2016 Peer-reviewed articles
British Children’s Literature on Crimean War: Alfred Henty’s Jack Archer: History of Crimea
By Natalya Sarana, National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Russia
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© 2016 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 12, Spring 2016
Abstract: In this article the author analyses G. A. Henty’s Jack Archer: History of Crimea (1883) not only as one of the few British novels directly using the ‘Crimean’ storyline, but as a novel for children that inherited the tradition of British Bildungsroman and appeared to be a new stage in development of this genre in British literature. This essay is a part of our series, Literature and the World.
Keywords: British literature, A.G.Henty, Bidungsroman, Crimean War
About the Author: Natalya Sarana is a researcher at the National Research University, Higher School of Economics in Russia.
Edited by Jill Gaeta and Teresa Kent Todd; special thanks to the anonymous peer reviewers.
Child Soldiers Revisited: Conscription and Choice in Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun
Andrea Phiana Borunda, Instructor, University of Texas at El Paso.
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© 2016 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 12, Spring 2016
Abstract: Child soldier peripheralization in the Global South is explored though the narrative devices of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy. I intend to reconnoiter the susceptibilities of children in combat with their resilience, agency, and critical accountability in war participation. This essay is a part of our series, Literature and the World
Keywords: Taiwan Strait, Formosa Resolution, Taiwan, Republic of China, People’s Republic of China (PRC), India, Soviet Union, Cold War, Communism, diplomatic history, military aid, nuclear conflict
About the Author: Andrea Phiana Borunda in an Instructor in the Rhetoric and Writing Studies Department of English at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Edited by Jill Gaeta and Teresa Kent Todd; special thanks to the anonymous peer reviewers.
Can the Child Speak? Childhood in the Age of Nation-States, Children’s Rights, and the Role of Children’s Literature
By Carmen Nolte-Odhiambo University of Hawai'i - West O'ahu
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© 2016 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 12, Spring 2016
Abstract: Positing that the institutions of childhood, and children’s books in particular, contain the child as both a controlled subject and a disruptive presence, this article notes the potential of children’s literature for fostering a dialogical engagement between child and adult voices within as well as outside the texts.
Keywords: childhood, children’s rights, children’s literature, children’s books, convention on the rights of the child, crc, united nations, heteroglossia, didacticism, dialogization
About the Author: Carmen Nolte-Odhiambo is an Associate Professor of English at University of Hawai'i - West O'ahu. Born and raised near Düsseldorf in Germany, Carmen Nolte-Odhiambo has lived in Rome and New York City as well as on O‘ahu. She holds a B.A. in Literature from Hawai‘i Pacific University and attended the Comparative Literature program at CUNY Graduate Center before transferring to University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, where she received both her M.A. and Ph.D. in English. Aside from having held academic positions, she has experience in the performing arts, translation, and language instruction. Nolte-Odhiambo is a polyglot: She is fluent in Italian as well as English and German, has studied French and Spanish, and completed graduate coursework in Latin and Old English. Nolte-Odhiambo is the author of several book chapters and journal articles as well as the co-editor of Childhood and Pethood in Literature and Culture: New Perspectives in Childhood Studies and Animal Studies (Routledge, 2017). She regularly presents her research at conferences held by local, national, and international professional organizations such as the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the International Research Society on Children’s Literature (IRSCL). She is currently at work on a monograph – tentatively titled “Childhood in Giorgio Agamben's Philosophy: Infancy, Bare Life, Potentiality, Play” – that critically examines the manifold resonances of the child-figure in Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's oeuvre.
Edited by Jill Gaeta and Teresa Kent Todd; special thanks to the anonymous peer reviewers.