The Billiken Magazine Centenary Project: Children's Literature and Childhood in Argentina 1919-2019

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The forthcoming centenary of Argentina's Billiken, the world's longest running children's magazine, offers a unique opportunity to see one hundred years of Argentine history through the lens of the history of childhood and the history of children's literature in Argentina. This project will explore how the text and images of Billiken's short and serialised stories reflect and shape the magazine's changing construction of Argentine childhood, envisaged as a stage in the creation of the ideal Argentine citizen. The research will argue that Billiken was instrumental in the development of Argentine children's literature, even though this contribution was unrecognised even by its own publishing house, Editorial Atlántida, which traditionally maintained an ideological and cultural distinction between children's literature in books and in magazines.Billiken was founded in 1919 by Constancio Vigil, a pioneer in both Argentine children's literature and popular magazine publishing, who aimed to create a commercially successful publication which was attractive to children because of its entertainment content and attractive to parents and teachers as an educational resource. Although Billiken was never officially sanctioned by the national education council, this strategy was so successful that generations of teachers incorporated Billiken into their lessons, making it required reading for generations of school children. Incredibly, for a publication so ensconced at the heart of Argentine national identity, and whose contribution to Argentine children's literature intersects with the key themes of pedagogy and morality, the words and images of the magazine's short and serialised stories have never been previously studied. Billiken is currently at a critical moment with its lowest ever sales. In order to save the magazine, Atlántida is in the process of developing an interactive transmedia strategy for Billiken to reach its consumers beyond print. The research will be enhanced by privileged access to the development and implementation of this process and will connect this commercial publishing house to the latest academic research on the adaptation of print publishing to the digital age which Atlántida would otherwise not access due to geographical and linguistic barriers.During the project I will work with Atlántida editors on co-produced publications for audiences beyond academia. These are: (1) a Spanish-language collection of ten short stories published in Billiken over the last hundred years with introductions placing the stories in their historical and political context and (2) the inaugural two volumes of the Biblioteca Billiken bilingual collection (one novel from the UK and one from Argentina, adapted for language learners and younger readers) including explanatory notes and co-authored prologues. Both will be published by Atlántida in Argentina to coincide with the Billiken centenary and will be explicitly linked to my research project. In the UK, the project's theme of the future of children's publishing will provide the focus of the dissemination of the research beyond academia as this is a concern shared by commercial publishers and the children's book-buying general public. The project will bring the Head of Atlántida's Books division together with her UK counterparts to debate these transnational concerns and seek the input of interested members of the public and academics working in the field of children's literature.