Jessica Sage, who recently finished her PhD in the department, has responded to the recent debate about Penguin’s new cover for Charlie and Chocolate Factory, which received widespread news coverage this week.
Drawing on her research into children’s literature and photographs of children taken by Charles Dodgson she wrote a comment piece questioning the assumptions made by the disagreement over whether the cover was appropriate or not, which was picked up by the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association and published on their blog.
The blog piece came about with a helping hand from Twitter, with tweets from fellow academics suggesting and contacting groups that could host the piece whilst it was still being written. Jessica said ‘It was the first time I’ve written in this way, getting comments on my ideas even as they’re being drafted. The response since it was published has also been great, with suggestions for further thinking and alternative reading. An academic paper has also been mooted, which if nothing else is a great confidence-builder for an Early Career Researcher knee deep in job applications.’
You can read the whole piece here.
