Dr Blanka Grzegorczyk
Dr Blanka Grzegorczyk
Lecturer in English
My profile
Biography
Academic and professional qualifications
• BA English Studies
• MA English Studies
• PhD Literary Studies
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Interests and expertise
Blanka is the author of Discourses of Postcolonialism in Contemporary British Children’s Literature (Routledge, 2015) and Terror and Counter-Terror in Contemporary British Children’s Literature (Routledge, 2020). Her research interests are in the intersections of literature, the arts, and theory, with a specific focus on the politics of and creativities in writing for and about the young, and on the legacies of colonialism, including postcolonial terror, together with global communities and childhoods, and experiences of migration, social exclusion, and split belonging. Two of her most recent research projects focus on the restorative and transformative force of creativities in children’s literature as trauma testimony, resilience mechanism, and socio-political engagement. She has also co-edited a special issue of International Research in Children’s Literature dedicated to children’s engagement with the political process and is currently working on a monograph examining representations of the country and the city in children’s literature from the Golden Age to the present.
Research topics:
• intersections of literature, culture, and theory (in particular postcolonial studies)
• twentieth-century and contemporary fiction
• terrorism and wars on terror in literature
• children’s and young adult literature, film, and culture
• fantasy and science fiction
• literature, technology, and the posthuman condition
• multicultural publishing
• new media literacy and participatory culture
Teaching
Postgraduate teaching
• Reading Children’s Books 2
Supervision
Blanka welcomes contact from prospective PhD students on any topics broadly concerning the literature and culture of twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in particular in the following areas:
• children’s and young adult literature
• twentieth-century and contemporary fiction
• colonial and postcolonial literatures in English
• literary and cultural theory
• modern and contemporary film and its links to literature
• fantasy and science fiction
Research outputs
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Books (authored/edited/special issues)
Grzegorczyk, B. (2018) Terror and Counter-Terror in Contemporary British Children’s Literature. Routledge.
Grzegorczyk, B. (2015) Discourses of postcolonialism in contemporary British children's literature.
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Chapters in books
Grzegorczyk, B. (2023) 'A Taste for the Secret: Tracing Secretive Families in Malorie Blackman’s Fiction.' Family in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. pp. 171-182.
Grzegorczyk, B. (2021) 'Reading for Resilience Postcolonial Aesthetics in the Post-9/ 11 British Novel for the Young.' Youth in a Globalizing World. pp. 238-252.
Grzegorczyk, B. (2020) 'Girls, boys, bombs, toys: Terror and play in contemporary children’s fiction.' Rulers of Literary Playgrounds: Politics of Intergenerational Play in Children's Literature. pp. 93-104.
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Journal articles
Grzegorczyk, B., Mendlesohn, F. (2021) 'Introduction: A is for activism: Children's engagement with the political process.' International Research in Children's Literature, 14(1) pp. 1-5.
Grzegorczyk, B. (2020) 'Book review: Imagining Sameness and Difference in Children's Literature: From the Enlightenment to the Present Day.' International Research in Children's Literature, 13(2) pp. 355-357.
Grzegorczyk, B. (2018) '‘Radical Children, Radical Fictions: Terror and Extremism in Sam Mills’s Blackout and Malorie Blackman’s Noble Conflict.’.' Neohelicon,
Grzegorczyk, B. (2018) 'A Trojan horse of a different colour: counterterrorism and Islamophobia in Alan Gibbons’ An Act of Love and Anna Perera’s Guantanamo Boy.' Critical Studies on Terrorism, 11(1) pp. 26-44.