- Profile
- Research
- Teaching
- Selected Publications
Maria Nikolajeva
Position/Status
Professor of Education
Professorial Fellow of Homerton College
E-mail Address
mn351@cam.ac.uk
Phone
(+44) 01223 767551
Qualifications
- MA (Moscow Linguistic University, English)
- PhD (Stockholm University, Comparative Literature)
Membership of Professional Bodies/Associations
- International Research Society for Children's Literature (President 1993-97)
- Children's Literature Association (international committee 1998-2001 and 2002-2004)
Editorial and advisory boards
Editorial Board, International Research in Children's Literature
Editorial Board, Marvels & Tales
Editorial Board, Papers: Explorations Into Children's Literature
Advisory Board, Write4Children
Advisory Board, Seven Stories, University of Newcastle
Advisory Board, Children's Literature and Culture series, Palgrave Macmillan
Advisory Board, Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy
Series editor, Children's Literature, Culture and Cognition, John Benjamins
Recognition
- International Brothers Grimm Award for lifetime achievement in children's literature research 2005
- Honorary Professor, University of Worcester 2007
- Distinguished Scholar Award, International Association for the Fantastic in Arts 2009
Profile
Before coming to the University of Cambridge to become Professor and Chair, Maria Nikolajeva taught children's literature and literary theory at Stockholm university, Sweden, for twenty five years. She has also been a guest professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, Åbo Akademi University, Finland, and San Diego State University, USA. She is an Honorary Professor at the University of Worcester. She has lectured extensively on the five continents and given papers at over sixty conferences, including many keynote addresses. Her academic honours include a Fulbright Grant and a research fellowship at the International Youth Library, Munich. She is the author and editor of many books and contributor to numerous professional journals and essay collections.
She has led several major research projects and was the coordinator of a five-year Nordic postgraduate training program funded by the Nordic Academy for Advanced Studies.
She is a member of several editorial boards of international professional journals and was one of the senior editors for the Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. In 2002-2008 she served on the jury of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the next-largest international award in literature after the Nobel Prize.
In 2005 she received the International Brothers Grimm Award for a lifetime achievement in children's literature research.
In Cambridge, Maria joined a vibrant community of children's literature scholars and students to which she contributes with her experience and enthusiasm. In 2010 she became the Director of the Cambridge-Homerton Research and Teaching Centre for Children's Literature which has gained substantial international reputation. She organised, in collaboration with Mary Hilton, the well-attended international conference “The Emergent Adult: Adolescent Literature and Culture”.
For further information please visit Maria's page on academia.edu.
Academic Area/Links
- Literary theory, Nordic literature, comparative literature, semiotics and narratology
Research Topics
- Critical theory, visual literacy, international and comparative children's literature, translation studies, folktales and fairy tales
Recent Research Project
- Exploring place-based identities through reading and writing: internally funded project with Emma Charlton, Gabrielle Cliff Hodges, Pam Pointon, Liz Taylor and Dominic Wyse, 2009-2011
Current Research Project
- Learning through reading: cognitive criticism and children's literature
Course Involvement
- Undergraduate course “Children and Literature”
- Mphil/MEd course “Critical Approaches to Children's Literature”
- PhD supervisions
Current PhD students:
Ghada Al-Yaqout – the influences of paratexts on the picturebook series. Clementine Beauvais – contemporary politicised picturebooks and how they entice the child to modify the world. Sophia Katsifaraki – cognitive poetic approaches to adolescent fiction. Debbie Pullinger (co-supervisor) – children’s poetry and its relationship to the wider field of children’s literature. Richard Shakeshaft – the role of technology in young adult fiction. Susan Tan – dystopias in young adult fiction. Faye Dorcas Yung – authenticity in representations of East Asian culture in children's fiction.
Prospective PhD students
Maria welcomes informal contact from prospective PhD students on any topics within children's literature research, in particular the following areas:
- picturebooks, intermediality and visual literacy
- fairy tales and fantasy in children's literature
- young adult literature
- children's literature and narrative theory
- children's literature and cognitive theory
- space and place in children's literature
- international children's literature
- translation and transcultural reception
- classics and canons in children's literature
Principal and Recent Publications
Maria Nikolajeva is the author of 15 academic books, editor of a number of volumes and has published over 200 articles in international professional journals and essay collections.
Books (a selection)
Hilton, M. and Nikolajeva, M., Eds. (2012) Contemporary adolescent literature and culture: The emergent adult. Ashgate.
Nikolajeva, M. (2010) Power, voice and subjectivity in literature for young readers. Routledge.
Beckett, S. and Nikolajeva, M., Eds. (2006) Beyond Babar: The European tradition in children's literature. Scarecrow.
Nikolajeva, M. (2005) The aesthetic approaches to children's literature. Scarecrow. Korean translation 2011.
Nikolajeva, M. (2002) The rhetoric of character in children's literature. Scarecrow. Paperback reprint 2003. Korean translation 2010.
Nikolajeva, M. and Scott, C. (2001) How picturebooks work. Garland. Paperback edition 2006. Chinese translation 2007. Korean translation 2010. Portuguese (Brazil) translation 2011. Japanese translation 2011.
Nikolajeva, M. (2000) From mythic to linear. Time in children's literature. Scarecrow. Paperback reprint 2003.
Nikolajeva, M. (1996) Children's literature comes of age. Toward a new aesthetic. Garland. Korean translation 1998.
Recent peer-reviewed articles
Nikolajeva, M. (forthcoming) Reading other people's minds through words and pictures. Children's literature in education.
Nikolajeva, M. (forthcoming) Children's literature, in The Routledge History of Childhood in the Western World, ed. Paula Fass. Routledge.
Nikolajeva, M. (2012) Beyond happily ever after: The aesthetic dilemma of sequels, in Textual transformations, ed. Benjamin Levfebre. Routledge.
Nikolajeva, M. (2012) Guilt, empathy and the ethical potential of children's literature. Barnboken - Journal of Children's Literature Research no 1.
Nikolajeva, M. (2012) The development of children’s fantasy, in Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, ed. Edward James & Farah Mendlesohn. Cambridge University Press.
Nikolajeva, M. (2011) ”I spy Rumpelstilstkin”: Playing games with the reader in The Witch's Boy. Marvels & Tales vol 32 no 2.
Nikolajeva, M. & Taylor, L. (2011) “Must we to bed indeed?” Beds as cultural signifiers in picturebooks for children. New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship vol 17 no 2.
Nikolajeva, M. (2011) Adult heroism and role models in the Harry Potter novels, in: Heroism in the Harry Potter Series, ed. Katrin Berndt & Lena Steveker. Ashgate.
Wyse D., Nikolajeva M., Charlton E., Cliff Hodges G., Pointon P., Taylor L. (2011) Place-related identity, texts, and transcultural meanings. British Educational Research Journal.
Charlton E., Wyse D., Cliff Hodges G., Nikolajeva M., Pointon P., Taylor L. (2011) Place-related identities through texts: From interdisciplinary theory to research agenda. British Journal of Educational Studies vol 59 no 1.
Nikolajeva, M. (2011) The identification fallacy; perspective and subjectivity in children's literature, in Telling children's stories: Narrative theory and children's literature, ed. Mike Cadden. University of Nebraska Press.
Nikolajeva, M. (2011) Visualising people; multimodal character contruction in Astrid Lindgren's works, in Beyond Pippi Longstocking: Intermedial and international approaches to Astrid Lindgren's work, ed. Bettina Kummerling-Meibauer & Astrid Surmatz. Routledge.
Nikolajeva, M. (2010) Interpretative codes and implied readers of children's picturebooks, in New directions in picturebook research, ed. Teresa Colomer et al. Routledge.
Nikolajeva, M. (2010) Translation and crosscultural reception, in Handbook of research on children’s and young adult literature, ed. Karen Coats et al. Routledge.
Nikolajeva, M. (2010) Literacy, competence and meaning-making: a human sciences approach. Cambridge Journal of Education vol 40 no 2.
Cliff Hodges, G., Nikolajeva, M. and Taylor, L. (2010) Three walks through fictional Fens. Children's literature in education vol 40 no 3.
Nikolajeva, M. (2009) Devils, demons, familiars, friends: Towards a semiotics of literary cats. Marvels & Tales vol 23 no 2.
Nikolajeva, M. (2009) Time and totalitarianism. International Journal of the Fantastic in Art vol 20 no 2.
Nikolajeva, M. (2009) Theory, post-theory, and aetonormative theory. Neohelicon: Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universalum no 1.
Nikolajeva, M. (2008) Comparative children’s literature: What is there to compare? Papers; Explorations into children's literature no 1.
Nikolajeva, M. (2008) Harry Potter and the secrets of children's literature in: Harry Potter's world: Multidisciplinary critical perspectives ed. Elizabeth Heilman. Routledge.
Nikolajeva, M. (2008) Play and playfulness in postmodern picturebooks, in: Postmodern picturebooks: Play, parody, and self-referentiality, ed Lawrence Sipe. Routledge.