Please join us for a CuSPP Seminar in person (BPB W3.03) and online on Monday 20th of January from 1-2:30. Please refer to the CuSPP email or email Wesley.Lim@anu.edu.au for the link.

Image from ‘Mi opinión sobre las ardillas’ Alejandro Zambra

Abstract:

Positioned at the intersection of childhood studies, contemporary literature, and Latin American literary traditions, this study examines how childhood is symbolically articulated in the region’s narratives. It is predicated on the premise that childhood, as fictionalised by literature, transcends biological or ontological categories to become a symbolic construct, emerging from attempts to narrate children’s subjectivities, bodies, and social lives. The project pursues two primary objectives: to analyse how contemporary writers shape and signify the category of childhood across the region’s landscapes and to examine how these imaginaries catalyse formal experimentation, signalling a renewed ‘literary fertility’ in Latin America. The research will offer a comprehensive analysis of narratives where children feature as a theme, narrative voice, internal focalisers, characters, and/or intended audience. The selection includes novels, short stories, literary essays, and picture books written in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. By linking cultural constructions of childhood to literary form, this work aims to advance regional literary epistemologies and deepens understanding of childhood as a historically contingent and culturally specific literary category.  

Jéssica Andrade Tolentino is a PhD candidate at the Australian National University. She holds a Master’s degree in Children’s Literature, Media, and Culture from the University of Glasgow. In 2024, she was a fellow at the International Youth Library in Munich. Jéssica is also the cofounder of Colectivo La Lucila, an interdisciplinary group dedicated to the study of children’s literature and media in Latin America. She is also the HDR representative for the Association of Iberian and Latin American Studies of Australasia (AILASA).