"Where Your Heart Is?" National Scholarly Conference

The Student Research Circle for Fairy Tales, Children's and Youth Literature, and Fantasy at the University of Warsaw together with the Museum of Children's Books of the Public Library of the Capital City of Warsaw invite you to the national scholarly conference “Where Your Heart Is? Home in children's, youth, and fantasy cultural texts.” The conference will take place in the building of the Public Library of the Capital City of Warsaw – Main Library of the Mazovia Region, ul. Koszykowa 26/28, on April 16–17, 2026.

Where do wild creatures live? What haunts the attic and what nightmares lurk under the bed? Where do mysterious doors lead? Home and its inhabitants are at the center of children's imagination as a space for secrets and magic. This magic demands discovery long before more distant and dangerous journeys begin, and toys thrown into the attic become covered in dust.

• fairy tales for children and for the home – images of home, portrayals of family relationships in folk and literary fairy tales
• what the cottage has – the motif of hospitality
• house of leaves – the horror and dread of the home
• dollhouse – the world of children's toys
• like from a fairy tale – images of home in book illustrations, comics, visual culture
• each in its own way – representations of different family models; the motif of chosen family (found family)
• gentle rains will fall – images of home in science-fiction works, home in catastrophe narratives
• the magic of home – domestic spaces in cosy fantasy works, the poetics of “coziness”, cottagecore aesthetics
• you will never walk alone – queer communities and spaces
• “The Beauty of the House is immeasurable, and its Goodness boundless” (S. Clarke, Piranesi) – personifications and anthropomorphisations of the house
• on the other side of the mirror – the poetics of portal fantasy
• return to roots – the history of the home, family histories
• through the open window – escape from home
• knock, knock – the soundscapes of home
• glass or wooden but with a solid foundation – home(s) in the school reading canon
• shelters and refuges – space in war narratives
• the table with broken legs – the (un)lived world of domestic furniture and objects
• the secret garden – home in nature, nature in the home
• within four walls – the “domestication” of the child in historical and philosophical perspective
• in search of home – migratory identity, the refugee crisis
• one's own room – the housing crisis in Generation Z culture
• the water-sprite hill – animal housemates, interspecies communities
• returning again and again home – home-away-home narratives
• playing house – images of home in video games, home as an interactive space
• behind closed doors – faces of domestic violence
• Green Gables or Green Heights? – domestication in translation
• stay at home – the impact of domestic isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic on popular culture

We encourage those interested in both active and passive participation either to retreat again into a hobbyist nook or, on the contrary, to fly out like Peter Pan through an open window.

Please send abstracts (up to 300 words) to: kolo.basni@uw.edu.pl. In the message body please include personal data (first name, last name, academic title, affiliation). Submission format: Times New Roman 12, 1.5 line spacing, file title “konfdom_abstrakt”. Deadline for submitting abstracts: March 22, 2026. Acceptance notifications will be sent by email by March 29, 2026.

• main theme: home in children's, youth, and fantasy cultural texts
• conference format: offline
• venue: Public Library of the Capital City of Warsaw, ul. Koszykowa 26/28
• dates: 16–17.04.2026
• submission format: abstract, Times New Roman 12, 1.5 line spacing, title “konfdom_abstrakt”, max 300 words, personal data and affiliation in the email body
• submission deadline: 22.03.2026
• announcement of accepted presenters: by 29.03.2026