Как конференция становится событием?

Abstract

The article presents an analytical review of the events of the 3rd international forum conference ‘Children’s literature as a phenomenon’ which was held in December, 2019, at Moscow City University on the basis of the involved observation carried by the authors who took part in the conference. The authors specify the key problems raised at the interdisciplinary conference, starting from the pre-conference stage where the American researchers (O.B. Bukhina, K. Herold) delivered a binary lecture on the study of children’s literature in the USA. The key problems were discussed which determined the main tracks of the conference. The first track consolidated the issues associated with gender dimensions of children’s literature (moderated by I.A. Sergiyenko). It was found out that the topic is not imposed upon the children’s literature from the outside: texts reflect changes in our society in connection with the status of men and women and the upbringing of boys and girls. The second track of the conference, which was moderated by M.L. Maiofis and connected with family memory and local memory in the contemporary children’s literature, demonstrated that the segment of literature in question is a powerful keeper of memory, both family memory and national memory. The speeches and discussions of the third track (moderated by O.B. Bukhina) dwelt on the National versus the International in the children’s literature and on their comparison; all the speakers emphasized the potential of the books under discussion for young readers. A separate conference track was the one connected with the study of the child reading in all its aspects. The anthropologist’s (S.G. Maslinskaya’s) view on the problem defined the framework of the talk where sociologists, specialists in teaching methods, librarians and teachers participated. Following the discussions unfolded on different platforms, the participants came to the conclusion that the promotion of reading is successful only when a child/a teenager/an adolescent is put in the position of an agent of their own reading activities which take place at home, at school and beyond it. The authors of the article have demonstrated what factors and conditions are needed for an interdisciplinary scientific conference to become a phenomenon to all those who deal with the problems of children’s literature and child reading.