Academic and professional qualifications

• BA English Studies

• MA English Studies

• PhD Literary Studies

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

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