Event overview
"The Repeating Island? Racial Diversity in Young Adult Publishing" by Professor Karen Sands-O'Connor
Literature for young people in Britain has from its inception been connected to colonialism. The boys' adventure story, the missionary tale, the abolition poem and the comic annual, just to name a few, all presented white readers with literature full of racial hierarchies, stereotypes, and tropes designed to maintain white British superiority. By the time that British publishers began creating specific 'teenage' imprints in the 1960s, readers were no longer exclusively white and middle-class.
Increasingly, people of colour who had formerly appeared as servants, villains and foreigners in British literature for young people were now the 'new neighbours'. But despite a rapidly changing population demographic, publishers of British young adult literature before 1985 continued to re-present the hierarchies of colonialism in the books they published.
This talk will take a historical view of racial diversity in mainstream and educational British young adult publishing, and demonstrate how authors of colour then and now challenged the status quo to create more inclusive young adult literature for British readers.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 13 May 2024 | 4:00pm - 5:00pm |
Accessibility
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