Maria Nikolajeva
Position/Status
- Professor of Education
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)
- Swedish Writers' Union
Profile
Maria Nikolajeva taught children's literature and critical theory at Stockholm university, Sweden, for twenty five years before she came to Cambridge. She has also been a guest professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, Abo 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.
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
Current Research Project(s)
- Power and Subjectivity in Children's and Young Adult Fiction
- Picturebooks, visual literacy and multimodal communication
Course Involvement
- Children and Literature
- MPhil
- PGCE
Principal Publications
Maria Nikolajeva is the author of 15 books, editor of a number of volumes and over 200 articles in international professional journals and essay collections. A selection of recent publications:
Nikolajeva, M. (2008) "Harry Potter and the secrets of children's literature" in: Harry Potter's world: Multidisciplinary critical perspectives ed Elizabeth Heilman, New York, Routledge.
Nikolajeva, M. (2008) Play and playfulness in postmodern picturebooks, in: Postmodern picturebooks: Play, parody, and self-referentiality, ed Lawrence Sipe, New York, Routledge.
Nikolajeva, M. (2007) Voice, gender and alterity in George MacDonald's fairy tales, in: 'The Noble Unrest': Contemporary Essays on the Work of George MacDonald, ed Jean Webb, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholar Press.
Nikolajeva, M. (2006) (ed. with Sandra Beckett) Beyond Babar: The European tradition in children's literature, Lanham, Scarecrow.
Nikolajeva, M. (2005) The aesthetic approach to children's literature, Lanham, Scarecrow.
Nikolajeva, M. (2002) The rhetoric of character in children's literature, Lanham, Scarecrow. Paperback reprint 2003.
Nikolajeva, M. (2001) (with Carole Scott) How picturebooks work, New York, Garland. Paperback edition 2006. Chinese translation 2007.
Nikolajeva, M. (2000) From mythic to linear. Time in children's literature, Lanham, Scarecrow. Paperback reprint 2003.
Nikolajeva, M. (1996) Children's literature comes of age. Toward a new aesthetic, New York, Garland. Korean translation 1998.