Dr Aneesh Barai (he/they)

I am an interdisciplinary scholar in education and children’s media and culture, working with children’s literature, film, television and games from a range of global and historical contexts.

My current monograph project, which builds from my PhD thesis, is on shifts in cultural attitudes towards childhood in the UK in the 1920s and 30s, as represented through children’s literature by modernist authors (T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein and Langston Hughes).

My research interests include:

-Early twentieth century cultural representations of shifts in education, including in children’s literature, modernist literature and cinema in the period (e.g. Enid Blyton, Geoffrey Trease, D. H. Lawrence, in relation to the educational philosophies of Montessori, Dewey and Piaget).

-The neoliberalisation of higher education, as represented in fantasy novels about wizard universities (e.g. Terry Pratchett, Diana Wynne Jones, Lev Grossman, Cecilia Tan).

-Youth activism and media messages relating to pacifism, policing, racism, climate crisis, and queer youths, in children’s film, television and computer games (e.g. Howl’s Moving Castle, Steven Universe, She-Ra, Final Fantasy VII).

Past Projects:

-Storyland (2020-21): For this small-scale qualitative project, I worked with Dr Becky Parry to run surveys and focus groups with children aged 6-12 around their interests and understanding of storytelling in Virtual Reality. This project was in collaboration with videogame company Cooperative Innovations as they worked on designing their next VR game with inclusive and child-centred approaches to storytelling. Output: report of recommendations on inclusive VR design for children.

-Dinosaur Roar (2021): Working with Dr Yinka Olusoga and children’s entertainment and education company Nurture Rights, I provided a review of four popular children’s dinosaur encyclopaedias in relation to how they taught scientific concepts in child-friendly ways. Output: report of recommendations on inclusive and child-friendly design for encyclopaedias.

-Evaluating Trespass Prevention (2021-22): This project took an innovative approach to participatory research, organised by Dr Becky Parry, and run with the work of Dr Ryan Bramley and Dr Marion Oveson as Research Associates, in collaboration with Network Rail and the National Railway Museum. For my part of the project, I worked with Dr Bramley to undertake archival research with the museum into historical campaigns to prevent dangerous behaviour around railway lines, including examining works that Roger Hargreaves, Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake made especially for anti-trespass campaigns. Output: article with Dr Bramley as lead author (2024, see publication list)

-Gender Equality and Avatar Design (2022): Following on from the findings of the Storyland project, I set out to talk with experts around videogame design and gender diversity, and generate recommendations for videogame, and especially virtual reality, companies, around designing diverse characters, to empower a wide range of children and young people with their productions. I worked with the National Videogame Museum and Andro & Eve to run two workshops around these themes, and bring together the outcomes of our discussions in a report with recommendations for videogame companies.