Ep. 31 The Kingdom is a Game

Yamila Rodríguez and Seran Demiral interview Basia Vucic on children's literature, democratic education and how the child impacts and changes the political circumstances around for the final episode of this series* through a frame of Janusz Korczak's famous novel for children: King Matt the First. On the one hand, the conversation investigates the functions of literature and Korczak's developing strategies as a fiction writer in addition to being an educator and child rights defender; on the other hand, Vucic, Rodríguez and Demiral try to understand children's positioning in society by playing games and "propagating" their stories to re-make the politics throughout history. 

According to an ancient pre-Socratic quote, "Time is a child playing, moving pessoi (pieces). The Kingdom belongs to the child." This episode, The Kingdom is a Game, is an initiative to give the child credit for reconstructing society.

*The previous episodes are The Born Criminal, which is about the good or evil nature of the child in the history of childhood, and Educating the Educator on Janusz Korczak's experiences with -and against- child-centred approaches and "Praeternatural Pedagogy" concept, developed by Vucic.

Basia Vucic is an expert on the philosophy of education -and especially on JK educational philosophy- from UCL, London (UK). Invited as a 2019 visiting fellow to the UNESCO Janusz Korczak Chair at the Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw, the scope of her research at UCL includes the hidden history of the child rights movement, political theory, and democratic education.

Yamila Rodríguez, Lawyer & Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Law, University of Buenos Aires, researches the extension of the international obligation of the state to ensure children's rights to participation and access to justice in the criminal justice system, focusing on children who are victims and witnesses of crimes with her academic training and career as a civil servant at a Criminal Court in Buenos Aires, where she worked for over ten years.

Seran Demiral is a children’s literature and sci-fi writer from Istanbul. She studied the subjectivities of children through their interaction with digital technologies for her Ph.D in Sociology by focusing on changing childhood experiences. She is also a P4C (Philosophy for Children) trainer, and teaches digital childhoods, children's literature, creative writing and sociology at various universities as a part-time lecturer. 

Edited by Veda Gopala

Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC