Members, research projects, associates and research students

Research Projects

International Forum for Research in Children’s Literature research projects and engagements include, for example: 

  • Obesity, Food and Childhood 

  • Health and Children's Literature,  

  • Disability in children’s literature 

  • Eco-criticism and Children's Literature 

Members  

Prof Jean Webb is Professor of International Children’s Literature and IFRCL’s Director. Her research interests include international perspectives on children’s literature and English children’s literature from the 19th century through to the work of contemporary authors.  

 

Dr Stephen Bigger is archivist of the Malcolm Saville Society and a collector of children's books, especially books written between 1930 and 1960 and those that address war and children’s experiences of war. 

 

David Broster is Head of Division for Drama, Performance and Film and is currently researching the ideologies and aesthetics of live performance and their impacts on children and young people and their development. 

 

Professor Piet Grobler is an award winning illustrator who teaches Illustration and Graphic Design. His research interests include editorial illustration, picture book illustration (particularly postmodernist picture books), and post-colonial commentary in picture book illustration and graphic design. 

 

Dr Mikel J Koven is a Senior Lecturer and Course Leader of Film Studies. His main research area is the study of folk-narrative and popular cinema. He is currently editing a book on global mythologies and world cinemas. A member of the Committee of the Folk-Lore Society, he is currently editor of the journal Contemporary Legend, and is president-elect of the International Society of Contemporary Legend Research (ISCLR). 

 

Dr Barbara Mitra is Senior Lecturer in Media & Cultural Studies. Her research interests include popular culture, new media and language, photos and advertisements.    

 

Dr. Branwen Bingle whose work focusses on the way that primary teachers are represented in children’s fiction, professional identity and role conceptions for the beginning ITE student    

 
Dr Fawzia Gilani-Williams is an academic teacher and award winning author of Islamic Children’s Literature. She won a prestigious Silver Medal in the Sydney Taylor Book Awards which are presented annually by the Association of Jewish Libraries in recognition of outstanding books for children and teens 

 

Jane Kubiesa whose work is on Representations of the Abhuman in Multi-volume Vampire Fiction, 2000-2010 

  

Rosemarie Miller whose work focuses on spectrality, the Gothic and the novels of Sonya Hartnett.