Monday 8 February 2010

A dream come true

I don't remember when I got interested in children's literature. I mean, I always loved children's books, even when I should be growing out of them; but I remember when I was in upper secondary school my great-aunt tried to entice me into School of Librarianship, where she worked, by mentioning that you could study children's literature as an academic subject. I also remember my mother suggesting that I study Swedish because I liked Astrid Lindgren. So it all began before I went to university.

I then took a long and winding road to children's literature, but I always had a vision of a research centre. When I applied for a chair in Stockholm - goodness, twelve years ago - a centre was on my programme. I had a good experience when I was involved in a project in Finland: it was physically a centre, where a group of researchers worked day to day, with lunch seminars and scholarly discussions over afternoon tea. In San Diego I was very close to a centre, but it fell through then. They did get a centre after I had left.

So when we opened the Cambridge/Homerton Research and Teaching centre for children's literature last week it was a dream of a lifetime come true.

4 comments:

Erik de Leon said...

Congratulations!

Julia said...

Hoorah!

Vanessa Joosen said...

Congratulations, Masja! In Belgium, we are still dreaming...
Vanessa

Cornelia said...

Congratulations - so phantastic to see what you have achieved! Janet Evans, who is a fellow at Blutenburg at the moment, pointed me to the announcement and even to the CfP for your conference in September. Pity I missed that deadline (it would have been nice to do something on Per Nilsson, for example), but my autumn is crammed, anyway, and I probably would not have received the necessary funding to afford participating. Another time, maybe. But it's just great to follow your activities (and read the outcome later on)!