Back again, for another fantastic semester of blogging and
fun NCSCL work, is Cristina Rivera. Cristina has officially begun her second
year of the graduate program at San Diego State University, emphasizing in
children’s literature, of course. After a year of graduate studies, she has
once again found her love of folktales and psychoanalytic theory and spent the
summer rereading some YA favorites. She hopes to graduate in May of 2016, after
spending what she predicts to be a large number of sleepless nights writing her
thesis. Although, the stone is still setting for the official thesis project,
Cristina is considering the topic of repressed adult behaviors (more so, sexual
tendencies) in children because of scary folktales and stories parents tell
their children to make them behave. This idea came about from a paper written specifically
on The Sandman and the effects of sexuality and a child’s instinctual behavior
and conduct, and closely examined how the childhood story corrupted the main
character of E. T. A. Hoffman’s version, ultimately creating sadomasochistic
tendencies.
This semester our graduate students have the opportunity of
taking two very interesting children’s literature courses: Dr. Phillip
Serrato’s Children’s Gothic and Horror and Dr. Joseph T. Thomas’s Edward Gorey
and Nonsense.
And here to introduce herself is our newest edition to the
NCSCL team, Susan Shamoon. We are very excited to have her!
Hello everyone!
Welcome to the Fall 2015 semester — let me hear you cheer!
(Or at least make a little noise to let me know you’re awake. Anyone?)
My name is Susan Shamoon, and I’m the newest addition to the
NCSCL team here at San Diego State University, and I can’t explain how excited
and honored I am to be given this opportunity. I accepted this position by
literally responding with, “Yes. A thousand times yes.” No lie, I did. I am a
first year graduate student here at SDSU, working for my M.A. in English
Literature with a specialization in Children’s Literature.
I believe understanding our fellow human beings starts young
and with good stories. And, really, who doesn’t love metafiction about the very
last unicorn in the world, where the fantastic and the everyday blur together
when they meet, and become virtually indistinguishable? Someone who hasn’t read
The Last Unicorn that’s who, and that’s a sad, deprived child indeed. I will
forever support the Oxford comma and buy more books than I could ever
realistically read during the school year.
Looking forward to a great semester!
