Research cluster children's and young adult literature (KJL)
Research cluster children's and young adult literature (KJL)
Research cluster children's and young adult literature (KJL)
The aim of the research cluster is to promote interdisciplinary research into children's and young adult literature. At the centre of research interests is children's and young adult literature as an aesthetic-literary, media, social, psychological, historical and educational phenomenon. Children's and young adult literature as a subject of research is thus a linking bracket for various specialist disciplines:
On the one hand, current and future developments from a media studies perspective offer approaches for research questions that, for example, focus on the inter- and transmedial character of children's and young adult literature. On the other hand, the historical perspective is important, so that, for example, questions about different concepts of childhood at different times, their respective historical conditionality and specific representation also find a significant place in this research cluster. In addition, there are questions from a didactic perspective that deal, for example, with the pedagogical and aesthetic demands on children's and young adult literature or, more specifically, focussing on didactically based teaching concepts for different media of children's and young adult literature, from picture books to all-age literature. The topic of the general significance of children's and young adult literature for (interdisciplinary) school lessons, for example in the subjects of German, philosophy, values and norms, history or general studies, can also provide an opportunity for relevant research questions. The art-scientific view of children's and young adult literature with regard to illustrations and further questions of aesthetic design is also an important area of work for the research cluster.
The university's internal interdisciplinary research activities in this field are closely networked and coordinated by the Oldenburg Research Centre for Children's and Young Adult Literature (OlFoKi), which was founded in 1997. The research centre is also in contact with other research centres for children's and young adult literature in German-speaking countries. OlFoKi works closely with the Oldenburg libraries, in particular with the archive and library of the Library and Information System at the University of Oldenburg, and supports the expansion of the already very extensive collection of children's and young adult literature. Another important task of the OlFoKi is to provide academic support for the Oldenburg Children's and Young People's Book Fair (KIBUM), which takes place annually in November, with conferences, exhibitions and publications, and to communicate research questions and findings to a wider public in this way.
Website of the OlFoKi https://uol.de/olfoki
Website of the KIBUM https://www.kibum.de
The research cluster serves to network and visualise research activities in the field of children's and young adult literature beyond OlFoKi and cordially invites interested parties from all disciplines - including advanced students who are working on children's and young adult literature, for example as part of a final thesis - to participate in the development and expansion of the research cluster.
The current contacts are as follows: