Childhood and Pethood: Representation, Subjectivity, and the Cultural Politics of Power
Abstracts (500 words) due November 1, 2014
Articles (7,000 words) due July 1, 2015
While scholars of children’s literature and childhood studies frequently discuss representations of animals in children’s texts, there is little discussion of the often parallel ways in which these texts construct animal and child subjectivity. At the same time, while critics in the field of animal studies have remarked upon the cultural tendency to think of pets as children, there is little scholarly work on the larger implications of understanding pets as children and vice versa. Even though children and pets are similarly constructed, represented, and dominated in Western culture and society, scholars have largely neglected to interrogate childhood and pethood together. Continue reading CFP: Childhood and Pethood (edited collection)
