AustLit logo

AustLit

Clare Bradford Clare Bradford i(A34016 works by)
Gender: Female
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 y separately published work icon From Colonial to Modern: Transnational Girlhood in Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand Children's Literature, 1840-1940 Michelle J. Smith , Kristine Moruzi , Clare Bradford , Toronto : University of Toronto Press , 2018 15039944 2018 multi chapter work criticism

'Through a comparison of Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand texts published between 1840 and 1940, From Colonial to Modern develops a new history of colonial girlhoods revealing how girlhood in each of these emerging nations reflects a unique political, social, and cultural context.

'Print culture was central to the definition, and redefinition, of colonial girlhood during this period of rapid change. Models of girlhood are shared between settler colonies and contain many similar attitudes towards family, the natural world, education, employment, modernity, and race, yet, as the authors argue, these texts also reveal different attitudes that emerged out of distinct colonial experiences. Unlike the imperial model representing the British ideal, the transnational girl is an adaptation of British imperial femininity and holds, for example, a unique perception of Indigenous culture and imperialism. Drawing on fiction, girls’ magazines, and school magazine, the authors shine a light on neglected corners of the literary histories of these three nations and strengthen our knowledge of femininity in white settler colonies.'  (Publication summary)

1 Children's and Young Adult Novels : Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Pacific Clare Bradford , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Oxford History of the Novel in English : The Novel in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the South Pacific Since 1950 2017; (p. 236-250)

'That each volume of the Oxford History of the Novel in English incorporates chapters on fiction for the young is itself a powerful comment on the emergence of children's literature as a component of the publishing industry and a field of scholarly research...' (Introduction)

1 Ubby's Underdogs : A Transformative Vision of Australian Community Clare Bradford , Cathy Sly , Xu Daozhi , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , vol. 24 no. 1 2016; (p. 101-131)

"The ‘Ubby’s Underdogs’ books are the first graphic novels published by Magabala Books,representing an innovation which maintains the inventiveness characteristic of Magabala’s picture books. The trilogy’s treatment of the Underdogs’ exploits in multicultural Broome foregrounds the encounter between Aboriginal and Chinese cultural traditions. By drawing on a blend of cultural signifiers, the novels display the carnivalesque qualities described by Mikhail Bakhtin in Rabelais and His World (1984). In McKenna’s novels carnivalesque scenes, polyglot voices and intercultural dialogues give rise to a transformative vision of a community which resists monologic authoritarianism. Like graphic novels more generally, the Underdogs novels rely on visual, verbal and cultural stereotypes to enable rapid identification of characters of various ethnicities. They transform such stereotypical and exoticised figures through modes of representation and narrative which privilege the ‘culture of folk carnival humour’ (Bakhtin 1984, p. 4) to present negotiations between and across cultures in the setting of post-war Broome." (Introduction)

1 y separately published work icon The Middle Ages in Children's Literature Clare Bradford , Houndmills : Palgrave Macmillan , 2015 15379720 2015 single work criticism

'From the Harry Potter series to urban fairy roman, the Middle Ages comprise a rich source of stories, symbols, characters and setting sin texts for the young. The Middle Ages in Children's Literature is the first thorough study of medievalism for the young - that is, post-medieval imaginings of the Middle Ages - in fiction, non-fiction and films.

In this book Clare Bradford shows that medievalism for the young both provides moments of enchantment and also serves as a distancing strategy which enables texts to address contentious and difficult topics. the Middle Ages in Children's Literature examines how changing conceptions of history have influenced the writing of historical fiction. Examining representations of disabilities, monstrous bodies, and animals, Bradford shows that medievalist texts use the medieval to reflect on modernity. The book ends with a chapter which explains why so many texts for the young treat the Middle Ages as a source of comedy.'

Source: Back cover.

1 Fantasy and Its Functions in Medievalist Picture Books Clare Bradford , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Picture Books and Beyond 2014; (p. 61-74)

Looking at a range of picture books involving the Middle Ages, this chapter considers their possibilities for 'personal and social capability', showing how fantasy addresses real-life questions by providing readers with critical distance which enables them to approach contentious or 'difficult' ideas. Because the Middle Ages constitutes a fantasy world to young readers, picture books set in medieval times readily address contemporary topics such as relations between people of different ethnicities. Through the use of humour, visual and verbal interaction and intertextual references, these picture books create light-hearted and engaging narratives with clear relevance to the lives of young readers.

1 [Essay] : The Red Shoe Clare Bradford , 2013 single work essay
— Appears in: Reading Australia 2013-;

'In 1989 Ursula Dubosarsky published her first book, Maisie and the Pinny Gig, illustrated by Roberta Landers. Since then, Dubosarsky’s novels, picture books, illustrated books and non-fiction texts have engaged diverse audiences ranging from very young children to older readers. Among her body of work, the novels The First Book of Samuel (1995), The Red Shoe (2006) and The Golden Day (2011) have attracted high praise, along with the non-fiction book The Word Spy (2008), illustrated by Tohby Riddle. The Red Shoe stands out for its evocation of Cold War Sydney, viewed from the perspective of the 21st century; for historical fiction never simply delivers the past but interprets it in the light of the values and cultural norms of its own time. The book’s title identifies the red shoe as its symbolic centre, but in fact the narrative is structured around multiple red shoes, the stories of which intermingle and glance off one another.' (Introduction)

1 Instilling Postcolonial Nostalgias : Ned Kelly Narratives for Children Clare Bradford , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , June vol. 36 no. 2 2012; (p. 191-206)
'This essay examines books for children focusing on Ned Kelly and the Kelly gang, published from 2000 to 2011. Drawing upon theories of narrative, memory and nostalgia it analyses the narrative strategies and visual images through which these texts position readers, and their investment in formulations of the Australian nation. The essay argues that these books function as exercises in restorative nostalgia, producing palatable versions of Kelly as an Australian hero, and articulating connections between the Kelly legend and Australian national identity. By foregrounding Kelly's Irishness and by representing him as a "good badman", these Ned Kelly narratives for children, which range across fiction, non-fiction, picture book and play script, reinscribe versions of national identity which occlude more complicated narratives. In particular, their emphasis on struggles between Irish and English settlers, and between selectors and squatters, displaces Indigenous histories, colonial violence, and systemic discrimination against those deemed outsiders to the nation.' (Editor's abstract)
1 y separately published work icon Critical Approaches to Children's Literature Kerry Mallan (editor), Clare Bradford (editor), Palgrave Macmillan (publisher), 2011 Houndmills : Palgrave Macmillan , 2011- Z1911013 2011 series - publisher criticism
1 Children as Ecocitizens : Ecocriticism and Environmental Texts Geraldine Massey , Clare Bradford , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Contemporary Children's Literature and Film 2011; (p. 109-126)

This chapter provides an overview of ecocriticism, discussing the extent to which children's environmental texts mobilise concept and approaches from this field.

1 The Return of the Fairy : Australian Medievalist Fantasy for the Young Clare Bradford , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October - November vol. 26 no. 3-4 2011; (p. 115-132)
1 1 y separately published work icon Contemporary Children's Literature and Film Clare Bradford (editor), Kerry Mallan (editor), New York (City) : Palgrave Macmillan , 2011 Z1875968 2011 anthology criticism Bringing together leading and emerging scholars, this book argues for the significance of theory for reading texts written and produced for young people. Integrating perspectives from across feminism, ecocriticism, postcolonialism and poststructuralism, it demonstrates how these inform approaches to a range of contemporary literature and film (publisher website).
1 The Case of Children's Literature : Colonial or Anti-Colonial? Clare Bradford , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Global Studies of Childhood , vol. 1 no. 4 2011; (p. 271-279)

'Since Jacqueline Rose published The Case of Peter Pan in 1984, scholars in the field of children's literature have taken up a rhetorical stance which treats child readers as colonised, and children's books as a colonising site. This article takes issue with Rose's rhetoric of colonisation and its deployment by scholars, arguing that it is tainted by logical and ethical flaws. Rather, children's literature can be a site of decolonisation which revisions the hierarchies of value promoted through colonisation and its aftermath by adopting what Bill Ashcroft refers to as tactics of interpolation. To illustrate how decolonising strategies work in children's texts, the article considers several alphabet books by Indigenous author-illustrators from Canada and Australia, arguing that these texts for very young children interpolate colonial discourses by valorising minority languages and by attributing to English words meanings produced within Indigenous cultures.' (Source: Author's abstract)

1 Australian Children's Literature Clare Bradford , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge History of Australian Literature 2009; (p. 282-302)
Discusses themes, trends and developments in Australian children's literature between 1841 and 2006.
1 y separately published work icon The 'Victorian Readers' Clare Bradford , 2008 St Lucia : AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2007 Z1773370 2008-2007 single work criticism

'The Victorian Readers subset profiles one important group of texts for Australian children. But the Victorian Readers have much in common with the Tasmanian Readers, the Queensland Readers and the Adelaide Readers: they were developed and used in state and independent schools in the decades following Federation; and they share many of the same components, since favourite texts were frequently recycled. To read these collections and to ponder on the socialising agendas evident in the selection and arrangement of excerpts and in the ways in which texts were modified, is to understand how these school readers positioned children as Australian subjects.' - author's conclusion


1 1 y separately published work icon New World Orders in Contemporary Children's Literature : Utopian Transformations Clare Bradford , Kerry Mallan , John Stephens , Robyn McCallum , Houndmills : Palgrave Macmillan , 2008 Z1559477 2008 selected work criticism 'New World Orders shows how texts for children and young people have responded to the cultural, economic, and political movements of the last 15 years. With a focus on international children's texts produced between 1988 and 2006, the authors discuss how utopian and dystopian tropes are pressed into service to project possible futures to child readers. The book considers what these texts have to say about globalisation, neocolonialism, environmental issues, pressures on families and communities, and the idea of the posthuman.' - Back cover.
1 New World Orders and the Dystopian Turn: Transforming Visions of Territoriality and Belonging in Recent Australian Children's Fiction Clare Bradford , Kerry Mallan , John Stephens , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 32 no. 3 2008; (p. 349-359)
Through the 1990s and into the new millennium, Australian children's literature responded to a conservative turn epitomised by the Howard government and to new world order imperatives of democracy, the market economy, globalisation, and the IT revolution. These responses are evidenced in the ways that children's fiction speaks to the problematics of representation and cultural identity and to possible outcomes of devastating historical and recent catastrophes. Consequently, Australian children's fiction in recent years has been marked by a dystopian turn. Through an examination of a selection of Australian children's fiction published between 1995 and 2003, this paper interrogates the ways in which hope and warning are reworked in narratives that address notions of memory and forgetting, place and belonging. We argue that these tales serve cautionary purposes, opening the way for social critique, and that they incorporate utopian traces of a transformed vision for a future Australia. The focus texts for this discussion are: Secrets of Walden Rising (Allan Baillie, 1996), Red Heart (Victor Kelleher, 2001), Deucalian (Brian Caswell, 1995), and Boys of Blood and Bone (David Metzenthen, 2003).
1 Untitled Clare Bradford , 2008 single work correspondence
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 5-6 January 2008; (p. 2)
In response to Robert Murray's column on the Victorian Readers: Fifth Book, Clare Bradford highlights AustLit's indexing of the complete contents of the Victorian Readers series.
1 1 y separately published work icon Reading In The Victorian Classroom Clare Bradford (lead researcher), St Lucia : AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2007-2009 Z1773387 2007 website bibliography The Reading in the Victorian Classroom dataset was established in 2007. It provides information on the Victorian Readers, a series of school readers produced between 1927 and 1930 for schoolchildren in Victoria and used (with revisions) until the 1950s.
1 Cross-Generational Negotiations : Asian-Australian Picture Books Clare Bradford , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , December vol. 17 no. 2 2007; (p. 36-42)

Clare Bradford discusses a number of picture books and a junior novel in which the narratives are structured around interactions between Asian-Australian children and their grandparents; Grandpa and Ah Gong (Xiangyi Mo and Morag Loh, 1995), Old Magic (Alan Baillie, 1996), Grandpa's Mask (Di Wu and Jing Jing Guo, 2001), What a Mess Fang Fang! (Sally Rippin, 1998). She proposes that these texts provide an opportunity to introduce 'ideas around change, continuity and cultural meanings' to young readers through their specific focus on 'the everyday experiences of growing up in a multicultural society' (36). As children's texts 'habitually hinge upon narratives of growth and development' (36) Bradford points out that crosscultural and cross-generational relations between grandparents and their grandchildren are often informed by 'different experiences and perspective that are negotiated through external objects, artefacts and markings' (37). There is an emphasis on 'making' in the texts, that Bradford reads, in terms of multicultural discourse, as suggestive of Stevenson's notion that cultural citizens 'construct themselves...by learning to move within multiple and diverse communities' (41). Bradford's analysis points to the 'limitations of the picture book form' in 'representing the social and cultural complexities of diasporic experience' (41); however, she also sees these texts as speaking to children's literature more generally through 'a surplus of meaning, an excess of signification that seeks to provide pleasure while socializing young citizens' (41).

1 Exclusions and Inclusions : Multiculturalism in Contemporary Taiwanese and Australian Picturebooks Clare Bradford , Hui-Ling Huang , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Bookbird , vol. 45 no. 3 2007; (p. 5-12)
Australia and Taiwan have in common a history of colonisation and ethnic diversity and troubled ideas about national and cultural identity. Bradford suggests that many of the picture books discussed in this article express allegorical rather than realistic treatments of cross-cultural relations.
X