EmPr Clare Bradford

STAFF PROFILE

Position

Emeritus Professor

Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Education

Department

Office of the Exec Dean A&E

Campus

Off-Campus (Home)

Qualifications

Master of Education, University of Sydney, 1983
Doctor of Philosophy, University of Sydney, 1978
Master of Arts, Wellington, Victoria U. of, 1972
Bachelor of Arts, University of Auckland, 1970

Contact

Biography

I hold a Personal Chair as Alfred Deakin Professor in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University, where I work in the field of literary studies. I have published 13 books and over 80 essays and journal articles on children's and other literature. My most recent book is The Middle Ages in Children's Literature (Palgrave), which explores how the Middle Ages are used and abused in medievalist texts for the young--that is, post-medieval texts which respond to and deploy medieval culture.

From 2007-2011 I served as President of the International Research Society for Children's Literature, the main international scholarly organisation in the field. In this role I met scholars from all over the world undertaking research in children's literature. In 2009 the Trudeau Foundation (Canada) named me as its first Visiting International Fellow, and during 2010 I spent most of the year working with Canadian scholars at the University of Winnipeg's Centre for Young People's Texts and Cultures. In 2011 I was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities.

Read more on Clare's profile

Research interests

Children's literature: social, cultural and political aspects; postcolonial studies and literatures; utopian studies; medievalisms in texts and culture

Affiliations

Children's Literature Association

International Research Society for Children's Literature

Australasian Children's Literature Association for Research

Association for Canadian Studies in Australia and New Zealand

Teaching interests

Children's literature, postcolonialism, medievalism

Professional activities

Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, elected 2011

Visiting International Fellow, Trudeau Foundation (Canada), from 2009

Director of the Centre for Memory, Imagination and Invention, 2010-2014

Joint Editor of Book Series, Critical Approaches to Children's Literature (Palgrave UK)

President, International Research Society for Children's Literature (2007-2011)

Vice-President, International Research Society for Children's Literature (2005-2007)

Editor, Papers: Explorations into Children's Literature, from 1996

Member of Editorial Board, Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures (University of Winnipeg, Canada)

Publication Committee, Children's Literature Association (USA) 2007-2010

Referee, Children's Literature (Johns Hopkins University Press)

 President, Australasian Children's Literature Association for Research, 1998-2002

Awards

Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 2011

Inaugural Visiting International Trudeau Fellowship, 2009-2011, Trudeau Foundation, Canada

Children's Literature Association Honor Book for Unsettling Narratives: Postcolonial Readings of Children's Literature, 2009

Children's Literature Association Book Award for outstanding book on children's literature published in 2001 for Reading Race: Aboriginality in Australian Children's Literature

International Research Society for Children's Literature (IRSCL) Award, for Reading Race: Aboriginality in Australian Children's Literature, 2003

Publications

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2020

The Stolen Generations of Australia: Narratives of loss and survival

Clare Bradford

(2020), Vol. 13, pp. 242-258, International research in children's literature, Edinburgh, Scotland, C1

journal article
2018

From colonial to modern transnational girlhood in Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand literature, 1840-1940

Michelle Smith, Kristine Moruzi, Clare Bradford

(2018), Toronto, Ont., A1

book

Bullies, the bullied and bullying narratives in contemporary fiction

C Bradford, L Hedberg

(2018), pp. 105-125, Cruel children in popular texts and cultures, Cham, Switzerland, B1

book chapter

Children's and young adult novels: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Pacific

C Bradford

(2018), Vol. 12, pp. 236-250, The Novel in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the South Pacific Since 1950, Oxford, Eng., B1

book chapter
2017

The critical reading of children's texts: theories, methodologies, and critiques

C Bradford

(2017), pp. 16-27, Critical content analysis of children's and young adult literature: reframing perspective, New York, N.Y., B1

book chapter

Where girls rule by magic: metaphors of agency

C Bradford

(2017), pp. 107-119, Child autonomy and child governance in children's literature: where children rule, New York, N.Y., B1

book chapter

Prizing national and transnational: Australian texts in the Printz award

C Bradford

(2017), Vol. 118, pp. 19-31, Prizing children's literature : the cultural politics of children's book awards, Abingdon, Eng., B1

book chapter
2016

Juvenile fiction

M Reimer, C Bradford, H Snell

(2016), Vol. 9, pp. 280-299, World Novel in English to 1950, Oxford, Eng., B1

book chapter

Ubby's underdogs: a transformative vision of Australian community

C Bradford, C Sly, D Xu

(2016), Vol. 24, pp. 101-131, Papers: explorations into children's literature, Melbourne, VIC, C1

journal article
2015

The Middle Ages in Children's Literature

C Bradford

(2015), Houndmills Basingstoke UK, A1

book

Introduction. Girls, texts, cultures: cross-disciplinary dialogues

C Bradford

(2015), pp. 1-1, Girls, texts, cultures, Waterloo, Ont., B1

book chapter

Female protagonists in Arthurian television for the young

C Bradford, R Hutton

(2015), pp. 11-34, The Middle Ages in Popular Culture: Medievalism and Genre, Amerst, N. Y., B1

book chapter

Parent, child and state in Chinese children's books

L Bi, X Fang, C Bradford

(2015), Vol. 23, pp. 34-52, Papers: explorations into children's literature, Melbourne, Vic., C1

journal article

'Turning around' to the affordances of digital games: English curriculum and students' lifeworlds

C Beavis, C Walsh, C Bradford, J O'Mara, T Apperley, A Gutierrez

(2015), Vol. 50, pp. 30-40, English in Australia, Melbourne, Vic., C1

journal article

Girls, texts, cultures

C Bradford

(2015), Waterloo, Ont., A7

edited book
2014

Here be dragons

C Bradford

(2014), pp. 207-226, International medievalism and popular culture, Amherst, N. Y., B1

book chapter

'My blarsted greenstone throne!' Māori princesses and nationhood in New Zealand fiction for girls

C Bradford, C Bradford, C Bradford, C Bradford

(2014), pp. 95-109, Colonial girlhood in literature, culture and history, 1840-1950, Basingstoke, England, B1

book chapter

Fantasy and its functions in Medievalist picture books

C Bradford

(2014), pp. 61-74, Picture books and beyond, Newtown, NSW, B1

book chapter

Made in New Zealand: place and enchantment in Margaret Mahy's picture books

C Bradford

(2014), Vol. 39, pp. 111-120, Children's literature association quarterly, Baltimore, Maryland, C1

journal article
2013

Medievalism and nationhood in children's literature

C Bradford

(2013), pp. 209-221, The nation in children's literature : nations of childhood, Abingdon, Eng., B1

book chapter

Monsters: monstrous identities in young adult romance

C Bradford

(2013), pp. 115-125, (Re)Imagining the world: children's literature's response to changing times, Heidelberg , Germany, B1

book chapter

Saved by the word: Textuality and colonization in nineteenth-century Australian texts for children

C Bradford

(2013), pp. 89-109, Voices of the Other: Children's Literature and the Postcolonial Context, B1-1

book chapter
2012

Narrative and computer games

C Bradford

(2012), pp. 115-120, Digital games : literacy in action, Kensington Gardens S. A., B1

book chapter

Where happily ever after happens every day : the medievalisms of Disney's princesses

C Bradford

(2012), pp. 171-188, The Disney middle ages : a fairy-tale and fantasy past, Basingstoke, England, B1

book chapter

Instilling postcolonial nostalgias : Ned Kelly narratives for children

C Bradford

(2012), Vol. 36, pp. 191-206, Journal of Australian studies, Brisbane, Qld., C1

journal article
2011

Reading indigeneity : the ethics of interpretation and representation

C Bradford

(2011), pp. 331-342, Handbook of research on children's and young adult literature, New York, B1

book chapter

Multiculturalism and post-colonialism

C Bradford

(2011), pp. 162-169, Children's literature studies : a research handbook, Basingstoke, England, B1

book chapter

Postcolonial

C Bradford

(2011), pp. 177-181, Keywords for children's literature, New York, B1

book chapter

Children as ecocitizens : ecocriticism and environmental texts

G Massey, C Bradford

(2011), pp. 109-126, Contemporary children`s literature and film : engaging with theory, Hampshire, England, B1

book chapter

Journeying subjects : spatiality and identity in children's texts

C Bradford, R Baccolini

(2011), pp. 36-56, Contemporary children's literature and film : engaging with theory, London, England, B1

book chapter

Children's literature in a global age : transnational and local identities

C Bradford

(2011), Vol. 2, pp. 20-34, Nordic journal of childlit aesthetics, Sweden, C1

journal article

The case of children's literature : colonial or anti-colonial?

C Bradford

(2011), Vol. 1, pp. 271-279, Global Studies of Childhood, Oxford, U.K., C1

journal article

The return of the fairy : Australian medievalist fantasy for the young

C Bradford

(2011), Vol. 26, pp. 115-132, Australian literary studies, Ipswich, Qld., C1

journal article
2010

Race, ethnicity and colonialism

C Bradford

(2010), pp. 39-50, The routledge companion to children's literature, London, England, B1

book chapter

'Everything must go!' : consumerism and reader positioning in M. T. Anderson's Feed

C Bradford

(2010), Vol. 2, pp. 128-137, Jeunesse : young people, texts, cultures, Winnipeg, Canada, C1

journal article

Looking for my corpse : video games and player positioning

C Bradford

(2010), Vol. 33, pp. 54-64, Australian journal of language and literacy, Norwood, S. A.., C1

journal article

Looking for my corpse: Video games and player positioning

C Bradford

(2010), Vol. 33, pp. 54-64, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, C1-1

journal article
2009

Australian children's literature

C Bradford

(2009), pp. 282-302, The Cambridge history of Australian literature, Melbourne, Vic., B1

book chapter

Indigeneity and children's literature

C Bradford

(2009), pp. 117-132, English for a new millennium : leading change, Kent Town, S. Aust., B1

book chapter

Race and reconciliation in settler culture children's literature

C Bradford

(2009), pp. 48-60, Readings on ELT materials III, Malaysia, B1

book chapter

Literacy in the digital age : learning from computer games

C Bradford, C Beavis, T Apperley, J O'Mara, C Walsh

(2009), Vol. 43, pp. 162-175, English in education, United Kingdom, C1

journal article

Playing at bullying : the postmodern ethic of Bully (Canis Canem edit)

C Bradford

(2009), Vol. 1, pp. 67-82, Digital culture and education, [Australia], C1

journal article

Muslim - Christian relations and the third crusade : medievalist imaginings

C Bradford

(2009), Vol. 2, pp. 177-191, International research in children's literature, Edinburgh, Scotland, C1

journal article

Decolonising space : Indigenous picture books and agency

C Bradford

(2009), pp. 109-116, Metamorphoses in children's literature and culture, Jyvaskyla, Finland, E1

conference
2008

New world orders in contemporary children's literature : utopian transformations

C Bradford, K Mallan, J Stephens, R McCallum

(2008), New York, United States, A1

book

The homely imaginary : fantasies of nationhood in Australian and Canadian texts

C Bradford

(2008), pp. 177-193, Home words : discourses of children's literature in Canada, Waterloo, Ont., B1

book chapter

New world orders and the dystopian turn : transforming visions of territoriality and belonging in recent Australian children's fiction

C Bradford, K Mallan, J Stephens

(2008), Vol. 32, pp. 349-359, Journal of Australian studies, St. Lucia, Qld., C1

journal article

Research methodologies in creative practice : literacy in the digital age of the twenty first century - learning from computer games

C Beavis, C Bradford, J O'Mara, C Walsh

(2008), pp. 1-9, AARE 2008 : Changing climates : education for sustainable futures : Proceedings of the 2008 Australian Association for Research in Education conference, Brisbane, Qld., E1-1

conference
2007

Unsettling narratives: postcolonial readings of childrens literature

C Bradford

(2007), Waterloo, Ont., A1

book

Reading childrens literature : theories and strategies

C Bradford

(2007), pp. 1-21, Understanding childrens literature, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, B1

book chapter

Re-membering colonialism: tropes of discovery in settler-society texts

C Bradford

(2007), Vol. 33, pp. 66-81, Canadian children's literature, Guelph, Ont, C1

journal article

Exclusions and inclusions: multiculturalism in contemporary Taiwanese and Australian picturebooks

C Bradford, H Huang

(2007), Vol. 45, pp. 5-12, Bookbird: a journal of international children's literature, Baltimore, Md., C1

journal article

Representing Islam: female subjects in Suzanne Fisher Staples's novels

C Bradford

(2007), Vol. 32, pp. 47-61, Children's literature association quarterly, Baltimore, Md., C1

journal article

Postcolonial bildungsroman: indigenous subjects and identity-formation

C Bradford

(2007), Vol. 29, pp. 10-18, Waiguo wenxue yanjiu, China, C1

journal article

Cross generational negotiations: Asian Australian picture books

C Bradford

(2007), Vol. 17, pp. 36-42, Papers: explorations into children's literature, Victoria Park, W.A., C1

journal article
2005

They went home: racialised spaces in contemporary picture books

C Bradford

(2005), Vol. 1, pp. 86-95, Australian critical race and whiteness studies association journal, [Australia], C1

journal article

Education, state and agency in dystopian children's texts

M Aitken, C Bradford, G Massey

(2005), Vol. 15, pp. 22-30, Papers : explorations into children's literature, Victoria Park, W.A., C1

journal article

New social orders: reconceptualising family and community in utopian fiction

K Mallan, C Bradford, J Stephens

(2005), Vol. 15, pp. 6-21, Papers: exploration into children's literature, Victoria Park, W.A., C1

journal article

Whiteness is all: Stuart Little and the American dream

C Bradford

(2005), pp. 92-103, Adaption as a strategy of childrens literature, Plovdiv, Bulgaria, E1

conference
2004

When everything old is new again: Aboriginal texts and the politics of renewal

C Bradford

(2004), pp. 17-24, Change and renewal in children`s literature, Westport, Conn., B1

book chapter

To hold up prisms: Australian and Canadian indigenous publishing for children

C Bradford

(2004), Vol. 42, pp. 30-37, Bookbird: a journal of international children's literature, Baltimore, Md., C1

journal article

Transformative fictions: postcolonial encounters in Australian texts

C Bradford

(2004), Vol. 28, pp. 195-202, Children's literature association quarterly, Baltimore, Md., C1

journal article
2003

Stronger than yesterday: romance and antiromance in popular music

C Bradford

(2003), pp. 35-46, Youth cultures; texts, images, and identities, Westport, London, B1

book chapter

The sky is falling: children as environmental subjects in contemporary picture books

C Bradford

(2003), pp. 111-120, Children's literature and the Fin de siecle, Westport, Conn., B1

book chapter

Aboriginal visual narratives for children: a politics of place

C Bradford

(2003), pp. 65-77, Art, narrative and childhood, Stoke on Trent, England, B1

book chapter

Picturing Australian history: visual texts in nonfiction for children

C Bradford

(2003), pp. 99-105, Presence of the past in children's literature, Westport, Conn., B1

book chapter

'Oh how different!' : regimes of knowledge in aboriginal texts for children

C Bradford

(2003), Vol. 27, pp. 199-217, Lion and the unicorn, Baltimore, Md, C1

journal article

Art, pain, children: utopian and dystopian discourses in picture books

C Bradford

(2003), Vol. 4, pp. 1-7, Double dialogues, Canterbury, Vic., C1

journal article

There's no place like home : unhomely moments in three postcolonial picture books

C Bradford

(2003), pp. 104-109, ACLAR 2001 : Cinderella transformed: multiple voices and diverse dialogues in children's literature : Proceedings of the 2001 Australasian Children’s Literature Association for Research Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand, E1

conference

Home, homelessness, and liminal spaces: the uses of postcolonial theory for reading (national) children's literatures

M Reimer, C Bradford

(2003), pp. 200-217, Children's literature global and local : social and aesthetic perspectives ; Selected papers from the 16th biennal congress of the International Research Society for Children's Literature (IRSCL), held in Kristiansand, Norway in 2003, Kristiansand, Norway, E1

conference
2002

Performances of colour : narratives of passing in contemporary settler-colony texts

C Bradford

(2002), pp. 77-84, Seriously playful : genre, performance, and text, Flaxton, Qld., B1

book chapter
2001

Reading race, aboriginality in Australian children`s literature

C Bradford

(2001), Carlton, Victoria, A1

book

Mother, maiden, child: gender as performance in the book of Margery Kempe

C Bradford

(2001), pp. 165-181, Feminist poetics of the sacred, creative suspicions, New York, USA, B1

book chapter

Possessed by the beast: subjectivity and agency in pictures in the dark and foxspell

C Bradford

(2001), pp. 149-164, Mystery in children`s literature, from the rational to the supernatural, Houndmills, Hampshire, UK., B1

book chapter

The end of empire? colonial and postcolonial journeys in children`s books

C Bradford

(2001), Vol. 29, pp. 196-218, Children's literature, New Haven, USA, C1

journal article

Worth in the telling: tales of trauma in Australian Aboriginal narratives

C Bradford

(2001), Vol. 27, Canadian children's literature, Ontario, Canada, C1-1

journal article
1999

The making of an elder : Patricia Wrightson and Aboriginality

C Bradford

(1999), Children's Literature Matters : Proceedings of the 3rd Australian Children's Literature Association for Research conference, Melbourne, Victoria, E1

conference

Funded Projects at Deakin

Australian Competitive Grants

Building cultural citizenship: Multiculturalism and children's literature

Prof Clare Bradford, Dr Wenche Ommundsen

ARC - Discovery Projects

  • 2008: $67,127
  • 2007: $65,811
  • 2006: $65,545

Literacy in the digital world of the twenty-first century: learning from computer games.

Prof Catherine Beavis, Prof Clare Bradford, A/Prof Joanne O'Mara, Dr Christopher Walsh

ARC Linkage - Projects Rnd 1

  • 2010: $52,596
  • 2008: $41,626
  • 2007: $65,295

From Colonial to Modern: Transnational Girlhood in Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian Print Cultures (1840-1940)

Dr Michelle Smith, Prof Clare Bradford, Dr Kristine Moruzi

ARC - Discovery Projects

  • 2013: $58,752

Other Public Sector Funding

Developing Children's Literature Scholarship: Collaboration between Australia and India

Prof Clare Bradford

Aust India Council Grant - Research

  • 2008: $5,000

Literacy in the digital world of the twenty-first century: learning from computer games.

Prof Catherine Beavis, Prof Clare Bradford, A/Prof Joanne O'Mara, Dr Christopher Walsh

ACMI -The Australian Centre for the Moving Image, DETVic Department of Education and Training Victoria

  • 2010: $25,000
  • 2008: $30,000
  • 2007: $25,000

Australian and Indian (Tamil) Children's Literature: A comparative study

Prof Clare Bradford, Dr Meenakshi Hariharan, Prof C Indra

Aust India Council Grant - Research

  • 2009: $4,500

Landscaping to Manufacturing: The Wool Industry in Geelong

Prof Clare Bradford, Prof Hisham Elkadi, A/Prof Dirk De Bruyn, Prof Andrea Witcomb, Prof Emily Potter

City of Greater Geelong - Creative Communities Grants

  • 2013: $5,000

Industry and Other Funding

Researching and Writing The Wintringham Story

Dr Karen Le Rossignol, Prof Clare Bradford

ANZCT Grant - William Buckland (no longer relevant)

  • 2009: $40,000

Supervisions

Principal Supervisor
2021

Robin Freeman

Thesis entitled: Ethical approaches to editing Indigenous writing in settler societies

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2016

Catherine Sly

Thesis entitled: A Narratological Investigation of Australian Graphic Novels for Children

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2015

Juliet O'Conor

Thesis entitled: Traditional Indigenous Australian Stories for Children

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2012

Mercedeh Makoui

Thesis entitled: Gender Relations in Iranian Picture Books: The Politics of Womanhood

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2011

Dirk De Bruyn

Thesis entitled: The Performance of Trauma in Moving Image Art

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2009

Joanna Walkden Harris

Thesis entitled: Feminist Perspectives on Gender Ideology in Recent Young Adult Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2007

Kathryn Mary McInally

Thesis entitled: (Queer) Deleuzean Reading of Desire in Australian Young Adult Fiction

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2006

Kathryn Anne James

Thesis entitled: Matilda's Last Dance: Death, Gender, Sexuality and Australian Adolescent Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2005

Diana Hodge

Thesis entitled: Victorianisms in Twentieth Century Young Adult Fiction

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

Catherine Watkins

Thesis entitled: Celebrating Difference

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2003

Carol Lesley Naylor

Thesis entitled: `Commonsense, Manners, Guts': `Manliness' in the English School Story 1887-1917

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2002

Catherine Padmore

Thesis entitled: Leavings: A Novel and Exegesis

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2001

Gaylene Perry

Thesis entitled: Water's Edge Writing

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Literary & Communication Studies

Executive Supervisor
2021

Lara Bridget Hedberg

Thesis entitled: Queer Girls, Queer Landscapes in Texts for Young People

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2017

William Anthony Kent

Thesis entitled: Here Be Dragons: Ideology and Socialisation in Young Adult Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

Associate Supervisor
2017

Dylan Gregory Holdsworth

Thesis entitled: Dis-topias: The Government of Disability in Dystopian Children's Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

Thomas Dylan Sandercock

Thesis entitled: Telling Trans: Reading Transgender Representation in Texts for Young People

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2016

Rebecca Elizabeth Hutton

Thesis entitled: Homebirds: re-conceptualising music in young adult LGBTQ fiction

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2004

Kathryn Hegarty

Thesis entitled: Crossing Bowen Street: Mapping Interventions in the Classed Subject

Doctor of Philosophy, School of Communication and Creative Arts

2002

Darren Drake

Thesis entitled: Secularism Exhausted? Non-Indigenous Postcolonial Discourses and the Question of Aboriginal Religion

Master of Arts, School of Communication and Creative Arts