in print)
Beyond Happily Ever After: The Aesthetic Dilemma of Sequels
In Textual transformations, edited by Benjamin Levfebre, Routledge 2012
The recent publication of David Benedictus’s Return to the Hundred Acre Wood (2009), the controversial sequel to A.A. Milne’s famous children’s classic Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), has renewed the ongoing critical debate on one of the prominent features of children’s literature: its obsession with sequels. Apart from commercial reasons, it has been frequently claimed that children enjoy repetition and predictability. This chapter discusses the artistic premises for series, sequels, and prequels, illustrating the argument with a number of contemporary “quels” to classic children’s novels such as Anne of Green Gables, The Wind in the Willows, and Peter Pan.
Interpretative codes and implied readers in children's picturebooks
In Colomer, Teresa et al, New directions in picturebook research. New York, Routledge, 2010, 27-40
Finns det gränser för barnlitteratur?
(Are there boundaries for children's literature?) Review of Åse Marie Ommundsen: Litterære grenseoverskridelser. Nar grensene mellom barne- og voksenlitteraturen viskes ut. Barnelitterært forskningstidsskrift/Nordic Journal of ChildLit Aesthetics. Vol. 2, 2011
Åse Marie Ommundsen's PdD thesis Literary transgressions: When boundaries between children's and adult literature are blurred contributes to the explosive recent development of picturebook studies and is one of the first of its kind in Norway. Ommundsen argues that contemporary Norwegian children's literature, particularly picturebooks, has grown more complex and norm-breaking, approaching the marginal zone of “literature for all ages”. The thesis is a challenging piece of scholarship, with a broad scope of material and an interesting eclectic theoretical platform. It shows that with the current level of sophistication of children's books it is no longer fruitful to distinguish between children's and adult literature on the grounds of complexity, but only through their implied audience. Although some theoretical and methodological stances of the thesis can be questioned, it is in the first place valuable through generating considerable new knowledge and making connections between the previously unrelated facts.
Adult Heroism and Role Models in the Harry Potter Novels
In Heroism in the Harry Potter Series. Eds. Katrin Berndt and Lena Steveker.
Farnham: Ashgate, 2011: pp. 193-205. ISBN 978 1 4094 1244 1
Three Walks Through Fictional Fens: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Gaffer Samson's Luck
co-authored with Gabrielle Cliff Hodges and Liz Taylor
Translation and crosscultural reception
in: Handbook of research on children’s and young adult literature, ed Karen Coats et al, New York, Routledge, 2010
"The Stuff from which Dreams are Made": Om George MacDonalds esoteriska romaner
In: Förborgade tecken: Esoterism i västerländsk litteratur, ed. Per Faxness and Mattias Fyhr. 2010.
The text is in Swedish.
The article discusses the two novels by George MacDonald, Phantastes and Lilith, based on the definition of esoterism. It investigates the construction of esoteric spaces and the inadequacy of language to convey the esoteric experience, as felt by the protagonists.
What do we translate when we translate children’s literature
in: Beyond Babar. The European tradition in children’s literature, ed. Sandra Beckett & Maria Nikolajeva, Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2006.
Please see information under Books
New masculinities, new femininities: Swedish Young Adult fiction towards the twenty-first century
in: Changing concepts of childhood and children’s literature, edVanessa Joosen & Katrien Vloeberghs, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006
Voice, gender and alterity in George MacDonald's fairy tales
in: "The Noble Unrest": Contemporary Essays on the Work of George MacDonald, ed. Jean Webb, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholar Press, 2007
Comparative children’s literature: What is there to compare?
Papers: Explorations into Chilldren's Literature 2008:1
A misunderstood tragedy. Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi books
in: Beyond Babar. The European tradition in children’s literature, ed. Sandra Beckett & Maria Nikolajeva, Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2006
Please see information under Books
Theory, Post-Theory, and Aetonormative Theory
Neohelicon: Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universalum, 2009
Reprinted in Literacy Teaching and Learning edited by Dominic Wyse, Sage, 2011 ISBN: 978-0-85702-507-4
Harry Potter and the Secrets of Children's Literature
In Harry Potter's world: Multidisciplinary critical perspectives, ed. Elizabeth Heilman, New York, Routledge, 2008
NOTE: this is a completely new article as compared to the first edition of the book
Play and Playfulness In Postmodern Picturebooks
In Postmodern picturebooks: Play, parody, and self-referentiality, ed Lawrence Sipe, New York, Routledge, 2008
Harry Potter—A Return to the Romantic Hero
In Harry Potter's World: Multidisciplinary Critical Perspectives, ed. Elizabeth Heilman. New York: Routledge, pp. 125-140.
Download (.pdf)The Changing Aesthetics of Character In Children's Fiction
Style 35 (2001) 3. pp. 430-453
Reprinted in Children’s Literature: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies, ed. Peter Hunt, vol 3, London, Routledge, pp. 391-415.
The verbal and the visual literacy: The role of picturebooks in the reading experience of young children
In: A handbook of research in early childhood literacy, ed Jackie Marsh et al, London: Sage, 2003
Children's Literature As a Cultural Code: A Semiotic Approach to History
In: Aspects and Issues in the History of Children's Literature, ed. Maria Nikolajeva. Greenwood, 1995. Proceedings of the IRSCL conference in Salamanca, Spain.
Children's, Adult, Human ?
In: Transcending Boundaries: Writing for a Dual Audience of Children and Adults, edited by Sandra Beckett. New York, Routledge, 2002
Russian Children's Literature Before and After Perestroika
Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 1995:20 (3)
Growing Up: the Dilemma of Children's Literature
in: Children's literature as communication, ed Roger Sell, Amsterdam: John Benjamin, 2002. Slovenian translation Odraščanje. Dilema otroške književnosti, Otrok in kniga 2004:59
Narrative Theory and Children's Literature
Routledge companion encyclopedia of children’s literature, ed Peter Hunt, London, Routledge, 2004
" A Dream of Complete Idleness": Depiction of Labor In Children's Fiction
The Lion and the Unicorn 2002:3
The Art of Self-Deceit: Narrative Strategies In Katherine Paterson's Novels
in: Bridges for the young: The fiction of Katherine Paterson, ed Joel Chaston & Sarah Smedman, Lanham, MD, Scarecrow, 2001
Images of the Mind: The Depiction of Consciousness In Picturebooks.
co-authored with Carole Scott. CREArTA (Sydney, Australia) 2001:1
Andersen, Hans Christian
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature, ed Jack Zipes, New York, Oxford UP, 2006
Picturebook Characterisation: Word/Image Interaction
in: Art, narrative and childhood, ed Morag Styles & Eve Bearne, London, Trentham, 2003
A Room of One's Own: The Advantage and Dilemma of Finno-Swedish Children's Literature
in: Text, culture and national identity in children's literature, ed Jean Webb, Helsinki, Nordinfo, 2000
Co-authored with Janina Orlov
Fantasy Literature and Fairy Tales
The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales, ed Donald Haase, Westport Conn., Greenwood, 2008
Reflections of Change In Children's Book Titles
in: Reflections of change, ed Sandra Beckett, Westport, Conn., Greenwood, 1997
All Rumours About a World Outside Britain Are False
A review of Peter Hunt, ed, Children's literature: An illustrated history, Canadian Children’s Literature 1997:86
" When I Use a Word It Means Just What I Choose It to Mean: Power and (mis)communication in literature for young readers”
In Humane Readings, Finch, Jason, Martin Gill, Anthony Johnson, Iris Lindahl-Raittila, Inna Lindgren, Tuija Virtanen and Brita Wårvik (eds.), 77–87.
Auktoritära män och otillförlitliga kvinnor: Genus och berättande
(”Authoritatve men and unrealiable women. Gender and narration”), in: Berättaren: En gäckande röst i texten, ed. Lars-Åke Skalin, Örebro: Universitetsbiblioteket, 2003
Crossvokalisering och subjektivitet: Den performativa rösten i litteraturen
(”Crossvocalization and subjectivity: The performative voice in literature”), Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap 2003:1/2
Toward a theory of literary characters in children’s fiction
in: What a character! ed Nancy L. Roser & Miriam G. Martinez. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 2005
Stemme, magt og genus i børnelitteraturen
(”Voice, power and gender in children’s literature”), Passage (Denmark) 2005:52
Børnelitteratur: kunst, pædagogik og magt
(”Children’s literature: art, pedagogy and power”), in: På opdagelse i børnelitteraturen, ed Nina Christensen & Anna Karlskov Skyggebjerg, Copenhagen, Høst, 2005
Janne min vän - en väg utan återvändo
(“Johnny my friend - beyond the point of no return”), in: Forankring och fornying. Den nordiske ungdomsromanen ed Eli Flatekval. Oslo, Cappelen, 1999
Det självutlämnande jaget: Den fiktiva dagboken i barn- och ungdomslitteratur
(”The self-exposing I: Fictive diaries in children's literature), in: Det gåtfulla folket, ed Maria Andersson and Elina Druker, Lund, Studentlitteratur, 2008
Heterotopia as a reflection of postmodern consciousness in the novels of Diana Wynne Jones,
in: Diana Wynne Jones: An exciting and exacting wisdom, ed Teya Rosenberg. New York: Peter Lang, 2002
Astrid Lindgren
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature, ed Jack Zipes, New York, Oxford UP, 2006
Tove Jansson
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature, ed Jack Zipes, New York, Oxford UP, 2006
Life was simpler long ago, or Books for proud Canadians of all ages
Canadian Children's Literature 2007:2
Harry Potter och barnlitteraturens hemligheter
(“Harry Potter and the secrets of children’s literature), Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap 2003:4
The verbal and the visual. The picturebook as a medium
in: Children's literature as communication, ed Roger Sell, Amsterdam: John Benjamin, 2002
Toward linearity: A narrative reading of The Mouse and His Child
in: Russell Hoban: Forty years, ed Alida Allison, New York, Garland, 2000
Strindberg through the eyes of the Russian critics
in: Strindberg: The Moscow papers, ed. Michael Robinson. Stockholm: Strindberg Society publications, 1998
The child as self-deceiver: narrative strategies in Katherine Paterson's and Patricia MachLachlan's novels
Papers: Explorations in children's literature 1997:1
National identity in minority literature for children: the case of Swedish-language literature in Finland
in: Gunpowder and sealing-wax: Nationhood in children's literature, ed Ann Lawson Lucas, Hull, Troubador, 1997
Pigs aren't meant to have fun: The swedishness of Swedish children's literature
in: Other worlds, other lives, ed Myrna Machet et al, Pretoria, UNISA Press, 1996
Stages of transformation: folklore elements in children's novels
Canadian Children's Literature 1994:73
How fantasy is made. Patterns and structures in The neverending story by Michael Ende
Marvels and Tales 1990:1
Bakom rösten: den implicita författaren bakom texten i jagberättelser
(Behind the voice: the implied author behind the text in first-person narratives) Barnboken 2008(31):2, pp. 18-29