Job Announcement: Assistant Professor of Children's Literature or Childhood Studies, University of Pittsburgh

The University of Pittsburgh has received the green light, pending budgetary approval, to hire an assistant professor in the area of twentieth-century children's literature or childhood studies. SDSU Child Lit is excited to share this unofficial posting with our colleagues who may be on the market or going on the market. Special thanks to Marah Gubar, associate professor of English and part of Pitt's children's literature program, for sending this information along. Keep an eye out on Pitt's website or the MLA job information list for the official posting.

Job Opportunity: Twentieth-Century Children’s Literature or Childhood Studies

The Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh anticipates a position as an Assistant Professor in Twentieth-Century Children’s Literature or Childhood Studies to begin Fall Semester, 2013, pending budgetary approval.

We seek candidates with both scholarly and teaching interests in the field of youth literature or culture who are keen to help us build our current Children’s Literature Program into a more interdisciplinary Childhood Studies Program. To that end, we welcome applications from twentieth- or twenty-first-century literature scholars whose work features a strong focus on childhood or adolescence, but also from scholars with commitments to other disciplines such as History, Art History, Sociology, Film, TV or Performance Studies, and so on. Children’s Literature scholars whose work cuts across historical periods are also encouraged to apply, especially those who specialize in picture books or young adult literature.

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to teach undergraduate courses on children’s literature and culture as well as a wide range of other undergraduate literature courses and graduate seminars in his or her areas of scholarly interest. The teaching load is normally four courses per year. Salaries are competitive, and tenure is awarded for excellence in research, teaching and service. Candidates must have a PhD by September 1, 2013.

The University of Pittsburgh is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and members of minority groups under-represented in academia are especially encouraged to apply.

Publishers' Book Fair, March 19, SDSU

Publishers, authors, and others will congregate today in the Leon Williams Room in the library, LL-430, 4th floor, from 4-9 for panels, conversations, and book displays.

The event is free and open to the public.

Join us for this special Living Writers event

from mediabistro.com: Publishing Job

Publicist

Publication Company Timber Press Industry Book Publishing Benefits 401K/403B, Dental, Health Job Duration Full Time Job Location Portland, OR Requirements Basic Function: To create and execute the publicity plans for frontlist and backlist titles Essential Functions: * Plan author tours for select frontlist titles: select cities, book events, hire media escorts, coordinate author travel, plan local media campaigns around the events, coordinate mailings. * Assist in the creation and development of publicity materials for frontlist and backlist titles. * Write press releases and booksheets for individual frontlist titles and promotions. * Develop strong and consistent communication with authors to support their promotional efforts. * Develop and maintain national and local media contacts. * Implement web-based content, written and video, for Timbers website and blog, as well as other websites to promote individual titles. * Implement creative and/or inventive strategies for book and author promotion and presence in the marketplace with Director. * Support Timbers presence at trade shows and coordinate author events. Skills/Qualifications required: *BS or BA from a four-year accredited college. * Minimum two years experience in publicity or marketing, with strong media relationships. *Strong knowledge of MS Word, Excel, Outlook, Adobe, YouTube, and social networking media. * Excellent written and oral communication skills. * Excellent organizational and research skills. * Excellent phone manner. * Energetic, independent, and creative. * Attention to detail and ability to prioritize work load essential. Physical Requirements: * Must be able to lift 25 pounds. * Vision and hearing must be acute enough for phone work and computer operations. * Must be able to travel to local events and to events requiring overnight stays and air travel. About Our Company Timber Press is known worldwide for publishing professional and unique books in the areas of horticulture, botany, and the natural sciences.

Publishing Fair and Readings, SDSU, Monday March 19

SDSU PUBLISHING & LITERARY FAIR
MARCH 19, 2012


2.30pm: PhD Programs and Opportunities Abroad: Q and A with Martin Woodside
AH 2134
this event is open to MA and MFA students.

4pm - Panel on Publishing: Editors of Cooper Dillon Books, Calypso Editions and City Works Press speak about the details of contemporary literary publishing world
SDSU Love Library, room # LL 430/431

3pm-7pm Publishing Fair

Participating organizations will include:
Cooper Dillon Books,
Calypso Editions,
Pacific Review,
Poetry International,
Fiction International,
Alchemy: A Journal of Literary Translation,
California Journal of Poetics,
Writers Ink Literary Center,
Acorn Review,
Red Hen Press,
City Works Press,
San Diego JCC Literary Series,
Puma Press,
Museum of Living Artist Literary Series,
Border Voices Literary Festival,
Black Crow Reading Series,
Haiku Society of America,
Cider Press Review
Denver Publishing Institute

SDSU Love Library, room # LL 430/431

7pm: Living Writers Series Presents: Fiction and Poetry Reading by Chris Baron, Elizabeth Myhr, Martin Woodside and Tony Bonds
SDSU Love Library, room # LL 430/431

ChLA Website: Wealth of Information

The Children's Literature Association, a leading organization in the field:

A number of items of interest have been added recently to the ChLA website, www.childlitassn.org, and we encourage you to visit the site.

Under the "What's New" tab you will find links to job opportunities, current paper calls for publications and conferences including the 2012 ChLA conference next summer in Boston. From the June 2011 ChLA conference at Hollins University videos of the Francelia Butler Lecture given by Julia Mickenberg and Philip Nel plus the Phoenix Award acceptance speech by Virginia Euwer Wolff have been added. The draft minutes of the June 2011 General Membership Meeting can be viewed and will be presented to the membership at the Simmons College for approval.

Best wishes for a splendid fall season,

Kathy Kiessling
ChLA Office

The Grad Student Primer (thanks to Dr. Joseph Thomas)

Asked about websites that might be helpful to folks doing study in Children's Literature, Prof. Joseph Thomas kindly provided these useful links:

*Kansas State's Literary Links (children's authors, awards, accociations, and more):
http://www.k-state.edu/english/nelp/weblinks/literary/childrens.html#academic.children

*Michael Joseph's list of journals of literary criticism in the field:
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mjoseph/journals.htm

*Perry Nodelman's "Resources" in Children's Literature:
http://ion.uwinnipeg.ca/~nodelman/resources/allbib.htm

see also:
http://www.childlitassn.org/index.php?page=links

June Cummins Explains: "What Are Jewish Boys & Girls Made Of"

June Cummins essay "What Are Jewish Bous and Girls Made Of? Gender in Contemporary Jewish Teens and Tween Fiction" has appeared in the most recent issue of Children's Literature Association Quarterly (Fall 2011).

Available online. Subscription required (often you can access through your university library):
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/childrens_literature_association_quarterly/v024/24.2.article11.html

Naomi Lesley in Print

"Solar Systems and Power Systems: Decentering the Naturalized Universe in Virginia Hamilton's The Planet of Junior Brown" in the Children's Literature Association Quarterly

Abstract: Critical race theorists argue that white ideals of culture become "natural" standards against which adolescents and nonwhites are judged. They argue that this naturalization of whiteness both reinforces dominant power structures and conceals the un-natural machinations of repression. Virginia Hamilton addresses similar concerns in The Planet of Junior Brown. The central image of the novel is the reconstruction of a model solar system to include a new planet, a process that becomes a metaphor for the need to reconstruct society. Through manipulating the "natural" physical universe, the characters realize that the social universe needs to recognize the needs of people who do not match systemic norms. In the process, Hamilton demonstrates the cracks in the constructs of age and race, and suggests that their naturalization is the source and the solution of the problem.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/childrens_literature_association_quarterly/summary/v036/36.2.lesley.html

"Too Good to Be True: The Fall of the Ideal Youth, from Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" in jeunesse

Abstract: Within half a century of the publication of G. Stanley Hall’s Adolescence, the qualities of ideal and dangerous adolescents flip: ideal adolescents actually behave in a disturbed fashion, while seemingly well-adjusted youth are understood to be courting danger later in life. A comparison of seemingly ideal characters in adolescent novels from two periods—the first decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first—helps to illuminate how and why these desires and fears for youth shift. In Kate Douglas Wiggin’s 1903 novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Rebecca represents the ideal youth common before Hall’s publication and the subsequent spread of anxiety about the psychological health of adolescents. Ann Brashares’s The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and its sequels, published from 2001 to 2007, reflect a distinct change in thinking, given the books’ focus on a potentially ideal teen, Bridget, who is undermined and written off as too good to be truly authentic. In these examples, it is not only apparent that the conception of the ideal shifts, but it is also evident that the “squeaky-clean” ideal adolescents are in fact the ones who are less controllable and more dangerous to the existing social order.

http://jeunessejournal.ca/index.php/yptc/issue/view/7/showToc

China Children's Lit

Professor Wang Quangen,
Beijing Normal University's School of
Chinese Language and Literature and Alida Allison, SDSU, June 14, 2011; China Children's Literature edited by Prof. Wang

Ni Hao! (Hello) from the new director of our SDSU Center for the Study of Children's Literature---- that would be me above, with Professor Wang.

Wang Quangen has done remarkable things for children's literature in China.With Maria Nikolajeva and board members of IBBY (International Board of Books for Youth), I'd met Quangen ten years earlier at BNU, and the fruits of his decades' endeavors are apparent. Several of his former students now teach or work as editors in the thriving Chinese publishing world, for example as editorial staff for China Children's Press Publishing Group (CCPPG) in Beijing. Wang Mei, Dr. Wang's daughter, is now herself a professor of children's literature at Beijing's Capitol Normal University, and his latest journal edition, China Children's Literature 2010, is an eye-catching, substantial volume (above).Thus, it was a double pleasure to see him again and to also see how well his teaching and writing have evolved.
His and Dr. Wang Lei's graduate students were the audience at BNU for my talk on Fantasy and Fantasizing June 14, along with editors/students from CCPPG whom I'd met the day before at their editorial offices and soon-to-be-opened spectacular kids' bookstore in Beijing (next blog...).
I came back from China with a lot to ponder and a lot to read; problem with the latter, though, is I don't read Chinese. If you're a current SDSU student who can translate or know someone who can, get in touch with me.

San Diego Students to Australian Conference

The International Research Society for Children's Literature will have their biannual congress in Brisbane, Australia, July 4-8. http://irscl2011.com/

Two San Diego graduate students will be offering papers there. Kate Slater will be presenting a paper called "No Safe Place: Terrors of Liminality in the Scary Stories Series." Mariel Romero will present a paper titled "The Anguished Immigrant Child in Chicana/o Children’s Literature" where she explores how the authors of the picture book Gabriela’s Song: How Do I Adapt to a New Place? (2007) and the YA novel La Línea (2006) advocate for storytelling as therapeutic treatment that will help expat children and adolescents confront and overcome a traumatic migrant experience.

SDSU at the ChLA Convention (Virginia, June 2011)

The 2011 Children's Literature Association convention will take place at Hollins University (Roanoke, Virginia) June 23-25: http://www.hollins.edu/grad/childlit/chla2011/index.htm

A number of SDSU faculty, alums, and friends will be there. Please see the list below. And if there are others, please let us know: childlit@mail.sdsu.edu

• I'll be at the conference, tuckered into Chandra's panel on Octavian Nothing. The official title of the paper is "Writing the Child: Composition and Consciousness in Octavian Nothing ” --Martin Woodside
• I'm going to ChLA, presenting a paper on the show "Glee." --Naomi Lesley
• I'll be presenting a paper at ChLA titled "Redress, Rupture and Rememory in Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains."--Kate Slater
• I will be presenting a piece of his in-progress book on "Shel Silverstein, 'The Devil's Favorite Pet': Shel Silverstein, an American Iconoclast" as a part of a panel on Silverstein featuring Michael Heyman and Kevin Shortsleeve, co-editors of the forthcoming Anthology of World Nonsense. My paper is titled, “About Nineteen or so Minutes on the Subjects of Shel Silverstein, 'The Freak', & Freaking Out.” --Joseph Thomas.
• My paper is: “Keeping the Faith: Religious and Ethnic Affiliation as Resistance in Jewish Children’s and YA Literature.” It's on a special Diversity Panel with special topic of “Resisting Americanization.” --June Cummins
• Mary Auxier and I put together an Octavian Nothing Panel and my paper is called "The Rhetoric of Resistance in The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. --Chandra Howard
• My presentation will be on reflections of the communist movement in Engelbert Humperdinck's German opera, Hansel und Gretel. I know the Roanoke area reasonably well, since I went to school there for several summers, and I may be able to recommend some good eats out there if we decide to have some kind of rendezvous. The Hollins crowd seemed to prefer dive bars and karaoke joints for drinking, so I can only recommend those establishments for drinks! --Ellen Malven
• Sean Printz is presenting a paper on how procedural rhetoric in video games generate mythic strictures and narratives.
• NaToya Faughnder is presenting a paper on the bias of modernity in the theory of and history of the child.

International Children's Lit: New Issue of Journal

Edinburgh University Press Table of Contents Alert
International Research in Children's Literature
Volume: 4, Number: 1 (Jul 2011)

---

The above issue is now available online from Edinburgh University Press at:
http://www.euppublishing.com/toc/ircl/4/1?ai=v1&ui=3be&af=H

Your Edinburgh University Press username is: john.stephens@humn.mq.edu.au

The table of contents for this issue is listed below. Click on the links below to view the abstract for each article, or click on the link above to read the table of contents online.

To subscribe securely online, please visit the journal homepage at www.euppublishing.com and click on "Subscribe".

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Editorial
Identity – Discourse – Imagology
John Stephens
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: v-ix.
Citation | PDF plus (49 KB) Articles
Imagology Meets Children's Literature
Emer O'Sullivan
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 1-14.
Abstract | PDF plus (98 KB)
Harry Potter – National Hero and National Heroic Epic
Ulrike Kristina Köhler
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 15-28.
Abstract | PDF plus (97 KB)
The Impact of In-group/Out-group Stereotypes: The Image of Foreign Cultures in Flemish Youth Literature in the Nineteenth Century
Coillie Jan Van
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 29-44.
Abstract | PDF plus (112 KB)
‘The less you lot have ter do with these foreigners, the happier yeh'll be’: Cultural and National Otherness in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series
Marion Rana
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 45-58.
Abstract | PDF plus (100 KB)
‘What should we do in America?’: Immigrant Economies in Nineteenth-Century American Children's Fiction
Roxanne Harde
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 59-72.
Abstract | PDF plus (95 KB)
Youth Voices in the War Diary Business
Susan Honeyman
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 73-86.
Abstract | PDF plus (99 KB)
Portals, Agency and the Negotiation of Liminality in A Tale of Time City and Johnny and the Bomb
Andrea Zarate
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 87-98.
Abstract | PDF plus (86 KB) Invited Plenary Address
The Case of the Flat Rectangles: Children's Literature on Page and Screen
The Francelia Butler Lecture, Children's Literature Association, June 2010 Ann Arbor, Michigan
Margaret Mackey
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 99-114.
Abstract | PDF plus (264 KB) Reviews
Picturing Canada: A History of Canadian Children's Illustrated Books and Publishing. Gail Edwards and Judith Saltman. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 2010. 381 pages, £25 (paperback).
Bridget Carrington
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 115-117.
Citation | PDF plus (39 KB)
The Role of Translators in Children's Literature: Invisible Storytellers. Gillian Lathey. New York and London: Routledge, 2010. 204 pages. £80 (hardcover).
B.J. Epstein
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 117-119.
Citation | PDF plus (37 KB)
The Routledge Companion to Children's Literature. Edited by David Rudd. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. 320 p. CDN 32.95 (paperback).
Roxanne Harde
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 119-121.
Citation | PDF plus (39 KB)
New Directions in Picturebook Research. Teresa Colomer, Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, and Cecilia Silva-Díaz. New York and London: Routledge, 2010. 241 pages, £80 (hardback).
Lydia Kokkola
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 121-124.
Citation | PDF plus (42 KB)
The Cambridge Companion to Children's Literature. M. O. Grenby and Andrea Immel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 324 pages. £17.99 (paperback).
Anthony Pavlik
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 124-126.
Citation | PDF plus (38 KB)
Meesterwerken met ezelsoren: Bewerkingen van literaire klassiekers voor kinderen 1850–1950 [Dog-Eared Masterpieces: Adaptations of Literary Classics for Children]. Sanne Parlevliet. Hilversum: Verloren, 2009. 392 pages. € 39 (paperback).
Stijn Praet
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 126-128.
Citation | PDF plus (38 KB)
Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. StandardWissen Lehramt. Gina Weinkauff and Gabriele von Glasenapp. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2010. 248 pages. 18, € 90 (paperback).
Marion Rana
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 128-130.
Citation | PDF plus (40 KB)
Translation Under State Control: The Production and Rewriting of Books for Young People in the German Democratic Republic (1961–1989). Gaby Thomson-Wohlgemuth. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. 260 pages. 128.00 USD (hardback)
Marija Todorova
International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 130-132.
Citation | PDF plus (38 KB) Back matter

International Research in Children's Literature Jul 2011, Vol. 4, No. 1: 133-134.
Citation | PDF plus (29 KB) © 2011 Edinburgh University Press. All Rights Reserved. Technology Partner - Atypon Systems, Inc.

--
John Stephens
Emeritus Professor in English
Macquarie University
Editor, International Research in Children's Literature
http://www.euppublishing.com/journal/ircl

john.stephens@mq.edu.au

Fairy Tales on Film: New Book by Jack Zipes

Noted scholar Jack Zipes has recently published The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films (Routledge, $49.95), an examination of fairy-tale film-making before Disney and a discussion of how Disney came to dominate these kinds of films:
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415990615/

Equally interesting is an interview with Zipes about this work in Movie Image Archive News: http://www.movingimagearchivenews.org/fairy-tales-of-the-silver-screen/

Film and fairy tales seem to be in the air and on this blog this Spring. John Cech recently published his study of the film company Weston Woods:
http://sdsuchildlit.blogspot.com/2011/03/childrens-stories-on-film-new-book-on.html
And we have discussed recent movie incarnations of "Beauty and the Beast" and "Little Red Riding Hood":
http://sdsuchildlit.blogspot.com/2011/04/beastly-red-riding-hood-griswold.html

SDSU Faculty in Promising New Book: "Keywords in Children's Literature"

To be published in June 2011, Keywords for Children's Literature (edited by Philip Nel and Lissa Paul, New York University Press, $25) looks to be an important and definitive text in the field: http://nyupress.org/books/book-details.aspx?bookId=5189

The Table of Contents (http://www.nyupress.org/webchapters/nel_toc.pdf) lists some 49 Keywords (from "Aesthetics" to "Young Adult") taken up by a world-class roster of scholars. Among them are SDSU faculty: Joseph Thomas ("Aesthetics"), June Cummins ("Marketing"), and Phillip Serrato "Latino/a").

In their Introduction (http://www.nyupress.org/webchapters/nel_intro.pdf), Nel and Paul identify and define their notion of "keywords" and discuss their predilection for controversial terms.

Student Has Paper Accepted for Harry Potter Conference

Linda Salem writes....

Just wanted to let you know that Kate Murtaugh is working on the Gorey Personal Library project with me this year. She just started the children's literature program here in the Fall. She has had her undergraduate thesis accepted for presentation at this year's Leakycon conference. Her thesis is entitled "The Difference between Jumpers and Sweaters: Exploring the Editorial Process of the Harry Potter Series." The website for this exclusively Harry Potter themed conference is http://www.leakycon.com/

"Next" or Joseph Thomas Assesses Children's Poetry Criticism

In a recent issue of the journal Lion and Unicorn, Professor Joseph Thomas does a tightrope act in gently evaluating a new book on children's poetry: Styles, Joy, Whitley, eds. Poetry and Childhood. The review is not only admirable for its circumspect manner but also for the historical overview it provides of critical approaches to children's poetry. Here's an essay worth going out of the way for. Anyone doing anything along these lines, subsequently, will now need to reckon with this compass point.

The Lion and the Unicorn is an electronic "Muse" journal published by Johns Hopkins University Press and, generally speaking, requires a subscription to access. However, many university libraries have subscriptions of their own and folks (students, faculty, alums) can access the journal electronically through the library; for example, members of the SDSU community can connect with Love Library here
http://jv5fx4pc8m.search.serialssolutions.com/?V=1.0&L=JV5FX4PC8M&S=AC_T_B&S=AC_T_B&C=Lion
and then enter their identifying numbers.

"Top Scholars": June Cummins & Phillip Serrato

"The Oxford Handbook of Children's Literature is an ambitious new resource that provides a thorough grounding in the field through a selection of original interdisciplinary essays on canonical and popular works in the Anglo American tradition. Twenty-six essays by top scholars from varied disciplines..."

Who are those "top scholars"? Among them:

June Cummins: "Where in America Are You, God? Judy Blume, Margaret Simon and American National Identity (Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret [1970]). "

Phillip Serrato: "'What are Young People to Think'?: The Subject of Immigration and the Immigrant Subject in Francisco Jimenez's The Circuit (1997)."

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/LiteratureEnglish/AmericanLiterature/?view=usa&sf=toc&ci=9780195379785

Galbraith's Provocative Reading of "Polar Express"

Mary Galbraith offers a provocative interpretation of Chris Van Allsburg's Polar Express in the new issue of Interjuli, a German journal about children's literature. According to Galbraith, The Polar Express can be summarized as "René Magritte journeys to Nuremberg to meet Adolf Hitler."

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B2ll27-TKm7GMTEzZjIxZjEtMTE0Yi00Nzk1LTk1M2MtM2VjMzE4MTY1ZTI0&hl=en&authkey=CMSjroUD&pli=1


Other essays by Mary Galbraith:
http://en.scientificcommons.org/mary_galbraith