Helen Kilpatrick

BA (Hons), Dip Ed (Newcastle), MA, PhD (Macquarie)

Helen Kilpatrick is a Lecturer in Japanese and English Language Studies in the Modern Languages Program, Faculty of Arts, University of Wollongong. She has a BA, a Diploma of Education (Japanese and English) and an Honours Degree (First Class) in Japanese Sociolinguistics from the University of Newcastle. In 1995 she completed an MA in Children's Literature and in 2003, a PhD in Japanese and English literature at Macquarie University (Sydney). Helen has also been a visiting researcher at the International Institute for Children's Literature in Osaka (IICLO).

In Australia, Helen has teaching experience in Japanese language, English and Japanese literature, history, and children's literature at the University of Newcastle, Macquarie University (Sydney) and the University of Wollongong. She has also taught interpreting and translation courses and English as a Foreign Language at Seishin Notre Dame University and Okayama University in Japan. Together with her research pursuits, these experiences inform her teaching at the University of Wollongong where she teaches all levels of Japanese and has also incorporated literature and history into the curriculum.

Research interests

Helen's general research interests are in modern Japanese (and Western) literature, art and history and, more specifically, in children's literature and picture books. Her PhD explores the relationship between text and illustration in Japanese picture books and is entitled ‘Ideologies in Contemporary Picture Books of the tales of Miyazawa Kenji’. She is currently working on adapting her thesis into a book.

Publications

Searchable RIS publications from 2000 to date

• 2006: (Forthcoming)
  Author entry on ‘Miyazawa Kenji’ in the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Children’s Literature
  Author entry on ‘Morimoto Junko’ in the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Children’s Literature
• 1998: Review of The Bible for Children. From the Age of Gutenberg to the Present. Ruth. B. Bottigheimer, New Haven & London; Yale University Press, 1996 in Journal of Religious History, Volume 22, Number 1, February (in English); pp119 -121
• 1997: The Picture Book `Kojuro and the Bears': A Cross-Cultural Comparison with The Bears of Mount Nametoko (Nametoko Yama no Kuma) in PAPERS: Explorations into Children's Literature Vol 7, Number 1, April (in English)
• 1996: The Tale of the Nighthawk Star - A Cross-Cultural Analysis of a Picture Book in Culture in Context: A Selection of Papers Presented at the Inter-Cultural Studies `96; Volume 22, Number 1, February; pp37-47
• 1996: Morimoto Junko ni yoru: Yodaka no Hoshi' no Ehonka, "The Pictorialisation of Junko Morimoto's `The Night Hawk Star'" in IICLO Bulletin (in Japanese); pp16-32

Recent Conference papers

• “The Art of Emptiness”: An examination of a Buddhist pictorial representation of childhood as signified through Miyazawa Kenji’s ‘Donguri to Yamaneko’ (Wildcat and the Acorns) at the 17th Biennual International Research Society for Children's Literature (IRSCL) in Ireland (August, 2005).
• “Beyond Dualism: Images of Childhood and Nature in Japanese Picture books of Miyazawa Kenji’s ‘Yukiwatari’ (Snow Crossing)” paper presented to the Australasian Children's Literature Association For Research (ACLAR) Biennial Conference, University of Technology, Sydney, 16 - 17 July, 2004.
• “Subjectivity in Japanese pictorial re-versions of Miyazawa Kenji’s ‘Donguri to Yamaneko’ (Wildcat and the Acorns)’” paper presented to the 15th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Asscociation of Australia (ASAA) at the Australian National University, 29 June – 2 July, 2004.
• "Japanese Picture Books: A Vision of an Immaterial Cosmos in Pictorial Re-presentations of Miyazawa Kenji's 'Yamanashi' (Wild Pear)". Telling a World - Shaping a World: Esthetic and Social Perspectives on Children’s Literature and Media. The 16th Biennial International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) Congress, Agder University College, Kristiansand, Norway. August, 2003
• "The Concept of Erasure in Pictorial Re-presentations of 'Chumon no Oi Ryoriten' The Restaurant of Many Orders)." 13th Biennial Conference of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia (JSAA), Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. July, 2003
• 2001: Yamanashi no Ehonka, "Yamanashi' in Visual Representation" in The Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Miyazawa Kenji Studies (in Japanese)

E-Mail: helenk@uow.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 4221 4939