Productive Remembering of Childhood: Child–Adult Memory-Work with the School Literary Canon

Abstract

This essay, co-written by adult and child researchers, marks an important shift in the field of children’s literature studies because it promotes an academic practice in which children are actively involved in decision-making. In our polyphonic account of the collaboration, we draw on the ideas of productive remembering, re-memorying, and child-led research to advance a new pedagogical approach to the current, adult-centered literary school canon in Poland, which was compiled in 2017 by a panel of politically appointed experts. We exemplify our proposal by discussing “Staś and Nel in the 21st Century”: Do Long-established School Readings Connect Generations?”, a participatory research project conducted at a primary school in Wrocław, Poland, in spring 2018. As we argue, selected texts from the canon may catalyze memories of childhood from older readers that can be shared with younger readers to develop their own connections with these texts. Such an exchange may open new individual and collective remembering spaces linking intragenerational perspectives with intergenerational meanings and resulting in a school canon that promotes both national cohesion and openness to other cultures. Seen thus, our approach can be adopted in school and other settings to engage children and adults as co-creators of particular memory-work methods. In broader terms, it can promote a critical and action-oriented understanding of the heritage of childhood in Poland and elsewhere.

Thinking and doing with childism in children's literature studies

“…Although both projects were initiated by Deszcz‐Tryhubczak and Marecki, the young researchers were invited to exercise control over all stages of the research process. The projects resulted among others in the publication of two peer‐reviewed polyvocal articles co‐written with child researchers, with each section specifying the names of its authors (Chawar et al, 2018; Deszcz‐Tryhubczak et al, 2019). To the best of our knowledge, writing and publishing peer‐reviewed articles with child readers remains an unprecedented practice in our field.…”

Pensando e fazendo com o criancismo nos estudos da literatura infantil

“…Embora ambos os projetos tenham sido iniciados por Deszcz-Tryhubczak e Marecki, os jovens pesquisadores foram convidados a exercer controle sobre todas as etapas do processo de pesquisa. Os projetos resultaram, entre outros, na publicação de dois artigos polivocais revisados por pares, coescritos com pesquisadores infantis, com cada seção especificando os nomes de seus autores(CHAWAR et al, 2018;DESZCZ-TRYHUBCZAK et al, 2019). Até onde sabemos, a escrita e a publicação de artigos revisados por pares com leitores infantis continua sendo uma prática sem precedentes em nosso campo.Para atingir esses objetivos, a equipe precisava resolver uma série de questões éticas.…”

On our com(mon)passions: Entanglements of research, teaching practices, and institutional lives

“…The critical posthumanities seek new and transdisciplinary ways to engage with these pressing matters, renewing understandings of ethics and epistemological stances in the academia. The field's engagement with the question of how to research and relate to children and childhood, which has been the focus of your and other scholars' work (Gubar, 2013;Chawar, et al, 2019;Deszcz-Tryhubczak, et al, 2019;Deszcz-Tryhubczak, 2019), prepares the ground for further transdisciplinary work and for innovative methods. New Materialist approaches take us to think questions which have been central in our field: the divide between children and adults and the one between knowers and learners, as well as the epistemological gap between knowledge produced in the arts and humanities and that emerging in (social) sciences.…”

“…I co-conducted two projects based on participatory methodologies. I think they were quite successful in that they introduced the very possibility of a child-centred inquiry and intergenerational dialogue about books into our field (Chawar, et al, 2019;Deszcz-Tryhubczak, et al, 2019). When I reflect on these projects, I can see that they were indeed framed within the anthropocentric and representational focus that prevented us from a joint exploration of our intra-actions with materialities of children's literature.…”