One of the Good Ones Book Review

 

Who gets to be “one of the good ones” and why?

Maika and Maritza Moulite’s sophomore novel explores this concept and adds a mysterious twist to it. One of the Good Ones follows sisters Happi and Genny in the aftermath of their sister’s (Kezi) mysterious death. Kezi, a teen activist and YouTuber, is arrested at a social justice protest and dies while in police custody. She is deemed “one of the good ones” by the media, but her family is left grieving. To honor Kezi, Happi and Genny embark on a road trip Kezi had planned before her death using an heirloom copy of The Negro Motorist Green Book. One of the Good Ones discusses a wide range of topics such as family and social injustice.

The novel opens three months after Kezi’s death. Happi and her family are attending a ceremony where Kezi was to accept an award for her activist work. As she is listening to the ceremony presenters, Happi reflects on the aftermath of her sister’s death and how the media has portrayed Kezi:

“She was mine before she was anyone else’s. All mine. Partly mine. Now she belongs to you and them and shirts and rallies and songs and documentaries. They say she has A Bright Future Ahead of Her and She Was a Star Whose Light Burned Out Too Soon. She Was Going to Make a Difference. That’s all true, but it is not the Truth. She was more than her future. She had a past. She was living her present…She was my sister before she became your martyr, after all” (Moulite 11).

This excerpt from the novel expresses its overarching commentary on who is worthy of remembrance by showing how Kezi has been deemed “one of the good ones.” In the above quotation Kezi has become a headline, a trend but to Happi she was her sister. Happi counteracts the sensationalism of Kezi’s death by presenting a headline of her own, which she calls “the Truth.” The truth is what does not get circulated around the news or social media and Happi is there to remind the reader of it. Happi reminds us how before her death Kezi’s story belonged to no one else but Kezi and those who loved her, to them she was a person. This beginning passage sets the tone for the rest of the novel, which explores who these three sisters are in relation to the “one of the good ones” concept and their family history.  

Authors Maika and Maritza Moulite do an excellent job of developing characters who are less than perfect. This is mainly depicted through Happi’s character arc. Happi is constantly juxtaposed with her sister Kezi. Kezi is studious and invested in her relationships with her family and family history; whereas Happi keeps her family at arm’s length, is more preoccupied with her peers, and self-involved. Kezi is positioned as the responsible one while Happi is the more rebellious one. The juxtaposition between Happi and Kezi exemplifies how society expects members of the Black community to be perfect in every way in order to be deemed worthy of remembrance. This is why characters like Happi need to come in abundance. Characters who learn how their actions affect those around them and once they realize such mistakes they are shown reflecting on their choices. Happi’s character arc depicts how easy it is to forget that those close to us are going through different experiences. Happi's arc also shows how there can be growth without changing the core self, an aspect which I loved. Happi was not perfect and that was the beauty of her character because she was depicted as living her Truth. 

One of the Good Ones presents multiple perspectives, some being Happi's, Kezi before her death, and various of their ancestors. The novel weaves the stories of these different family members through a physical item, The Negro Motorist Green Book. This guide was used by Black Americans during the segregation era to travel safely across the US, it catalogs places which welcomed Black folks. The novel traces the history of the copy in Happi and Kezi’s family through flashbacks of their ancestors. These show how the use of the Green Book changed throughout the generations, but also how despite the book being out of print the US is not a safe place for Black Americans. By doing this Maika and Maritza Moulite present us with the truth of this family and the importance of being connected with our family history because to know it is to understand something bigger than us. Using a physical object, tracing its history through the family, and creating a new narrative with it was absolutely brilliant. The story’s structure offers full immersion by showcasing family history and providing the reader with a larger scope of the story. This aspect of the novel took me by surprise since I was expecting the story to follow mainly the sisters, but instead it depicted the importance of being involved with your family and knowing who they were.

One of the Good Ones is a wonderful exploration of the concept and should not be bound by one genre. The story is a contemporary one because of the themes explored but it contains elements of mystery. The mystery of it will keep the reader on edge while providing a roller coaster of emotions. The use of valuable physical objects to depict family ties, the narrative structure, and the character work are just some of the amazing aspects of this novel. One of the Good Ones contains multitudes and it’s a read you won’t want to miss!

 

-NA

 

Moulite, Maika, and Maritza Moulite. One of the Good Ones. Inkyard Press, 2021.

Author and cover images from the publisher.

New Graduate Assistant

 Hello everyone!

My name is Natalie Alvarez and I’m currently a first year M.A. student studying English with a specialization in Children’s Literature. Being a new student to the program means that I’m still exploring my definitive areas of research. Nonetheless, areas such as queer studies, media studies, sexuality studies, and Digital Humanities have caught my attention. When it comes to Children’s Literature, I gravitate towards Young Adult Literature. I’m especially interested in YA narratives written by authors of color in the Fantasy genre. I would like to explore how cultural and/or queer identity operate in Fantasy landscapes.

 

My love for reading blossomed due to my desire to learn English. I was learning the language in school, but I wanted to experience more than grammar rules and the assigned texts. Then a family member talked to me about a certain book revolving around vampires. After devouring such in a couple of days my journey began. The rest as they say is history and now here, I am now pursuing the degree that I dreamed of when I was younger.

 

When I'm not doing schoolwork I can be found creating book related content for my Instagram. I post everything from book inspired makeup looks to book reviews. Besides reading I enjoy fashion, watching the latest tv series or horror movie, digital art, and blogging. In case you were wondering (and I know you were) some of my favorite books are We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia, A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown, and Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.

 

I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to be a Graduate Assistant at the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature, and I can’t wait for all the amazing things this will bring. I’m excited to be part of the conversation and immerse myself more into the scholarly world of Children’s Literature. I look forward to sharing with you all everything related to Children’s Literature and the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature.

 

-NA

My Love Letter to Magical Realism

 Still from Pan’s Labyrinth

I love magical realism.

I think I read my first magical realism book in middle school. I got “Green Angel” by Alice Hoffman from my sister’s bookshelf and ended up crying because of how much it lingered with me. My heart ached not only for the characters, but the beauty created in their sorrows. I didn’t know what magical realism was, but I couldn’t get the writing out of my head.  

If I were in a magical realism book, it would be obvious that my life was all falling together for me to become a total MR nerd. Without knowing, I was drawn to the genre in so many forms of media. “Pan’s Labyrinth” is one of my favorite movies, partially because I can’t explain it. I don’t understand the world completely, so I keep learning more about the bizarre world director Guillermo del Toro created. I love not completely knowing, because then I continue to want more. Rule #1 of writing: don’t give the reader everything.

After discovering this “weird in-between fantasy and real” was a common theme, I started researching the actual term.

I had two questions:

“What’s magical realism?” 

And

“Where can I get more?”

Art by Tomek Setowski

I read what I believe was my second magical realism book, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton, after I graduated high school, and discovered the term “magical realism” for the first time. I found so much vulnerability in the poetic language, as if I were being shown the deepest secrets of the author’s mind through their words. I felt intimate with the world they found in this genre. I was one of the only people in my course who liked Bless Me Ultima (my third known encounter with MR); the majority of the class argued that it was “too weird” and “didn’t make sense”, while I argued this suspension of reality is what we search for in literature.

My next encounter with magical realism was in graduate my class Theorizing Queer Adolescent Literature when we read “When the Moon Was Ours” by Anna-Marie McLemore, a book about a young girl with roses growing out of her wrists, and (spoilers!) a young trans boy who eventually is transformed into the body he always desired, and all I wanted was for that to be true. I wanted to see this beauty in real life. My heart strings were tugged, and my mind begged for more. At this point, I knew I loved magical realism. I love the suspension of reality, the focus on the beauty of language. Most of all though, I loved the magic.  

At this point, I started researching more books in the genre.

Falling into Gabriel García Márquez showed me an inkling of why I love it. First, before knowing about the background, I was just immediately drawn to the beautiful language.

Although I fell in love first and foremost with the actual language and books of magical realism, there was more that drew me to it. I loved learning of the connection between magical realism and Spain. I am Spanish, but not super connected to my culture; my Spanish grandmother lives across the country, I refused to learn Spanish until tenth grade, and let’s be honest: I don’t “look Spanish” according to people, (or stereotypically Spanish, which is another issue on its own) and my love of magical realism has been questioned because of that. This made me think more about why I love it.

Hearing inklings of my family’s journey moving to America from Spain captivated me, and I saw this genre as a tiny way to be more connected to my culture across the ocean. I felt transported.

I read “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by the king of magical realism, Gabriel García Márquez. While I was carrying the book around, my mom told me it was her favorite book, and reading it made me feel a little bit closer to her as well. Everything was just falling together. Finally, I started researching the actual genre of magical realism, also known as magic realism, marvelous realism, or fabulism.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, magical realism is a “chiefly Latin-American narrative strategy that is characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction”. Although Latin-American, its roots are in Germany, and the term “magic/magical realism” was first used by German photographer, art historian, and art critic Franz Roh in 1925 (Slemon, 9). Although it is most popular in literature, it can be found in any form of art: paintings, movies, et cetera.

As Maggie Ann Bowers beautifully puts it in “Magic(al) Realism”, the genre “magic realism” is “the concept of the ‘mystery [that] does not descend to the represented world, but rather hides and palpitates behind it” while “magical realism” is “commingling of the improbable and the mundane” (Bowers, 74). I love this mystery that doesn’t need to be explained. I’m okay with it hiding and never truly being discovered.

There is some contestation whether the term “magic realism” should only apply to Latinx authors, but the issue in this requires each author to disclose their identity, which if they want to is great, but I really think that’s another issue in this: a policing of the genre, by all identities. This policing forces some authors to validate their writing and divulge potentially personal information, which for some is perfectly fine, but in general, I think that’s pretty weird to insist upon.

Why is their background your business?

For some authors, they don’t want their identity to be central to the reading of the novel, or simply they don't want it as a public fact in general, and that should be respected. Varying identities in authorship is amazing, and something I would love to see more of, but an author, like myself writing this blog, should not have to immediately preface their work with their identity. But I do.

Nonetheless, I still love the genre, and writing about it.

My journey in this genre has helped me discover more about my family, myself, and the world.

Magical realism for me has become an escape from the world. In times where I felt like life didn’t make sense, everything fell together in this genre, because things didn’t have to follow the logic of our world. When life didn’t make sense, when I stared at the hate in our world, I wanted just a glimpse of beauty. Beauty was found in times of hate and oppression in these books.

Magical realism is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I want to emphasize something: It is for everyone, no matter their background. I think everyone should at least try it, and I think those of any age or identity should at least experience it once. If you love it, read about it, research it, honor the background and roots of it. It is not only beautiful; it is necessary to be accessible to the world. The whole world. For some, it can be an escape, an exploration. A reader can escape this world and explore another one more fantastical, more beautiful, more magical. A world like in When the Moon Was Ours where flowers grow from wrists and a trans boy born in the body he doesn’t align with can have the body he always should have had with a drink of a potion. A world like that.

There’s something so beautiful about that. The possibility.

Magical realism is full of possibility.

For me, reading magical realism is a reparation of some of the darkness in life, by seeing that reparation happen in books. This can be seen in When the Moon Was Ours, when a trans boy can magically transform to have the body he always desired. Magical realism brings light to my world, and I think it can bring light to others. This escape that I found, this suspension of disbelief, became a way of coping, because for a little while during my reading, I could believe that anything was possible.

I was right.

Anything is possible. It doesn’t matter if that anything is in a book, because a book is real to me.

-SS

Sources:

“Magic Realism.” ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, https://www.britannica.com/art/magic-realism.

Slemon, Stephen. Magic realism as post-colonial discourse Archived 2018-04-25 at the Wayback Machine. In: Canadian Literature #116 (Spring 1988),pp. 9-24, p. 9 http://canlit.ca/canlitmedia/canlit.ca/pdfs/articles/canlit116-Magic(Slemon).pdf

Upcoming CFPS for Children's Literature

Calling all Scholars! Here is our updated list on Call for Papers for Conferences and Book Chapters. Please check the specific CFP webpage for more detailed information regarding submissions. Our earliest deadline on this page is for March 15th, 2018. Good luck with your research and writing!

CALL FOR PAPERS: 
Consuming Cultures in Children's and Young Adult Literature and Cultures

Midwest Modern Language Convention

When: November 15-18, 2018

Where: Kansas City, Missouri

Deadline for Submissions: April 5, 2018

How to Apply: 250-word abstract along with presenter name, institutional affiliation, e-mail address, paper title, and a CV. Email to mailto:mmla@luc.edu

CFP Webpages: https://www.luc.edu/mmla/convention/

Critics such as James Kincaid, Kathryn Bond Stockton, Michelle Martin, Philippe Ariès, and Suzanne Linn have written about childhood and adolescence as something we consume, criticize, and commercialize, whilst simultaneously romanticizing and desiring. In Consuming Kids (2004), Suzanne Linn suggests consumerist culture is conducting a “hostile takeover” of childhood and adolescence. While cultural consumption of childhood and adolescence has increased, these spheres are likewise being offered up as commercial commodities across medias. We seek papers that explore all aspects of Children’s and Young Adult Literature, as well as those addressing the conference theme of consuming cultures.

Editing and Engineering Children's Literature

Modern Language Association Convention

When: January 3, 2019

Where: Chicago, Illinois  

Deadline for Submissions: March 15, 2018

How to Apply: Please send 500-word paper proposals and 2-page CVs to Ramona Caponegro (rcaponeg@emich.edu)

CFP Webpages: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/02/27/editing-and-engineering-childrens-literature

NOTE: The MLA Convention websites states the deadline for submissions is March 1^st, but the UPENN website has an updated March 15^th deadline. Please contact Ramona Caponegro for more information.

Though Roland Barthes and other scholars have argued for the death of the author, authors and illustrators—as creators and individuals—have remained at the forefront of children’s and young adult literature, with some even gaining celebrity status beyond the field of children’s books. While literary celebrities are neither new nor unique to children’s and young adult literature, the increasing franchising and shifting sociocultural expectations within the children’s book industry have led to a greater investment in the creators, as well as their works. Yet the creation and promotion of children’s and young adult literature depends on many individuals who may only be mentioned in books’ acknowledgements sections or who may go unrecognized completely, and the opportunities to work within and influence children’s and young adult literature have multiplied as the field has become increasingly professionalized.

Since John Newbery’s launch of his popular and profitable illustrated “toy” books in the 1740s, the industry of children’s publishing has expanded enormously and has been marked by periods of great change. In the past few decades, major publishing houses have consolidated, self-publishing has grown, and renewed attention has been given to issues of diversity (and the lack of diversity) within the industry. As children’s publishing has become a larger and more profitable industry, the roles of agents and reviewers have increased, affecting both the field of children’s literature as a whole and the careers of individual authors and illustrators. 

Moreover, the creation of MFA programs specifically for aspiring children’s and young adult authors and illustrators has also contributed to the professionalization of the field. Similarly, organizations such as the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Highlights Foundation provide conferences and workshops to people seeking to improve their craft and to break into children’s publishing, furthering the understanding that creating books for young people is a complicated and specialized practice.

In addition to the commercial transactions related to publication and professionalization, children’s literature has also been the site of numerous cultural transactions. Librarians, teachers, and members of award committees have long been described as arbitrators, taste-makers, and promoters within the field, and activists have founded groups such as the Council on Interracial Books for Children and We Need Diverse Books to advocate for greater diversity within the field. 

This non-guaranteed session examines historical and contemporary figures, events, trends, practices, and organizations that have shaped the children’s literature industry, as well as the careers of individual artists within it.  Which individuals and professions have received prominence in the field and why? How has the promotion of children’s literature and its creators changed over time? How have the field’s development and the identified key figures within it been presented by and to different audiences: aspiring writers, illustrators, and publishers; scholars; young people; and the general public? How might the focus on individual successes within children’s literature compare to a similar focus in other industries?

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• changing practices within the business of children’s literature, such as acquisitions, production, and marketing
• individuals, organizations, and campaigns that work to combat the roles that racism, sexism, classism, and ableism have played in shaping the field
• histories of children’s publishing houses
• personal and professional relationships between authors and illustrators and their editors and agents
• archival research about the evolution of a manuscript for a young audience
• mentorship within children’s literature
• the changing credentialing of authors and illustrators
• depictions of authors, illustrators, and other book professionals within works of children’s literature
• recurrent tropes within author/illustrator studies in children’s literature
• the roles of technology and social media in creating movements within and around children’s literature
• how changes in bookselling and the marketplace affect the creation and publication of works of children’s literature
• how publishing practices and standards vary in different countries
• museum exhibits about the history of children’s literature

South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference

(NOTE: Submission Deadlines May Differ for Each Panel)

When: November 2-4, 2018

Where: Birmingham, Alabama

Victorian/Edwardian Adventure Fiction and Social Change

Deadline for Submissions: May 11th, 2018

How to Apply: Please submit a 250-word abstract, brief biographical statement (inclusive of academic affiliation and contact information), and A/V requirements to Jennifer Fuller, Idaho State University, at  fulljen3@isu.edu

CFP Webpages: https://samla.memberclicks.net/all-cfps

This panel welcomes submissions that explore how popular adventure fiction/boy’s books of the long nineteenth century were used as agents of social change. While often viewed as works for adolescents, such novels played subversive roles in dismantling traditional ideas and establishing new cultural norms. We are especially interested in papers that explore novels set in locations outside the colonial center that worked to challenge British assumptions about education/the educational system. Potential authors could include Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells, or Edgar Rice Burroughs as well as lesser-known authors such as Louis Becke or authors popularized through translation, such as Jules Verne.

The Social Justice Interventions #WENEEDDIVERSEBOOKS

Deadline for Submissions: May 31^st, 2018

How to Apply: Email 250-word proposal and a short biography to rachel.dean-ruzicka@lmc.gatech.edu

CFP Webpages: https://samla.memberclicks.net/all-cfps

Recent activist work in the field of children's and young adult literature has focused on the lack of diverse protagonists and created a variety of initiatives to change that fact, including the #weneeddiversebooks campaign. The desire to improve diverse representations in children’s and young adult literature aligns with recent research into how an individual comes to understand that others have complex inner lives that may differ from our own, often studied in psychology as Theory of the Mind (ToM). Recent studies of ToM and fiction show literature’s power, as an art form, to increase readers’ empathy and engagement with others. Both minority readers and privileged populations, therefore, need diverse books. This panel at SAMLA 90, dedicated to “Fighters from the Margins,” asks for essays that investigate the power of diverse books, in order to continue the work of #weneeddiversebooks. Some possible avenues of investigation are:

• Intersections of #weneeddiversebooks and #blacklivesmatter
• Forgotten or undertheorized books with diverse protagonists
• Power of visual communication to represent diversity in picture books or comics
• Diversity represented outside the confines of historical tragedy (Holocaust, Japanese internment, slavery, Jim Crow, Native American genocide, etc.)
• Intersectional analyses that explore gender, sexuality, ability in addition to racial diversity 

The Metaphor of the Monster

Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures Symposium

When: September 21 - 22, 2018

Where: Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi  

Deadline for Submissions: July 1^st, 2018

How to Apply: Email 300-word abstract along with additional information to Dr. Silvia Arroyo at  sarroyo@cmll.msstate.edu

CFP Webpages: https://www.cmll.msstate.edu/symposium/index.php

Mermaids, giants, gorgons, harpies, dragons, cyclopes, hermaphrodites, cannibals,amazons, krakens, werewolves, barbarians, savages, zombies, vampires, angels, demons–               all of those inhabit and represent our deepest fears of attack and hybridization, but also our deepest desires of transgression. Frequently described in antithetical terms, monsters were frequently read in the past as holy inscriptions and proofs of the variety and beauty of the world created by God, or as threats to civilization and order. These opposing views on the monster show the radically different values that have been assigned to monsters since they started to permeate the human imagination in manuscripts, maps, and books.

Their hybridity challenges natural order and escapes taxonomy, thus problematizing our epistemological certainties. Inhabiting the margins of society, monsters also police social laws and show the consequences of transgressions on their own deformed bodies. Moreover, they are pervasive in nature and metamorphose into something else in different historicalthey are pervasive in nature and metamorphose into something else in different historical periods in order to embody the fears of that age, never to disappear from our imagination.

The 2018 Classical & Modern Languages and Literatures Symposium focuses on the concept of monstrosity as a cultural construct in literature, science, and art, and the ways in which the monster has been shaped, used, and interpreted as metaphor by scientists, writers, and artists in order to depict otherness, hybridization, threat to hegemonic order, and transgression. 

We accept submissions in English that explore monstrosity from various disciplinary or interdisciplinary angles. Topics might include, but are not limited to:

-Representation in literature/art of different forms of monstrosity Gendered- or queer-focused studies of monstrosity
-The depiction of the Other as monster, and the depiction of marginalized communities
-Hybridity, miscegenation, and the problem of categorizing Cartography, margins of civilization
-Books as monsters
-Transgressive subjects as monsters
-The medicalization of the monster: monstrosity in medical discourse; monsters within: parasites, viruses, and illness
-Ecocritical approaches to the topic: humans as ""parasites"" and ""predators"" Dystopian depictions of the urban space as a monstrosity
-The monster as spectacle, freak shows Deconstructing monstrosity through inclusion"
-Teaching monstrosity

2018 Science Fictions, Popular Cultures Call for Presentations

2018 HawaiiCON at The Big Island

When: September 13-16, 2018

Where: Kona Coast on The Big Island of Hawaii

Deadline for Submissions: April 1^st, 2018

How to Apply: 200-300 word summary abstracts and 100-word biographical sketches are to be submitted to Conference Co-Chair Carrie J. Cole using the online form available by clicking here.  Academic, peer-reviewed proceedings will be published at the conclusion of this conference.

CFP Webpages: http://www.caperteam.com/sfpc/

Announcing SCIENCE FICTIONS, POPULAR CULTURES: devoted to cross-disciplinary, cross-genre, and cross-media scholarship.

SCIENCE FICTIONS, POPULAR CULTURES is an academic conference which runs in conjunction with HawaiiCon (September 13-16, 2018) with an opening reception on Thursday evening) on the sunny western Kona side of the Big Island of Hawaii at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel.  

The inaugural theme of SCIENCE FICTIONS, POPULAR CULTURES is: Beyond Boundaries.

•        Just as science fiction adventures go where none had gone...

•        Just as artists are not bounded by one media or platform...

•        Just as science pushes the limits of what is fiction to discover what is fact...

•        Just as science fiction constantly defies and defines the parameters of genre...

•        Just as popular culture erases the divides of academic disciplines...

SCIENCE FICTIONS, POPULAR CULTURES seeks to both defy and redefine how the academy views science fiction and popular culture—and the research, scholarship and creative endeavors of those working across these fields. An academic, peer-reviewed and refereed Conference Proceedings will be published in conjunction with the event.  The 2017 Proceedings are available for purchase on Amazon here.

SCIENCE FICTIONS, POPULAR CULTURES is soliciting 20-minute academic presentations from a wide spectrum of disciplines addressing the narratives and performances of science, science fiction, and popular entertainment across media, platforms, and cultures. As scholars, we create intersections with public programming at HawaiiCon which leverages the intellectual engagement audiences bring to their enthusiastic appreciation and deep knowledge of pop culture. The growing list of entertainers, authors, and actors attending who you can interact with are listed online.

While we are particularly interested in creating intersections with programming at HawaiiCon, all suitable, scholarly academic presentations of science fiction and popular culture will be considered. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

•        World-building in genres & across media

•        Popular interpretations and implications of Science Fictions

•        Science in/of Science Fiction

•        Playing Science/Science Fiction (cosplay, games, gaming)

•        Star Wars vs Star Trek: Who Has Better Astronomy?

•        Hidden Mathematics Revealed in Science Fiction

•        Encryption and Privacy in Science Fiction and Daily Life

•        Time Travel, Special Relativity, and Imperial Cruiser Travel Times

•        STEM, STEAM, and Science Fiction

•        The Science of World-building in the Genre

•        Science as Popular Culture and the Popularity of Science

•        Teaching of/with Science Fiction (across disciplines)

•        Teaching College Classes with Comics and Popular Culture

•        Translating/Adapting Science Fiction across media and cultures

•        Interdisciplinary Science Fictions

•        Cultures of Science Fictions

•        Cultures of Science Fiction fandom

•        Performing Science/Science Fiction (live and mediated)

•        What Fuels Serenity? Real Propulsion Systems in Science Fiction Spaceships

•        Firearms VS Vampires:  Which Firearms and Ammo Should Buffy Carry?

•        Playing Science/Science Fiction (cosplay, games, gaming)

CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS:

Neglected Newberys: A Critical Reassessment at the Centennial

Call for Book Chapters

Deadline for Submissions: April 1, 2018

How to Apply: Email 500-word initial proposal to the editors (schwebel@sc.edu and vantuyl@ncf.edu) and for access to the spreadsheet of books on which we are soliciting contributions, contributor resources, and additional specifications to ensure continuity throughout the volume.

CFP Webpage: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/12/19/neglected-newberys-a-critical-reassessment-at-the-centennial

In anticipation of the one hundredth anniversary of the American Library Association’s Newbery Medal (1922-2022), submissions are welcomed for a volume devoted to critically-neglected Newbery Award-winners.

About the Volume

Since the inception of the Newbery Medal in 1922, Newbery novels have had an outsized influence on American children’s literature, figuring perennially on publisher’s lists, on library and bookstore shelves, and in K-12 school curricula. As such, they offer a compelling window into the history of U.S. children’s literature and publishing as well as changing societal attitudes about what books are “best” for American children. Nevertheless, many Newbery Award winners—even the most popular and frequently taught titles—have attracted scant critical attention. 

This volume offers a critically- and historically-grounded analysis of representative Newbery Medal books and interrogates the disjunction between the books’ omnipresence and influence, on the one hand, and the critical silence surrounding them, on the other.

The editors seek at least one previously unpublished essay per decade (1920s-2010s), with each essay to focus primarily on a single Newbery Medal (not Newbery Honor) title for which little or no literary scholarship exists. We welcome submissions from both emerging and established scholars.

We specifically seek a diversity of Newbery authors, genres, themes, and book settings, but also investigations of how diversity is treated or, especially for earlier works, silenced in the texts.

Avenues for exploration include: neglected categories and sub-genres (horse books, maritime adventure stories, regional literature, retold folktales, one-hit wonders for children by well-known authors); reception and book history (alterations of text to avoid offensive language and imagery, both immediately after the Medal and decades later); critical readings of problematic texts; Newbery winners and their archives; hypotheses regarding critical neglect: the rise of Children’s Literature as an academic field long after the Medal’s inception; the disjunction between the Newbery’s historical whiteness and heteronormativity and current developments in literary criticism; a possible disconnect between librarians who award the medal, K-12 teachers who recommend the books, and university professors who are rewarded for publishing literary criticism.

Transatlantic Girlhood in Nineteenth-Century Literature Collection

Call for Book Chapters

Deadline for Submissions: June 30, 2018

How to Apply: Email 500-word abstract and brief CV (as an attachment in Word) to Robin Cadwallader and LuElla D’Amico at transatlanticgirlhood@gmail.com

CFP Webpage: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/02/28/transatlantic-girlhood-in-nineteenth-century-literature-collection

Although often dubbed “domestic” novelists, nineteenth-century women writers often featured girl protagonists who travelled, and much of the time this travel wasn’t relegated to a local or even national scale. Rather, like Amy in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, fictional girls on both sides of the Atlantic often journeyed abroad, usually with the intent of learning more about themselves, their relationships with others, and even their country. This collection will interrogate both literal and metaphorical exchanges of culture that happened in nineteenth-century girls’ fiction. Creative approaches to thinking about transatlantic travel and how it had an impact on girl culture in both Europe and America are invited. For instance, contributors could explore novels like Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, Maria Susanna Cummins’s The Lamplighter, and E.D.E.N. Southworth’s The Hidden Hand, all of which earned popularity in both Europe and America.  Likewise, the editors are eager to read submissions centering on girls’ magazines, journals, and etiquette books, so long as these were read in both Europe and America.

The book will comprise three sections: girl characters travelling, books travelling, and girl readers travelling. The first section will focus on how young female characters in novels approach and respond to travelling abroad, the second will consider how books were received and responded to on both sides of the Atlantic by the masses and critics alike, and the third section will examine how the books inspired their young readers to travel themselves and critically examine their cultural mores.