International Conference at the Picture Book Museum Burg Wissem, Troisdorf, 19-21 March 2009
In an every-increasing range of cultural settings, current research reveals the variety and importance of the preschool experiences and knowledge that children gain from early acquaintance with stories and books. The more we have come to know about children’s first approaches to literacy, the more we are confronted by evidence of the historical, social, linguistic and psychological complexities of the topic. Since almost none of the studies dealing with early literacy begin in infancy, this conference focuses on the importance of books for young children aged 0 to 3.
The purpose of this conference is to bring together scholars of different countries and different fields, i.e. children’s literature research, picture book theory, art history, cognitive psychology, linguistics, book history, and pedagogy, who pursue different areas of investigation in this field.
Contributions from academics interested in any of these areas and in international perspectives are particularly welcome. There are plans to publishing the proceedings of the conference afterwards in book form.
The deadline for proposals is: 31 July 2008.
Please email a 300 word abstract (for a thirty minute paper) and a short biography as an attached word document to Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer at: bettina.kuemmerling@t-online.de.
Notification of the acceptance of proposals will be made by 31 August 2008.
For further inquiries contact the conference convenor:
Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer
Universität zu Köln
Institut für deutsche Sprache und Literatur II
Gronewaldstr. 2
50931 Köln