Children's Literature, Media & Culture (Erasmus Mundus International Master)

On Researching Memory and the Child:

Interview with Anastasia Ulanowicz

By Betül Gaye Dinç and Luxin Juli Yin

Anastasia Ulanowicz is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Florida. She has received the Children’s Literature Association Book Award for her book, Second Generation Memory and Contemporary Children’s Literature: Ghost Images.

1. D.: How has the topic of Ghost Images grown on you?
2. D.: Also, your comparison between Harry Potter: The Secret of Chamber and Zlata's Diary was very intriguing. How can reading such traumatic literature, whether based on imagination or reality, affect children?

 

A.U.: When I started graduate school, I wanted to write about memory and testimony. This is partly because I grew up in a Ukrainian diaspora community where I was torn through stories about how my family had to leave Ukraine during the Second World War. I learned stories of various family members who either were refugees or were deported and in exile in Siberia. As I was growing up with these stories, it became essential for me to think further about how memory, and especially traumatic memories, is transmitted from one generation to the following one.

 

I wasn't interested in children's literature until I was in a seminar on representations of the Holocaust. I remember very vividly reading one article about pictures of women’s experiences in concentration camps. I was looking through the footnotes. In one of the footnotes, I found a book called Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, about a little girl who knows that her older cousin has been killed in a place named Dachau. She investigates why this terrible thing would occur to her cousin. I remembered reading that book when I was about 9 or 10. It resonated with me, and I reread this book as an adult. I was just amazed at how well it was constructed and how it was nuanced, sophisticated, and complex.

 

So, I started reading all the books I remembered reading from childhood and seeing children's literature from a new perspective, from the perspective of an adult and a scholar of literature. Still, I tried to think about how memory is represented in books for young people and how memory is in some ways passed from one generation to the next, not only through personal interactions but also through literature, including children's literature.

 

 

A.U.: Fantasy literature is vibrant because it is so symbolic. It lends to the individual imaginations and each reader to construct their worlds along with the author and the story. This kind of rich and image-laden literature can be taught as a metaphor for a relationship to the real world. Therefore, I paired Harry Potter with Zlata’s Diary because, in some ways, the second novel of Harry Potter gave me a prism, perhaps an analogical or metaphorical perspective, to think about the relationship between the child and the diary or the child in literature. That allowed me a way to talk about Zlata’s Diary.

 

There is something particularly significant about fantasy literature because it is outside of our immediate experiences and, in some ways, it provides an escape. Those escapes are essential, especially if the child is dealing with a significant number of difficulties. But at the same time, it is not quite an escape. Because of this figurative language, images, and new ways of looking at a world like ours, but unlike ours, children can process their feelings or perspectives on violence, sadness, abandonment, or joy. That kind of symbolic imagery and that visual economy enable them to do that. Also, children take solace in reading other children's works. For example, Zlata wrote her diary, as I argue in my book, because she was inspired by Anne Frank. Now, children who have grown up in war-torn areas, like Syria or Ukraine, might take comfort in the writings of other children who went through similar experiences as theirs, even though their experiences always have been different. I would like to finally say that Zlata Filipovic is now an advocate for children, has published volumes of children's diary writing and worked with children because she recognises their need to be seen by other children and by adults.

 

1. D.: Speaking of Zlata’s Diary, there are concerns about child authors’ autonomy in the war due to societal expectations. Today how can adults maintain authenticity in children’s experiences?
2. D.: Finally, what could be areas to improve the solidarity with Ukraine in children’s literature research?
3. D.: Thank you very much for your time and this enlightening conversation.

 

A.U.: Ultimately, every text, no matter by whom it's written, will always be mediated. Specifically, once it is outside of the hands of the author via the child or an adult, it is circulated in different kinds of ways. If children are keeping a diary or writing stories and they would like other people to read them, then they should know what the process involves and which different agents are involved in the circulation of the work. Hence, the child’s agency and needs for information and context are respected. The child's wish to keep a document secret or have it publicised should be respected, and children understand the consequences of their work being circulated outside of their circle. This speaks to recognizing children’s intelligence, subjectivity, and individuality.

 

A.U.: At the University of Florida, one of my colleagues, a literature professor with Ukrainian heritage, started a conversation group on Zoom with some professors and their students from Ukraine. The meetings were delightful because these were young people who were very excited to talk to each other and the professors. It was good for me because I got to practise my Ukrainian and they practise their English. In our connected age, activities like this are possible with children all over, not just in Ukraine. Listening to children and making it known that they are heard is incredibly important. But we should recognise them as multi-dimensional people and that they are more than just their fears. These children in Ukraine didn't just want to talk about their anxieties even though they had them. Still, they wanted to talk about what they had been studying in school or what their favourite hobbies are. Creating similar opportunities is essential. Finally, for myself, after the war started, I couldn't renew my administrative position. I have had to devote my work to the scholarship of children's literature, specifically representations of Eastern Europe. I was collaborating with a colleague from Wroclaw on a collected edition of Ukrainian children's literature. This is a moment for me to devote my writing to the experiences of people in Ukraine and the history of Ukraine.

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First published: 18 April 2023