Clare Bradford

Clare Bradford teaches and researches in the field of children's literature. She is Alfred Deakin Professor in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University in Melbourne.

Clare's research interests focus on the interplay of children's texts and cultural practices and values. She has a longstanding interest in Indigeneity and children's literature, and has published two books on this topic: Reading Race: Aboriginality in Australian Children’s Literature (2001), which won the ChLA Book Award and the IRSCL Award; and Unsettling Narratives: Postcolonial Readings of Children’s Literature (2007). She has also written a book on utopian and dystopian texts for children, New World Orders in Contemporary Children’s Literature: Utopian Transformations (2009) (with Mallan, Stephens and McCallum). Her most recent book is The Middle Ages in Children’s Literature (2015), which explores how the Middle Ages are used (and abused) in contemporary texts for children and young people.

She has published over eighty journal articles and book chapters in journals including Children's Literature, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Journal of Australian Studies, Australian Literary Studies, Ariel, and many edited collections.

From 2007 to 2011 Clare was President of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities.