The International Committee of the Children’s Literature Association has chosen to alternate its annual panels between specific geographic or topological focal points and experiential or psychological themes that encourage transnational discussions. In the 2022 ChLA conference, we hosted a themed virtual panel on “Dreams.” In 2023, we hosted a panel focused on “Islands.” For the 2024 ChLA annual conference, we seek paper proposals with a focus on “Memory.” “Memory” functions both individually and collectively. We each make memories through the processes and structures that enable encoding, storing, and retrieving information. “Memory” is also a social and collective phenomenon and a set of practices that often produce not one but several or many remembrances. Collective or cultural memory in turn influences not only how we understand or narrate our daily lives, but also how we see our lives fitting into or diverging from larger cultural landscapes or historical records.

We are interested in studies of “memory” as the capacity for mental retention, as specific recollections, and/or as social practice in children’s and young adult literature. Preference will be given to analyses from a global perspective and to papers that examine texts originally written in languages other than English and/or created by authors and illustrators from communities beyond Anglo-American children’s and YA publishing traditions, including global indigenous communities.