Contemporary Children's Literature and Film Engaging with Theory

Bringing together leading and emerging scholars, this book argues for the significance of theory for reading texts written and produced for young people. Integrating perspectives from across feminism, ecocriticism, postcolonialism and poststructuralism, it demonstrates how these inform approaches to a range of contemporary literature and film.

KERRY MALLAN is Professor in Education at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Her research interests include all aspects of children's literature and film, with a particular focus on gender and sexuality. Her numerous publications include Gender Dilemmas in Children's Texts (forthcoming, Palgrave, 2010), New World Orders in Contemporary Children's Literature (with Bradford, McCallum& Stephens, Palgrave, 2008), Performing Bodies: Narrative, Representation and Children's Storytelling (Flaxton, 2003), and Youth Cultures: Texts, Images and Identities (co-edited with Sharyn Pearce) which won the IRSCL Book of the Year award in 2003. She is co-editor of Australia's principal scholarly journal in children's literature (Papers: Explorations in Children's Literature), was Vice President of the Australasian Children's Literature Association for Research (2002-06), and won the Dame Annabel Rankin Award for Distinguished Services to Children's Literature in 2006.

CLARE BRADFORD is Professor of Literary Studies at Deakin University, Australia. She is an internationally renowned expert in Children's Literature, and the current President of the International Research Society for Children's Literature. Her book, Reading Race: Aboriginality in Australian Children's Literature (Melbourne University Press, 2001) won the two main awards in children's literature scholarship (the IRSCL Award and the Children's Literature Association Book Award).

List of Figures
Introduction: Bringing Back Theory; K.Mallan & C.Bradford
Schemas and Scripts: Cognitive Instruments and the Representation of Cultural Diversity in Children's Literature; J.Stephens
Journeying Subjects: Spatiality and Identity in Children's Texts; C.Bradford & R.Baccolini
Local and Global: Cultural Globalisation, Consumerism and Children's Fiction; E.Bullen & K.Mallan 
Monstrous Women: Gothic Misogyny in Monster House; M.Takolander
Splitting the Difference: Pleasure, Desire and Intersubjectivity in Children's Literature and Film; C.Wilkie-Stubbs
Children as Ecocitizens: Ecocriticism and Environmental Texts; G.Massey& C.Bradford
From 'Wizard' to 'Wicked': Adaptation Theory and Young Adult Fiction; D.Buchbinder
All That Matters: Technoscience, Critical Theory and Children's Fiction; K.Mallan
Notes on Contributors 
Index