In honor of the 100th anniversary of Kenneth Grahame's
The Wind in the Willows, Jackie C. Horne and Donna R. White are soliciting essays for a proposed volume in the Children's Literature Association's Centennial Studies Series. The series seeks to reexamine children's classics from a contemporary perspective. All critical and theoretical approaches are welcome. Possible topics include the following:
- The relationship between The Wind in the Willows and Grahame's other writing (for children or for adults)
- Social class considerations that move beyond lower/middle/upper labeling; setting the novel's construction of class within the historical context of England in 1908
- Pantheism in the period
- The influence of the Yellow Book circle on The Wind in the Willows
- Grahame and the fantasy tradition; the fantastic/sublime in the world of the Riverbank
- Reconsiderations of the pastoral; the appeal of technology
- Toad and his “crazes” in the context of psychoanalysis in the opening decade of the 20th century
- Homosociality
- The construction of masculinity
- Animals as actors vs. animals as food—what determines subjectivity in the world of the Riverbank?
- The role of art/storytelling and the artist
- Issues of implied audience; the novel as a double/multi-voiced narrative
- The construction of the narrative
- The aesthetics of Graham's writing; poetry/song in The Wind in the Willows
- A. A. Milne's stage adaptation (Toad of Toad Hall) or other stage adaptations
- Film and television adaptations
- Analyses of sequels or revisionings of Grahame's Riverbank (Jan Needle's Wild Wood; William Horwood's The Willows in Winter)
- Abridgments: what they take out and why
- E. H. Shepard's illustrations; analyses of others' illustrations
- New media and The Wind in the Willows
Deadline for abstracts:
November 30, 2007. Completed articles will be due by June 30, 2008. Please send abstracts of 250-500 words by email or snail mail to the following co-editor:
Dr. Donna R. White
Department of English
Arkansas Tech University
Russellville, AR 72801
USA
dwhite@atu.edu
