Upcoming 2015 Conferences in Children’s Literature Still Open to Submissions

Looking for something to delve into and contribute brilliant scholarly children’s literature insight to? Here are a few up and coming events in 2015 still looking for abstracts or proposals:

"Give me liberty, or give me death!": 
The High Stakes and Dark Sides of Children's Literature

Conference is looking to discover death and mortality, the darker side of children’s literature.

Hosted by Longwood University

June 18-20, 2015

Richmond, Virginia

Omni Richmond Hotel

Abstracts or panel descriptions should be between 300-350 words and will be accepted from October 15, 2014 through January 15, 2015.

http://www.childlitassn.org/2015

The James Fenimore Cooper Society will be sponsoring a panel on James Fenimore Cooper and Children’s & YA literature at American Literature Association 2015
This conference is looking to discover James Fenimore Cooper’s influence on children’s literature or YA literature where through his work or what his work inspired.
Hosted By: The James Fenimore Cooper Society
Boston, Mass
May 21-24, 2015
Please submit a 250-word abstract and a brief cv (2-3 pages) by January 2, 2015.
http://www.childlitassn.org/assets/docs/cfp%20-%20jfcooper%20ala%202015.pdf


Pippi to Ripley3/ITHACON40:
Women & Gender in Science Fiction, Fantasy, Children’s Literature and Comics.
ITHACON is one of North America’s longest-running comic book conferences. Pippi to Ripley 3 will be joining ITHACON to discuss women and gender through science fiction and fantasy in a wide variety of medias, such as comic books and films.
Hosted by: Ithaca College
May 1-2, 2015
Please send a 300-500 word abstract by January 15, 2015 http://www.childlitassn.org/assets/docs/cfp%202015%20ithacon40.pdf

Wonderlands: Reading/Writing/Telling Fairy Tales and Fantasy PGR Symposium

In honor of Alice and Wonderland’s 150^th anniversary, this conference will cover the topics of wonder lands in fairy tales and fantastical literature and looking at the reading and oral telling of these tales.

Hosted by the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales, and Fantasy

23 May 2015

University of Chichester

Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words (or panel proposals of 1000 words) and a short personal bio to the organizers.

http://www.childlitassn.org/assets/docs/cfp%20-%20wonderlands.pdf

For more information or other possible events visit:
http://www.childlitassn.org/calls-for-papers

Childlit GSA Forum: Graphic Novels and the Comic-verse

Upcoming ChildLit GSA Forum

When: Friday, November 15 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Where: Living Room Cafe @ 5900 El Cajon Blvd 

Topic of the Night: "Graphic Novels and the Comic-verse"

The next GSA Discussion Forum is set to explore the expansive universe of comics and graphic novels, from the classic superheroes to infamous stuffed tigers, and every single character in between.

The GSA Forums are a chance to engage with like-minded folks on all realms and levels of Children's Lit. Comics make up a huge repository of adventures for many a childhood, teenhood, and young (and old) adulthood, so it's about time we brushed up on our heroes and villains, anime and Peanuts, and all the fabulous graphic novels that don't get enough love (and the few that do). Bring some brilliant things to share about the ever-evolving stories of Batman, Spiderman, X-men, and such. Or think about the influence and presence of works like Persepolis and A Game for Swallows. One of the newest Marvel characters was just revealed, a Muslim-American teenage girl--what are your thoughts on that? Discuss the changing dynamics of San Diego's Comic-Con and the rise of Comic Cons internationally. It's quite amazing how pervasive comics and graphic novels are, especially when we stop to think one of the most beloved child characters is Calvin... and Hobbes.

In fact, bring some of your favorite or most interesting books/novels to share with others, and expose those of us a bit less than well-versed in the realm of comics. Or just come and hang out, play a pub(lication) quiz, win a silly prize, and feel like the sovereign of the evening. The forum is meant to be a welcoming and casual gathering.

Forums are open to all folks interested. That means faculty, grad students, undergrads, and you! So whether you have tons to discuss or you just feel like listening in, please drop by! It also provides an excellent opportunity to meet like-minded peers and scholars of the field.

We'll be holding the event at The Living Room Cafe from 7 pm to about 9 pm, so stop by any time and stay for as long as you like.

Looking forward to meeting up, hanging out, and diving into a comic book with you.

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

The GSA Website: http://sdchildlitgsa.wordpress.com/

Our Facebook Page

On Twitter: @SDSUChildLitGSA

A 'Marvel'ous Muslim Teenage Comic Superhero

Back in September I talked about the rise of a new cartoon series in Pakistan, the Burka Avenger. It now looks like the female empowerment movement has rubbed off on the world of US Comic-verse. Marvel Comics is introducing a new teenage superhero, who happens to be Muslim-American.

Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, emerged from amusing life-experience stories of Sana Amanat, an editor at Marvel. She and a peer approached acclaimed graphic-novel and recent novel writer G. Willow Wilson to pen the character. I've never read any of Wilson's works (I'm largely unfamiliar with comics in general, but I have been wanting to get my hands on her debut novel Alif the Unseen). Still, I always perk up at the revelation of a new multicultural text, particular a Muslim-American girl-centered one. While some cultures can attest to an enormous amount of literature including, addressing, or focusing on them (whether or not they get recognized by the mainstream public), the Muslim-American identity still exists on the fringe. It has only been in the last decade or so that children's/YA books have been coming up from Western countries dealing with kids of various Islamic backgrounds. And even of those, not too many from the US as yet.

So this is exciting news! And since she is Pakistani American, I feel a second step closer to the experience meant to be exposed. People who exist in some capacity "on the outside" usually want to find a way to fit in, and to see that unfold via the nature of the superhero should be interesting, and an excellent opportunity to connect with teens searching for an identifiable subject in literature. Still, one hopes it does not stray too far into stereotyped territory. According to the New York Times article linked above:

Kamala will face struggles outside her own head, including conflicts close to home. “Her brother is extremely conservative,” Ms. Amanat said. “Her mom is paranoid that she’s going to touch a boy and get pregnant. Her father wants her to concentrate on her studies and become a doctor.” Next to those challenges, fighting supervillains may be a respite.

But Wilson is quick to point out:

"It was really important for me to portray Kamala as someone who is struggling with her faith.” The series, Ms. Wilson said, would deal with how familial and religious edicts mesh with super-heroics, which can require rules to be broken.

My concern lies in how authentic these struggles remain, if they can consistently ring true as the general isolation felt by teenagers all over, and if at some point the character's story becomes more than just a plot device. In other words, of course this girl's tale will unfold as a battle within her own heart and mind as much as with villains and her parents, but I'm most excited to see when a Muslim-American identity will eventually become a steady presence, such that it doesn't need constant defining and centrality to a text (can it ever be viewed as part of the 'norm'?). But I'm really getting ahead of myself here. For now, I think I'll just live vicariously through this young woman who gets to shape shift and startle evil doers with her amorphous identity.

Comics Overload with Comic Fest and Comic Day

The first weekend of October is all about superheroes, villains, and the graphic wonder of comic books. First, the Second Annual San Diego Comic Fest starts today and runs all weekend long (Oct 4-6). I talked about it last year, as an endeavor to reconnect with the folks who created what has now become the SD Comic Con (though this event is not affiliated with Comic Con). For a more "friendly, intimate" experience, you really should consider checking this out. I was happy to see that among the artists to participate in Artist Alley is Eric Shanower, who Dr. Griswold mentioned in his interview with The Unjournal this summer.

Secondly, evidently the first Saturday of October has been dubbed "24-Hour Comics Day", wherein people around the world accept the challenge to create a full 24-page comic in 24 consecutive hours. First dreamed up by Scott McCloud, this event has spawned into a global phenomenon. The very idea of it astounds me. In fact, those who in some way succeed in these timed challenges to create work, such as NaNoWriMo, humble me in their confident and determined purpose; I simply cannot find the time to write a novel in a month, or even conceive a full comic in a day. It's the process that must be so invigorating, and I'm sure allows people to then reflect on what they've created to see if it can be developed beyond that time. Anyway, it's cool stuff, so I'm sharing.

CFP, Edited Collection: Comics and the Canon

Deadline: April 30, 2014

Website: http://partialanswers.huji.ac.il/Call_for_Papers.asp

Over the last three decades, comics, graphic memoirs, and graphic novels have emerged as literary, artistic, and cultural artifacts of central importance. Comics were once seen as outside what we might broadly call a literary and fine-arts “canon”: as objects belonging to low culture rather than high culture, as ephemeral items rather than artworks of lasting and iconic significance, as lesser hybrids of word and image rather than as belonging to a specific demanding medium. And yet the last thirty years have seen the rise and impact of works that are serious, ambitious, and monumental — works in conversation with an established literary and artistic canon, and works which themselves make a claim to cultural centrality and significance. “Comics studies” has developed as an academic discipline; artists and critics have worked to recover the rich and understudied history of the medium, with the result that a “canon” of central figures is emerging.

What is gained and what is lost when we try to establish a Comics canon? How do artists make claims to cultural centrality by putting their work in conversation with more traditional canonical works, and how do they challenge the “canon” through exploring alternative aesthetic values and subjects? In the canon-building process of winnowing and centralization, which works are elevated and which are excluded? Is there something perverse in canonizing works in a medium that has often characterized itself as marginal? What tensions are thereby exposed, not just in comics but also in the very process of canonization?

This collection invites essays on all aspects of comics and canonization, including:

• analyses of comics which rewrite or otherwise engage with canonical works of art, film and literature 
• studies that consider comics in relation to other artistic media in which word and image are traditionally combined (illustrated novels, illuminated manuscripts, film scripts and storyboards, etc.)
• defenses and critiques of the artists whose works have become most central to the comics canon (Spiegelman, Satrapi, Bechdel)
• arguments for the inclusion of understudied artists, artworks and movements in the comics canon, essays on the ways in which comics challenge the premises and processes of literary canonization
• projections on the future of the “canon” in comics classes and scholarship

Submissions (between 5,000 and 10,000 words, the Harvard system of references) are due by April 30, 2014. Authors of the papers that are accepted will be responsible for obtaining permissions to reprint illustrations.

    

The journal will accept electronic submissions, in Word or RTF, to be sent to partans@mail.huji.ac.il . For inquiries please contact the guest editor, Professor Ariela Freedman (Concordia University, Montreal) at ariela.freedman@concordia.ca

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!

Links for a Friday

Here's what I've been enjoying on the ol' internet lately...

Three YA series that should not be made into films: Pajiba.com has posted an article explaining why Veronica Roth's Divergent, Laini Taylor's The Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book might be better off remaining in book form only. I enjoy the content of this piece, but I've gotta say, the best part is the Twilight gif.

And speaking of books-to-film, here is a list of Publisher's Weekly's 10 Most Anticipated Literary Film Adaptations: Ender's Game! Gah! (And if you're wondering where Gatsby is, see the note at the top of the page.)

A chastisement of the guy who created highly sexualized female versions of your favorite Avengers dudes: Also on Pajiba.com, the writer takes to task JoshWMC, the artist behind "Lady Avengers" fan art. While I appreicate the graphic skills it took to create such characters, I too am disappointed by the standard sexy representation. Even Black Widow didn't bare her midriff.

The Cairo International Book Fair: What's the trajectory for this long-running book fair in the wake of Arab Spring?

A Literary Tour of Historical YA: Check out The Atlantic Wire's handy list of YA books set in historical eras.

Architectural art made out of books: Amazing, if you can get past the pain of seeing books sliced apart.

Conspiracy theories about classic literary characters: This is fun. What do you think? I'm going to pretend I didn't see the Harry Potter one.

Children are awesome: Just to make you smile.

You Get to Answer Hamlet's Eternal Question, and Much More

Do you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books? How you would try to carefully pick and navigate through this maze of pages in order to emerge triumphant? Or rather, like me, in search of every untimely demise the author had to offer? Oh, childhood.  Well, a Canadian comic book writer, Ryan North, is writing one... on Hamlet (read about it here). And the premise alone is brilliant.  at least a hundred different storylines and outcomes (one of which is actually the Shakespearean original, if you choose your path the way the Bard intended), all carefully construed around the characters and drawn from their personalities and histories. I think it sounds fabulous and enriching--literary adventures are the most grueling and daring of all! And rather a concise, in-one-volume approach or reimagining of the many ways people write or create stories based on a classic or well-read book--what they imagine characters might be like in a different situation, or had they chosen a different path. The best part might be learning all the details you don't realize are included in the play itself until they manifest themselves into the dead character whose ghost you are now following.

But you must also read about how other people must agree with me because of the money he has raised on Kickstarter. It will shock you. And perhaps return some faith in humanity's love for creativity, imagination and the written word (as well as exceptional illustrations from at least 30 different artists).

So I wonder, will CYOA books come back to the forefront? I loved them as a kid, but their existence whittled away. On the one hand, one might think an author would have a difficulty truly developing a character or plot, and bringing up all encompassing themes seems like an impossibility; thus authors may not find it rewarding or fulfilling to their purpose. And yet, as I hope will be the case with this, the world is all the more fine-tuned and detailed. Plus, a depth can be found in the characters who may struggle between a right or wrong, a good or bad, and show where their inner demons may lead them (by the way, that inner demon would be you in this case! Hmm...). Something to ponder in your free moments. 

CFP: Comics, Picturebooks and Childhood

Call for Papers: Special issue Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcom20/current)

Special Issue Editors: Dr. Mel Gibson (University of Northumbria), Dr. Kay Sambell (University of Northumbria), Dr. Golnar Nabizadeh (The University of Western Australia).

This special edition will explore links between graphic novels and comics in relation to childhood. Both have been studied in relation to how they work (key examples being Maria Nikoljeva and Carole Scott's How Picturebooks Work and Thierry Groensteen's The System of Comics). The history, specific creators, culture and audiences for these media have also been areas of research. Focusing on the links across illustration, graphic narratives and visual culture, this special issue will offer critical examinations of the field of comics and picturebooks.

Comics and picturebooks are not typically considered together, although some research has done so, including Mel Gibson's article "Graphic Novels, Comics and Picturebooks" in the Routledge Companion to Children's Literature and David Lewis's "Oops!: Colin McNaughton and 'Knowingness'" in Children’s Literature in Education.

In relation to audience, comics and picturebooks have frequently been associated with younger readers, despite the two being very flexible media which can be used to address readers of all ages on any topic. When such assumptions are dominant, this is usually related to perceptions of what might be ‘appropriate’ content.

Sometimes controversy is about an entire medium, as John A. Lent outlines in "Comics Controversies and Codes: Reverberations in Asia." This chapter, in the book Pulp Demons: International Dimensions of the Postwar Anti-Comics Campaign, examined how manga comics were seen as having an impact upon the health and morals of young people in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan between the 1940s and the 1980s.

Equally, controversy might focus on a single text, as was the case in relation to the British publication of Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin by Suzanne Bösche (originally published in Denmark as Mette bor hos Morten og Erik), one of the first picturebooks focusing on homosexuality and family structure. This single text was a key element in Britain in the introduction of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which forbade the "promotion" of homosexuality by local government.

In both of these cases, what may be seen to underpin controversy relating to these media are social constructions of childhood, a concept developed within Childhood Studies and perhaps best illustrated by Allison James and Alan Prout in the book Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood.

This issue also constitutes an attempt to extend the scope of scholarship on the comic and the picturebook beyond US/UK and European critical frameworks by highlighting Asian and Australian visual cultures and contexts.

Suggested topics for proposals include, but are not limited to, the following:

- Creators who work with both these media, such as Raymond Briggs and Shaun Tan.

- Picturebook creators who are influenced by comics. For example, the ways in which the work of Maurice Sendak is influenced by that of Winsor McCay.

- Comics for children and constructions of childhood

- Controversies around comics, picturebooks, childhood and child readers

- Defining the borders and emerging areas in comic book scholarship

- Manga, comics and picturebooks

- Comic book conventions and avant-garde innovations

- Divergences and intersections between comic books and picturebooks

- When and how does a comic book creator become perceived as a picture book creator?

- In what ways do constructions of childhood as innocent and vulnerable impact what is considered suitable content in a comic or picture book?

Deadline for proposals for 5000-7000 word articles is March 31, 2013 (for issue 5:1, June/July 2014 of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcom20/current). Send proposals to Dr. Mel Gibson at mel.gibson@northumbria.ac.uk.

Comic Book News of Note

Some noteworthy YA and children's lit happenings in the realm of comic books can be found on Comic Book Resources. Of particular interest to me (and hopefully you!) are:

1.  News that Penguin Group will be launching a new wave of graphic novels aimed at young readers.
2. Sean Kleefeld examines children's comics and graphic novels and their existence outside of the direct market.
3. The second Mumbai Film and Comics Convention is this weekend which promises to be bigger and better than the first one.

 On that note, just a friendly reminder that today marks the beginning of San Diego Comic Fest (held throughout the weekend). The SDSU Library and a number of students will certainly be there as they are involved in a documentary project about the history of the original Comic-Con.

San Diego Comic Fest on Oct 19-21

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the first Comic-Con here in San Diego (August 1972), some of the original founders are hosting an "old-school" San Diego Comic Fest.  This three day event, to be held on October 19 - 21, will revive some of the original intimacy and sense of community of the early years of Comic-Con. Their goal: "to bring creators and fans closer together, to create an environment of creative exchange in a fun, inclusive environment, much as the El Cortez-era Comic-Cons did."

SDSU is involved as well! The SDSU Library Comic Arts Committee and groups of students have a project underway to document this event and to conduct oral histories of many of the founders and attendees of early Comic-Con.

To learn more about SD Comic Fest and for registration, visit the event site: http://www.sdcomicfest.org/