Call for Abstracts: #Education and Role-Playing Games: #Theory, #Pedagogy, and #Practice

Analog role-playing games (tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, larps [live action role-play], etc) provide opportunities for formative and educative experiences for players. The game’s elements of role-play demand a level of imagination, participatory commitments, self-reflection, creative problem solving, and collaboration from players that most leisure activities do not. This proposed volume will focus on analog role-playing games and their educative capabilities. We are interested in how people learn and are formed by these games, both in and outside of formal educational environments. The volume seeks to examine how these games do (or do not) facilitate educative growth both through theorizing as well as concrete analysis of practice. Both theoretician-oriented and practitioner-generated pieces are welcome, but all pieces should seek to examine broader themes and questions around education, knowledge, and growth through the lens of analog RPGs. 

The editor gladly invites proposals for chapter submissions on, but not limited to, the following topics: 

Theories of education, knowledge, and pedagogy in analog role-playing games:

• RPGs and theories of learning, construction of knowledge
• RPGs and experiential/active learning 
• RPGs and vicarious experience 
• Bleed and education
• RPGs and civic / democratic education
• The role of AI in RPG play

Analog role-playing games and education broadly through:

• Education around conceptions of race, gender, sexuality, neurodivergence, etc
• Social participation, group membership, social mores
• Conflict resolution and violence in games
• Identity formation and self-discovery
• Transgressive play and education
• Consent practices and boundary setting
• RPGs and depictions of colonialism and exotification

Challenges/Benefits of utilizing RPGs in formal educational settings in regards to:

• RPGs and critical thinking, literacy, social emotional learning, etc
• RPGs and neurodivergent students
• RPGs as distinct from simulations or case studies
• RPGs and math education
• “The dice tell a story” - RPGs and data visualization 
• Ethics of usings RPGs in the classroom, especially when dealing with sensitive or controversial subject matter 
• Challenges around time management, assessment, and participation
• Considerations/Benefits when using RPGs with specific populations (i.e. children, seniors, ESL, etc)
• Pre and post game practices & reflection
• RPG practices of consent as practiced in a classroom
• Teacher as GM / GM as Teacher

 

Interested authors should send chapter abstracts of 250-500 words (excluding sources cited), a paragraph author biography, and a CV or resume to educationrpgpedagogy@gmail.com.

The call for chapters ends July 1st, 2024. Authors will be notified of accepted proposals on July 15th, 2024. Authors will submit their accepted chapters of a minimum of 4500 words in length by October 1st, 2024.

All contributors should engage with the existing academic literature on role-playing games. While the editors will not prescribe particular sources or methodologies, proposals should reflect acquaintance with current scholarship on role-playing games.

The project will be submitted for consideration as part of the Education and Popular Culture series. The series is unique as it equally values practitioner-generated pieces on using mass/popular culture as it does theoretician-oriented pieces on studying mass/popular culture, as well as works that exist in the intersections between these worlds. Works in this series take up issues surrounding popular culture in education broadly through pedagogical, historical, sociological, and critical lenses.

Contact Information

Dr. Susan Haarman

Loyola University-Chicago

Contact Email

educationrpgpedagogy@gmail.com

Call for Papers: Twenty-First-Century #Religion and #Culture in Youth #Literature (A Special Issue of The Lion and the Unicorn)

 From its earliest moments in medieval Britain and colonial America, Anglophone children’s literature was built on a foundation of religion. Even when not positioned as explicitly religious, the dominant British and colonial religion of Christianity infused children’s books with church-based morals, and references to Christmas and Jesus were taken for granted. Since then, religion has continued to be an important aspect of children’s literature, but the relationships between religion, culture, children’s literature, education, and libraries have changed several times. Now, in the twenty-first century, Anglophone children’s literature is often more conscious of religious and international diversity, having been influenced by movements like We Need Diverse Books and grassroots organizations serving religious and cultural minorities. At the same time, increasing social and political polarization affects the production of children’s literature, especially when controversial topics are so often tied to religious ideologies. Recent developments like new manifestations of religious nationalism, the rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia, the splintering of the Methodist church, Pope Francis’ decision to allow Catholic clergy to bless same-sex relationships, the growing rate of young adults leaving religious communities, and differentiation within a variety of indigenous and diasporic religions make the time ripe for reconsideration of academic discussions about the role of religion and belief in children’s literature.

This special issue aims to revive and expand long-standing conversations about the roots and continued presence of religion in children’s literature, beyond consideration of early Christian influences. For example, children’s literature has been shaped by many developments including:

• fundamental changes in religious institutions; 
• cross-cultural influences within and between religions; 
• secularization and resistance to secularization; 
• grappling with and/or reconciliation of creationism and evolution; 
• movements intersecting with religion (e.g., ongoing civil rights struggles, feminism, LGBTQ+ advocacy, abortion access, environmental activism, decolonial movements, Black Lives Matter). 

With an eye towards interfaith dialogue and inclusion, we will feature a variety of perspectives on religion and culture in children’s and young adult literature. 

We invite submissions of proposals for this special issue of The Lion and the Unicorn to be published in Spring 2026. Please submit abstracts of 400-500 words for full-length essays (8,000-10,000 words) addressing, challenging, and/or developing ideas about the current state of religion and culture, broadly defined, in texts for children and young adults in a variety of religious and cultural contexts. We especially encourage papers considering non-Western and non-Abrahamic religious traditions, papers engaging with intersectionality, and papers considering old ideas in a new light.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Does religion still matter in twenty-first-century youth literature? 
• How does the post-secular and/or post-humanist age affect religious content in youth literature, and vice versa?
• How does the current state of religion in children’s literature and the relationship between religious cultures and children’s literature fit within the longer history of children’s publishing?
• What is the legacy of canonical authors or enduring representations of religious practice in children’s literature? 
• What has happened to the “Christmas chapter,” especially in series fiction? What role have those episodes, so long a staple of Anglophone children’s texts, played in shaping youth literature, national religious consciousness, politics, etc.?
• What does children’s literature still lack in the realm of religion and culture? Why are those elements important, and what prevents them from being represented?
• How are the many voices within individual religious or cultural communities represented? What are some of the internal debates, and how do they affect either niche or mainstream publishing?
• Are there significant differences in religious representations between books published for a mainstream audience and ones published for an internal religious or cultural community? Between books distributed in a single country versus books distributed globally?
• How does the religious or cultural affiliation of the perceived or intended audience affect the narratives of children’s texts? 
• What are the functions of youth libraries in religious cultural centers like mosques, synagogues, churches, or temples? What kinds of book-centered programming happens in these centers, and what role do they play in the representation of religion and culture in children’s literature?
• How do public libraries and/or public schools use materials with overt or subtle religious messaging? What kinds of book-centered religious programming do public libraries and/or public schools plan? How does this vary based on community demographics? 
• How do local or national standards of education in subjects like “world religions” influence which books make their way into the curriculum? How are these books utilized in lesson plans?
• At a time when librarianship, children’s literature scholarship, and publishing have committed to diversifying representation, what role does the age-old question of quality in children’s texts play in various contexts including religious communities, professional educators, scholars, etc.?
• How does religious content in youth literature shape the cultural consciousness of youth in all religious traditions (including none), of the publishing industry, and/or of professional organizations? 
• What role do children’s editions of sacred texts and/or study guides play in the broader market of youth literature?
• Is there a significant difference between religion as represented in fantasy and religion as presented in contemporary or historical realism? What are the effects of those differences on readers?
• Do books about contemporary youth and religion differ in any significant ways from books drawing on religious pasts or legends? 
• Does age matter? How do picture books, early readers, middle grade books, and/or young adult books differ in their engagement with or representation of religious and cultural content?
• How does youth literature with religious content address or engage with often-controversial themes like social justice, the environment, etc.? How does a religious lens influence the messaging around these topics? What are the differences between various religions’ and denominations’ approaches to these topics?
• How does religion function in any or all aspects of youth literature and youth media more broadly?

Deadline for submissions of proposals: July 15, 2024

Submit via Google Form: https://forms.gle/tC8g7MYpLAxF6dcu8

For any questions, contact Sara Schwebel (sls09@illinois.edu), Suzan Alteri (salteri@illinois.edu), or Dainy Bernstein (dainyb@illinois.edu).

Contact Information

Sara Schwebel, Suzan Alteri, Dainy Bernstein

Contact Email

sls09@illinois.edu

URL

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_VikD2T6mhwLfCA8ai83I-hg9aeWUHft/view?usp=shar…

Attachments

CFP: Twenty-First Century Religion and Culture in Youth Literature

Call for Chapters: Unsettled childhoods in southern spaces (edited collection) Felicity Jensz (University of Münster, Germany) and Rebecca Swartz (University of the Free State, South Africa)

 

We are looking for a number of chapters of 7,000 words to expand our basis of an edited collection which examines the meaning of ‘settled’ and ‘unsettled’ childhoods in the southern hemisphere locations of the British Empire that became South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand from European ‘settlement’ to the present day. We are interested in the meaning of childhood in (settler) colonial contexts and these chapters show that a focus on children’s experiences can unsettle common understandings of settler colonialism. Children are unsettled and unsettling as they are not as ‘fixed’ as adults in their identities, and, are deemed still ‘malleable’. Their position in colonial society is also contingent on projected trajectories of settlement, with mixed race as well as children outside of the categories of white or indigenous also complicating as well as testing and straining the concepts of child, childhood and settler colonial societies. The bodies of children were projections of normative expectations of a ‘healthy’ settler colonial site, with bodies that deviated from the norm, either through illness or genetics, having the potential to unsettle both projected as well as lived realities within settler colonies.

Through a focus on children and childhood(s) in settler colonial contexts we are contributing to the academic discussion as to the meaning of what it meant to be a child in the past and how childhood was used in the construction of new political entities. Similar to contemporary contexts, childhood is inherently unsettled, as it is a phase of dynamic physical, emotional and mental change, prior to a more settled, adult phase. The collection, therefore, seeks to unsettle the idea of childhood itself, showing that understandings of what it meant to be a young person in the past varied significantly across the southern spaces under study. The edited collection stems from our work on childhood and institutions in settler colonial spaces across empires, see: Settler Colonial Studies vol 13 2023. 

The papers presented in this edited collection will present original research that engages with the following themes:

1. Migrant childhoods: What were the experiences of migrant children entering settler colonial spaces? How does including migrant children in our analysis shift understandings of children and childhood? How do these literally ‘unsettled’ children enter into colonial spaces and change the dynamics between coloniser and colonised and challenge the categories associated with childhood itself?
2. Indigenous childhoods: How did colonial regimes in these southern spaces impact on understandings of childhood and in particular on indigenous children themselves? How were these children brought into relationship with institutions in those contexts?
3. Settler childhoods: What did it mean to grow up as a settler child? How does studying white settler children in colonial contexts help us to understand the settler colonial context more broadly?
4. Institutions: How were and are childhoods - migrant, settler, indigenous - shaped by institutions in (settler) colonial contexts? What is the role of these institutions in shaping children’s lives, experiences and futures?
5. Sources of childhood: What kinds of sources can we use to understand the experiences and agency of children in the past, particularly in these southern locations? Papers in this collection illustrate the utility of a vast range of sources, including personal documents and writings, autobiography, anthropological field notes, oral history interviews, archival research, amongst others. How do we access children’s voices?

We are particularly looking for papers that examine the experiences of Maori children, mixed-race children, children of various socio-economic backgrounds, Indian children in South Africa, and migrant children in general.

Timeline:

By 1 March 2024: 300 word abstracts and one-page bios to be submitted to both Felicity Jensz (felicity.jensz@uni-muenster.de) and Rebecca Swartz (swartzr@ufs.ac.za)

15 March 2024: Invitations to submit a full manuscript will be sent

30 June 2024: Full papers due

Please note the tight turn around time as we are already advanced with the project.

Contact Information

Felicity Jensz (felicity.jensz@uni-muenster.de) and Rebecca Swartz (swartzr@ufs.ac.za)

Call for Book Chapter Proposals: Chosen, Bestowed, Acquired, Assigned: Names and Naming in Youth Literature (Proposal deadline: July 15, 2023)

 

Edited by I. M. Nick and Anne W. Anderson

    Just as names are among the first and most basic means by which we order and make sense of our world, so too do names in works of literature help readers order and make sense of created worlds. Moreover, names in literature often connote more than they denote. This edited collection will consider how names, depictions of naming practices, and explorations of name theory in youth literature can enrich our understanding of created worlds and, by implication, of our real world. For the purposes of this collection, we draw on the Children’s Literature Association’s conception of literature as “books, films, and other media created for, or adopted by, children and young adults around the world, past, present, and future" (https://www.childlitassn.org).

    Chapters proposed for this volume might address names, naming, and name theory in youth literature of any media and/or modality, from any perspective, and using the analytical tools of any discipline. From the names of places, people, animals, and plants to the monikers of fairies and goblins, cyborgs and droids, any type of name from any time period or from any language is welcome. Please see the American Name Society’s glossary of naming terminology (https://www.americannamesociety.org/names/); this CFP can be viewed on the ANS site, as well. The primary works examined may be fiction or non-fiction. The only subject-matter stipulation for submission is that the primary intended reading audience of the piece(s) of literature investigated must be youth (i.e., children, adolescents, and/or early adults). 

The following is a partial list of possible topics, but we also welcome being surprised by other pertinent suggestions. 

•    Names as chosen, bestowed, acquired, assigned, or self-selected 

• Naming practices, rites, rituals, and regulations and their implications

•    Literary devices or linguistic mechanisms used in creating names and their implications

•    Questions of unnaming and renaming of people, places, and things

•    Questions of names and identity, self-hood, and socio-cultural connection

•    Names as constructions of normal vs. abnormal, good vs. evil, acceptable vs. anathema 

•    Theoretical frameworks for analyzing names in youth literature and media

•    Challenges and strategies for translating names

•    Names of the non-human, inhuman, mechanical, and systemic and their implications

•    Names in galaxies far, far away and in subatomic systems

•    Names as markers of political, ideological, historical controversies

•    Nonsensical names and/or memetic names and their implications

Proposal Submission Process 

•    Abstract proposals (max. 500 words, excluding the title and references) should be sent as a PDF email attachment to Dr. Anne W. Anderson (YouthLit2023@gmail.com).

•    For organizational purposes, the proposals must include “YOUTHLIT2023” in the subject line of the email.

•    All proposals must include an abstract, a title, and a preliminary list of references.

•    The full name(s) of the author(s) and the author(’s’) affiliation(s) must appear in the body of the email. These details should NOT appear in the attached proposal.

•    In the case of multi-authored submissions, one person must be clearly identified as the primary contact. 

•    The DEADLINE for proposal submissions is July 15, 2023. All proposals will be submitted to a double-blind review process. Authors will be notified about acceptance on or before September 15, 2023. 

•    Final chapters (max. 7,000 words, excluding abstracts and references) will be due March 15, 2024.

For further information about this call, please view our website's FAQ page (https://sites.google.com/view/youthlit2023/) or feel free to contact Dr. Anne W. Anderson (YouthLit2023@gmail.com). We look forward to receiving your proposals!

Contact Info: 

I.M. Nick holds a BA (Germanics), BSC (Clinical/Abnormal Psychology), MA (German Linguistics), MSc (Forensic and Investigative Psychology), as well as a PhD and the German “Habilitation” (English Linguistics). Her research areas include forensic linguistics, Holocaust Studies, slavery, and onomastics. She is the President of the Germanic Society for Forensic Linguistics, a past President of the American Name Society, and the current Editor-in-Chief of NAMES.

Anne W. Anderson earned a B.A. in Creative Writing (Eckerd College), an M.A. in Journalism (U. Alabama), and a Ph.D. in Literacy Studies/Education (U. South Florida) as well as a Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research Methods. Her research areas include critical studies of children's and young adult literature (all media) and developing methods of multi-modal document analysis. She is a member of the Children's Literature Association, is the Allied Conference Coordinator for the American Name Society, and is an independent researcher/scholar.

Contact Email: 

YouthLit2023@gmail.com

URL: 

https://www.americannamesociety.org/call-for-book-chapter-proposals-chosen-bestowed-acquired-assigned-names-and-naming-i…