Monday, June 12, 2006

Tove Jansson Book and Seminar


Call for Papers
Tove Jansson Essay Collection
Tove Jansson Conference


Proposals are invited for contributions to a Collection of Critical Essays on the Finnish author and artist Tove Jansson, under contract to be published by Cambridge Scholars Press, and for papers for a one-day Jansson Conference, to be held at Pembroke College, Oxford on 23 March 2007.

The recent translation of Jansson’s The Summer Book has renewed and expanded international interest in the writer popularly known for her acclaimed children’s books about the charming and philosophically-inclined Moomin characters. We welcome papers from all areas of research, including cross-disciplinary approaches, which deal with any aspect of Jansson’s wide-ranging authorship and art.

The deadline for both proposals is 1 October 2006 and those selected for the Collection or the Conference (or both) will be notified soon thereafter. Essays for the Collection should be 4,000-6,000 words long and final versions will be due on 31 December 2006. Conference papers should be no longer than 20 minutes. Essays may be presented in condensed form at the Conference. Essays and papers must be in English.

The following topics are offered as suggestions only:

The Moomin Oeuvre:
As children’s literature
As parody
As allegory
As philosophy
Comic aspects
The supernatural
The franchised Moomins
Jansson’s novels
Jansson’s memoirs
Jansson’s picture-books
Jansson as artist
Jansson as book illustrator
Jansson as cartoonist
Jansson and artistic / writerly identity
Jansson and politics
Jansson and gender / sexuality
Jansson and language
Jansson in translation
Jansson in comparison with other writers / artists
Themes in Jansson’s writing:
Nationalism
Childhood
Psychoanalysis
The family
Individuality / communality
Bohemia / bourgeoisie
Landscape, nature


Please send proposals of up to 300 words to Kate McLoughlin or Malin Lidstrom Brock .

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