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Helen Kilpatrick

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

Email: helenk@uow.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 4221 4939
Location: 19:2092

Helen Kilpatrick is a Lecturer in Japanese and English Language Studies in the Modern Languages Program, Faculty of Arts, University of Wollongong. Her undergraduate degrees are in Japanese language, sociolinguistics and English literature. Her MA, from the English Department at Macquarie University (Sydney), is in Children's Literature and her thesis provides a cross-cultural analysis of ideologies Australian and Japanese picture books. Her PhD thesis explores Buddhist ideologies in contemporary Japanese picture books of the tales of Miyazawa Kenji, who was writing in Japan in the 1920s.

Helen has teaching experience in Japanese language, English and Japanese literature, culture, 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 into all levels of Japanese and has incorporated literature, civilization and culture into the curriculum.

Research interests

Helen's general research interests are in modern Japanese literature, culture and art and, more specifically, in children's literature and picture books. She is particularly interested in the cultural constructions of subjectivity in Japanese literature and has recently been working on visual images of the shôjo (girl) in Japanese literature for young people.

Publications

Searchable RIS publications from 2000 to date

•  2009: “Buddhist Visions of Transculturalism: Picturing Miyazawa Kenji’s Yamanashi (Wild Pear)”, International Research into Children’s Literature, Special Issue on ‘Internationalisation, Transculturalism and Globalisation: Manifestations in Children’s Literature and Film’, Vol. 2, no. 2, forthcoming December 2009.
• 2009: 'Transcending gender in pictorial representations of Miyazawa Kenji’s “Marivuron and the Girl” (Marivuron to Shôjo)’, Girl Reading Girl in Japan. Edited by Tomoko Aoyama & Barbara Hartley. Routledge. New York and London, forthcoming October 2009.
• 2007: 'Beyond dualism: Towards interculturality in pictorialisations of Miyazawa Kenji's 'Snow Crossing' (Yukiwatari)', Papers: Explorations into Children's Literature, vol. 17, no. 2, 2007, pp. 26-35.
• 2006: 'Miyazawa Kenji', in J. Zipes (eds), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Childrens Literature, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006.
• 2006:'Morimoto, Junko', in J. Zipes (eds), The Oxford Encylopedia of Children's Literature, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006.
• 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

Selected Conference Papers

• “Envisioning the shôjo aesthetic in The Twin Stars and Night of the Milky Way Railway.” The 19th Biennial International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) Congress, Frankfurt, Germany.  August, 2009.
• “The concept of jiriki (autonomous power) inThe Twin Stars, Kenjû’s Wood andGôshu, the Cellist.” The 18th Biennial International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) Congress, Kyôto, Japan.  August, 2007.
• “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).