Reminder: Professor Lissa Paul to Give Lecture Tomorrow, May 1

Date and Time: Wednesday, May 1, 5:00-6:30 PM

Location: Student Services East, Room 1401
Free and Open to the Public

"In Search of Eliza Fenwick (1766-1840): Or, the Trials and Tribulations of Writing a Life"

The National Center for the Study of Children's Literature and the Department of English & Comparative Literature are proud to co-sponsor Professor Lissa Paul's lecture on Eliza Fenwick.

Paul's lecture concerns her latest book project, which she originally intended to be a standard biographical “life” of Eliza Fenwick (1766-1840), what one might call a literary biography. However, over the course of her research and writing, Paul realized that a Possession-like narrative, something that entwines Fenwick's life story with Paul's own search for that life, provided the better structure.

As Fenwick’s story is an adventure story, an immigrant’s story, a mother’s story, a writer’s story, and the story of an abolitionist slave-holder, its narrative structure is fraught, especially as there are missing pieces and complicated ethical questions to negotiate. Paul's talk is an attempt to navigate the Scylla and Charybdis of writing Eliza’s life. It is a public lecture, for students, faculty, and our community.

The Melted Refrigerator: The Autobiography of Francelia Butler

Compiled from over 40 versions of her autobiography collected at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut, The Melted Refrigerator: Comedy and Combat in the Life of a Woman has just been released this week and details the innumerable accomplishments and memories of Francelia Butler.  The field of Children's Literature owes much to this remarkable woman who played a major role in placing Children's Lit on the map of academic scholarship, including creating the journal Children’s Literature (originally titled The Great Excluded), and serving as a founding director of the Children’s Literature Association in 1972. Its release is perfectly timed with the centennial of her birthday, and it also acts as a spirited precursor to the Children's Literature Association Conference that is just over a month away.

The book is described as being "a delicious, magical, moveable feast" richly filled with Butler's memories and adventures. It currently can be found at the UConn and Harvard Bookstores.

You can read more about the creation of the book, and of Butler's enormous presence in UConn and academia, here.

PAMLA: YA Lit Panel Submission Deadline Extended to May 12th

The general submission deadline for the PAMLA conference in San Diego has passed (April 15th) but there are a number of sessions that have extended their deadline to May 12th, including the following panel on Young Adult Literature, chaired by SDSU grad student Megan Parry.

The details:

Young Adult literature has been growing in popularity with readers and scholars. Why do these stories interest a young audience as well as adults? Why are new versions of old stories still interesting? This session will focus on Young Adult literature as well as literature about young adults. Submit a title, an abstract of approximately 40 words, and a proposal of 300-500 words explaining your project pertaining to the realm of Young Adult literature. Proposals must be uploaded via the online proposal submission form (http://www.pamla.org/2013/) by May 12th, 2013. Papers can range from any time period and genre (novel, short stories, film, etc).

Topics prospective panelists may wish to address include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Influences on identity formation
• Marketing of YA literature
• Depictions of the young adult body
• Trauma and violence
• Dystopian YA novels
• Gender
• Family relations
• Young adults relationship with media and technology
• Aesthetics in YA literature

Questions may be directed to Megan Parry at mparry@mail.sdsu.edu, but all proposals must be submitted directly to the PAMLA website

Professor Lissa Paul to Give Lecture on May 1st

"In Search of Eliza Fenwick (1766-1840): Or, the Trials and Tribulations of Writing a Life"

Wednesday, May 1, 5:00pm – 6:30pm
Location: SSE 1401

Open to the Public

The National Center for the Study of Children's Literature and the Department of English & Comparative Literature are proud to co-sponsor Professor Lissa Paul's lecture on Eliza Fenwick. Paul's lecture concerns her latest book project, which she originally intended to be a standard biographical “life” of Eliza Fenwick (1766-1840), what one might call a literary biography. However, over the course of her research and writing, Paul realized that a Possession-like narrative, something that entwines Fenwick's life story with Paul's own search for that life, provided the better structure. As Fenwick’s story is an adventure story, an immigrant’s story, a mother’s story, a writer’s story, and the story of an abolitionist slave-holder, its narrative structure is fraught, especially as there are missing pieces and complicated ethical questions to negotiate. Paul's talk is an attempt to navigate the Scylla and Charybdis of writing Eliza’s life. It is a public lecture, for students, faculty, and our community. 

Lissa Paul (Ph.D. York University) is a professor of education at Brock University. She is the author of Reading Otherways (1998), which was a finalist for the F. Harvey Darton Award for historical criticism. Her work on children’s literature has appeared in Signal, The Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, and The Horn Book, among others. Paul is a former co-editor of the children’s literature journal The Lion and the Unicorn and recently, with Philip Nel, co-edited the essay collection Keywords in Children's Literature (NYU Press). 

Earth Day!

Check out our review blog for a book that is perfect for Earth Day. Titled "River Song" (time for a shout out to you Doctor Who fans), the story describes the noises that nature makes. Oh, and it's written by Steve Van Zandt, aka Silvio Dante aka Bruce Springsteen's guitarist. Neat, huh?

Princess Culture and Consumerism

In light of the fairy tale discussions we've had on the blog this week, this link is an excellent example of one of the many ways fairy tales show up in society.

These Disney-princess-themed rings run between $1000 and $5000 a pop. Oh, heck yeah.

Except...these aren't actually sold by the jeweler who designed these rings. At first I was going to point out that I came to these rings by way of a post on Jezebel.com, which said that these ring designs already existed in the jeweler's inventory before the ol' fantasy lyrics were engraved inside the band. But further investigation revealed that these rings are an invention of the site http://heckyeahdisneymerch.tumblr.com.

It's still an interesting example of how commodified fairy tales are now. Even if these rings aren't being marketed by the jeweler as Disney princess rings (I wonder if they soon will be?), the existence of this as an idea calls to mind questions about "princess culture." It also reminded me of this Disney bridal collection by Alfred Angelo:

There are dozens of Disney-inspired dresses, and if you'll notice, the first line of the "about" paragraph tells you that "Your Fairy Tale Awaits..." It's fascinating that marketers pull on the happy ending trope by implying that the wedding is the end goal. You'll have your fairy tale wedding, and that's all that matters. You know how in fairy tales it ends with a big lavish sparkly wedding? Yeah! That could be you! Your wedding day is your chance to be a princess!

I could write a lot more incensed prose about how problematic it is to link the wedding day with being a princess and how that just feeds into the Wedding Industrial Complex and how a fancy billowy gauzy ethereal princess wedding is not the most important moment in a relationship and how your wedding day is ONE DAY and so on and so forth. But I won't, because it's Friday, and I've had a long week.

But before I sign off, I do want to pose the question of why fairy tale wedding dresses and jewels are so popular. What is it about the pervasiveness of princess culture that these items exist for grown women to purchase? As someone who was never wildly into Disney princesses, I'll admit that I have no personal connection with this. Is it because it evokes childhood happiness? Is it because in spite of our progressive times, many women still subconsciously want to be beautiful princesses who are revered for their exquisiteness, because that's what we're so often taught in mainstream children's media?

What do you think?

P.S. There is going to be a panel at PAMLA about princess culture; I really hope someone talks about Disney and the wedding industry. 

Art, Inspiration, and Adaptations

First, a brief announcement that the Museum trip with the ChildLit GSA has been cancelled, but if you want to check out the Maurice Sendak exhibit on your own, you have until April 28th! And if you do, feel free to share your experience and review of it.

In fact, there are always interesting exhibits and events going on all over the place, if you know where to look. Case in point, the Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra has had some really intriguing exhibits in the past. It's always frustrating to learn about these after the fact, like the Tribute to Wizard of Oz collection; however, one can at least view the pieces and artwork online to get a taste of the exhibit. Their upcoming gallery exhibit, starting oh-so-coincidentally on May 4th, is "A Saga in the Stars: a Tribute to a Galaxy Far, Far Away," featuring artwork inspired by the Star Wars franchise. I wonder what this exhibit will have transformed into once Disney's own life force reincarnates the saga into a never-ending series?

Speaking of Disney, a short piece of Huffington Post today discusses the malleability of fairy tales in every generation, mentioning the domination of Disney in children's minds. Liesl Shurtliff writes, "Fairy tales have survived for generations, not just because of their symbolic nature, but because they are flexible. We can shift point-of-view, draw different conclusions, and even change the events of the tale to make them more meaningful to our current social, political, and moral points-of-view." What follows are a series of "successful" adaptations... Do you agree with the arguments for these adaptations? What would you include?

Cinderella In Pictures Through the Ages

I'm writing about Marissa Meyer's Cinder for my thesis, and I've been looking at the different iterations of Cinderella through the years. I love how various illustrations/images of Cinderella reflect the time period in which they were created. Check out this progression from the 1800s until today:

George Cruikshank (1792-1878)

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939)

Harry Clarke (1889-1931)

Walt Disney (Film: 1950)

The New Yorker (1993)

Dina Goldstein (2009)

And for giggles (and related to that last image), let's not forget Kristen Wiig's hilarious drunk Cinderella:

Finally, there is some wonderful fan art on the internet for Marissa Meyer's Cinder (2012), whose Cinderella character is a working-class cyborg mechanic with metal limbs. I'm especially fond of this image:

New Imprint Resuscitates Forgotten YA of Years Past

I have a question: what is a classic? A children's book classic? Does it fall within a particular genre or time period? Has it evolved or are we glued to the traditional idea of it, forever and ever?  These have been thoughts trampling around my brain the past week, so I found it eerily fitting to come across news about a new imprint aiming to revitalize out of print YA books, to return to the public a variety of "classic" books from bygone eras.

The imprint, explained Ig publisher Robert Lasner, will “bring back the very best in young adult literature, from the classics of the 1930s and 1940s, to the thrillers and social novels of the 1970s and 1980s.”

I was struck by the word choice, "classics of the 1930's...", but not because I doubt the merit of the books slated for return. Rather, I wonder whether a classic would go out of print in the first place, and thus is such a term even relevant or should it start to ebb out of the conversation. I welcome these additions, specifically because the writers in question are predominantly women whose works introduced darkly comedic traits directly to Young Adult audiences. Considering the over-abundance of YA novels now, many of which fall into the thriller and dark territory, it certainly is worth experiencing and exploring the texts of earlier decades that contributed--maybe even helped shape--the status of YA now.

Do you think it will appeal to the young generations now though? The Imprint is not shy of sharing that they are targeting the original generation of readers, not current teens. Will a 70's thriller seem unappealing, or just retro enough to be cool?

ChildLit GSA Forum: Field Trip!

Next Week: Final ChildLit GSA Forum of Spring 2013 

When: Saturday, April 20, 10:00 am

Where: Bowers Museum, 2002 N. Main Street, Santa Ana, CA 92706

Topic: "Maurice Sendak: 50 Years, 50 Words, 50 Reasons"

The SDSU ChildLit GSA is at it again, transforming our Discussion Forums into a fun and stimulating excursion for all. This time, we are planning our own little field trip! If you have ever read (and consequently loved) a book written or illustrated by Maurice Sendak, then you really will want to join us this coming Saturday.  We are going as a group to visit the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana to see the Maurice Sendak art exhibit: 50 Years, 50 Words, 50 Reasons (it ends April 28th! Not much time left!).

I blogged about the exhibit recently, so you can find all the details about it there. The GSA plans to visit the museum and then have a light lunch in the area to talk shop about Sendak, picture book illustrations in general, and the next wild thing in the horizon.

If you are interested in joining us, please comment on this post or email sdchildlitgrads@gmail.com ASAP; we hope to obtain funding for travel and tickets (looking forward to a fun train ride up the Amtrak possibly!). We do need to know by Wednesday April 17th if you will come with us so we can have tickets arranged and finalize meeting times. Of course, you are welcome to come separately and meet us there too.

For more Information about the ChildLit GSA, please visit us at:

The GSA Website, Our Facebook Page or on Twitter

Links for a Friday morning

I've been hoarding some particularly interesting links to share here. Read on for news about celebrity authors, 19th-century comics, gay characters in YA, and more.

Just because they can, does that mean they should? Apparently Jason Segel ("How I Met Your Mother," "Freaks and Geeks", various Judd Apatow films) has written a series of three YA novels that are "about kids facing their biggest fears." I dunno. I generally feel skeptical about literature written by actors.

The last decade has seen a surge in children's books about "non-traditional" families. This article from Jezebel takes a look at some of the most significant.

This website houses a digital collection of British comics from 1873-1939. I'm especially fascinated by the Tramps & Oddballs category.

The Atlantic Wire has a wonderful piece exploring queerness in YA literature. The article, "A New Way for Gay Characters in YA," briefly traces the history of gay characters in YA and asks for recommendations in the comments for books they may have missed.

And speaking of authors featured in the aforementioned Atlantic Wire piece, David Levithan wrote a thoughtful essay reflecting on writing Boy Meets Boy in the early aughts.

This is an interesting slideshow of famous authors as teenagers. Almost all of them look preternaturally mature to me. Is that a trick of vintage photography or old souls shining through?

I am really bummed about this tepid review of Strands of Bronze and Gold by Jane Nickerson. It's a retelling of Bluebeard, and y'all know how I love my fairy tale retellings. But this reviewer found it lacking, and considering that I generally agree with Leila's reviews, I am now less excited to read this. Hmmm...

Okay, this one isn't really child lit related, but you have to take a look at this "where are they now?" slideshow of 31 child stars. Atreyu and Sebastian are on here!

Kidd Talk Canceled

The National Center for the Study of Children's Literature regrets to announce that Professor Kenneth Kidd will not be speaking at the SDSU campus tomorrow (Thursday April 11th, 5 pm). 

We apologize for any inconvenience this cancellation may cause. There will be no alternative program. Hopefully he will be able to visit in the future, but for now we don't have any set plans.

Once again, many apologies for having to cancel tomorrow's event.

Reminder: Paper Proposals for PAMLA Children's Literature Panel Due April 15

The Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) Conference will be held in San Diego this year, from November 1-3, 2013 at the Bahia Resort Hotel. Below is the CFP for the children's literature panel, chaired by SDSU graduate student Lauren Benard.

Children's Literature Panel

Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association

Contact email: laurenbenard@hotmail.com

Proposal deadline: April 15, 2013

The academic interest in children's literature has been growing in popularity. Why do these stories interest a young audience as well as adults? Why are new versions of old stories still interesting? Is the story itself compelling, or are readers fascinated with the aspect of the child itself? This session will focus on children's literature as well as literature about children. Papers can range from any time period and genre (young adult, picture book, folk, film, etc.) Submit a proposal of 300-500 words explaining your project pertaining to the realm of children's literature.

Topics prospective panelists may wish to address include but are not limited to the following:

• Marketing of children's literature
• Intended audience
• Depictions of the changing child body
• The dynamic between the adult/child relationship
• Trauma
• Gender
• Creativity
• Family relations
• Visual and literary worlds of childhood

Proposals should be submitted to PAMLA's online proposal system (http://www.pamla.org) by April 15, 2013.

Direct any questions to Lauren Benard (laurenbenard@hotmail.com).

Reminder: Kenneth Kidd Event this Thursday April 11

In case it slipped your mind or you just happened to miss the announcement last week, this Thursday the National Center for the Study of Children's Literature in conjunction with the Department of English and Comparative Literature is hosting a lecture session with University of Florida's Dr. Kenneth Kidd. His lecture, "Philosophy for Children" will be followed by a question-and-answer period, so plan to attend and invite anyone you think would be interested. The Event is open to the public.

 It will be held on Thursday, April 11, 2013 from 5:00 - 6:30 pm in Hardy Tower room 140  (HT 140) We are all extremely excited to have him here, and you should be too! 

 

Click HERE for more details about Dr. Kidd's planned lecture.

SPA/ACYIG Conference on Childhood Studies This Week

2013 Biennial Meeting of the
Society for Psychological Anthropology
With the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group

Hyatt Regency Mission Bay in San Diego, CA
April 4-7, 2013

If you're around this week and interested in an anthropological approach to the study of children (literature or otherwise), consider visiting the SPA/ACYIG conference to hear different perspective on Childhood Studies. SDSU’s Dr. Elisa Sobo is presenting on “Play” on Friday which may be of particular interest to some. Grad Student Kelsey Wadman will also be there, participating in the poster sessions.

 

Some details about the conference:

For the first time the Society for Psychological Anthropology biennial meeting will be held jointly with the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG).

Psychological anthropology examines the relation among social processes, cultural meanings, and human subjectivities.  Psychological anthropologists study topics such as narrative, identity, experience, emotion, memory, discourse, belief, motivation, conceptualization, gender, sexuality, trauma, mental illness, stigmatization, and psychological development in social and cultural contexts.
The anthropology of children and youth is the cross-cultural and ethnographic examination of infants, children, youth, and adolescents.  It examines such topics as child development across time and space (physical, cognitive, emotional, social); parenting, childcare, and childrearing around the world; the evolution of childhood; the impact of globalization on children and their families and communities; child health; child education and learning; child participation in their cultures; the socio-historical construction of childhood; child agency and vulnerability; children’s rights; the political lives of children; and critical studies of childhood.

In addition to panels and discussion groups, we will also schedule plenary sessions, coffee breaks, and receptions that will bring our group together and facilitate informal conversation and networking. 

Saturday afternoon the ACYIG will hold a business meeting.  There will be a banquet on Saturday night, highlighted by presentation of the SPA Lifetime Achievement Awards to Anthony Wallace and to Jean Lave.

Registration for the SPA /ACYIG Biennial Meeting on April 4-7th, 2013 in San Diego is now open. Click here. The registration fee for professionals is $125 and a reduced rate of $60 for students. One-day conference rates for professionals are $50 and $25 for students. These fees cover all conference costs including meeting room rentals, audio / visual equipment, programs, etc.

Find all the info HERE