Research Highlights 2014

I. Grant from “Internationalising the Humanities” (NWO) to consolidate and expand the international network PLACIM: Platform for a Cultural History of Children’s by working towards a Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) application.

This follow-up application (NWO Internationalisering) seeks to consolidate and expand the Platform for a Cultural History of Children’s Media (PLACIM) by working towards a Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) application. PLACIM’s mission is to face the challenges contemporary media theory poses to writing the cultural history of childhood (www.placim.org). It is generally conceded that childhood imaginaries are profoundly affected by the ongoing changes in media ecologies. This implies that linear approaches to the cultural history of childhood are in for revision, if we follow the theory of “remediation” (Bolter&Grusin,2000). PLACIM has risen to the occasion by tracing how childhood tropes circulate between media through time (Wesseling,2014). We now aim to capitalize more effectively on the international scope of our network by also taking the international mobility of childhood tropes into systematic account, engaging new partners from Japan, the United States and the private sector, so as to work towards an ITN application on the glocalization of children’s media productions in North-Western Europe, 1950-2010.