Review of Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

 

Akwaeke Emezi’s young adult fantasy novel Pet follows Jam, a selectively mute trans girl, as she embarks on a hunt with Pet, a creature that emerges from one of her mother’s paintings after drops of her blood meet its surface. Before Jam’s world is altered forever, she lives in the aftermath of a revolution in Lucille, a utopian city. The revolution worked to rid Lucille of beings called “monsters” by way of “angels.” Or so Jam’s family believes. Communicating telepathically, Pet tells Jam that her best friend, Redemption, is in danger and only she and Pet can seek out the monster that threatens him. Against the wishes of her mother, Bitter, and father, Aloe, the strange pair begin their hunt for the monsters they believe were defeated. Readers are asked the same question put to Jam and Aloe: are we too afraid to see the unseen and to know the unknown?

Forgetting is how the monsters come back. (20) 

At the center of the narrative is Jam, a selectively mute young woman. Her muteness was an inclusion I hadn’t seen before, where a character chose to speak only when she deemed it necessary. Jam spends much of the story using sign language with those around her. However, when Pet appears, their telepathy provides yet another avenue for Jam to communicate her thoughts and feelings. Despite Pet’s ability to read her thoughts, Emezi gives Jam a great deal of narrative agency by asserting that Jam speaks out loud on her own terms. In the moments she is speaking, we, as readers, understand her urgency and desire to impart her own ideas in a world that prioritizes sound.

Of course there were still monsters, Jam thought. Could you really make something stop existing just by shoving it away somewhere else? (50)

Jam’s relationship with her best friend, Redemption, and his family illustrate a wonderful example of community. Redemption’s family’s home dynamics come to represent the power of unity in home-making. When Emezi introduces Redemption’s family, you’re immediately immersed in their complete care. You can almost smell what Redemption’s mother, Malachite, is preparing in the kitchen and hear his baby cousins playing. I also loved reading about the friendship between Redemption and Jam. Their bond is clearly intimate and purely platonic, always assuaging one another’s fears and anxieties. Together, they are a wonderful example of a friendship that thrives without the pressures of heteronormativity, which sets Emezi’s story apart from what we might encounter in this genre.

The world we enter when opening up Pet is easy to describe as “utopic”: Lucille is a town whose monsters were eradicated by angels. However, Emezi is careful to note that this utopia did not come about solely by the miracle of angels. Creating Lucille took work, labor, and trial and error. In this world, identity is fluid, evolving, and boundless. However, Pet is only there for one thing: to eliminate a monster. The knowledge of a monster in Lucille shocks Jam. She knows there aren’t supposed to be any more monsters in Lucille. Her father, Aloe, has reassured her plenty before. This novel deals with difficult topics, such as sexual ab*se, and Emezi doesn’t shy away from them. They grant their characters a great deal of narrative agency. I was inspired by their determination to rid their world of a monster and continue their practice of community care.

A pool of water with the moon reflecting in it… who would want to throw a stone and break the picture? It is fine to be afraid, to have a fine fear, to not want to cross a fine line. (94)

For Jam, the world seems split in two: she lives in a world where verbal communication is prioritized, and another with its own interrelated, nuanced layers of non-verbal understanding. I was drawn to her through these multiple modalities, and moved to follow her lead as an emotionally mature, loving daughter. A third world is opened up when Pet emerges from her mother’s latest painting, however, that challenges both the closeness she feels with her parents and her understanding of the world. Born from a deep maternal legacy that drives much of the narrative we encounter, the connection between Bitter, Jam, and Pet is shared (literally) by blood and through art. Pet’s maternal nature allows Jam to navigate between these two worlds she finds herself in with deaf/mute culture while simultaneously reckoning with the split she’s experiencing in her reality. Pet brings Jam to an understanding that monsters are still lurking, despite all of our efforts to eradicate them, whether it be through pure goodness or rehabilitation. However, despite this painful reality, Pet’s presence and collaboration with the kids reveals how the power rests in the voices of our youth, no matter how they show up in the world.

DN

Review of "Black Girl Unlimited"

Echo Brown’s debut novel, Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard may have been one of my favorite books of 2020, and I don’t give those titles out to just any book. 

Black Girl Unlimited is described as a magical realism memoir. If this sounds counterintuitive, I promise it works. Echo, the protagonist, is growing up on the East Side of Cleveland with her mother and two brothers. As she navigates through life, she frames her experiences with elements of magic. What I love about this book is that it fights, and succeeds, to stand out as a unique reading experience. 

Instead of chapters, the book is split into nineteen sections, or “Lessons” of wizard training that Echo learns throughout her life, including “Evading the Black Veil”, “Performing Miracles of Unity”, and “Forgiving Yourself”. 

Although this book tackles a lot of heavy topics, including rape, depression, poverty, and drug use, Brown still manages to hold onto the magic throughout the book. 

The character Echo refers to herself and her mother as wizards, thus the lessons of wizard training at the start of each section. Although this is the magical realism element of the memoir, as I read the book I felt as if Echo and her mother truly were wizards. This book isn’t just being silly, but the use of them as wizards feels purposeful and real because this is based on her real life. 

Brown states that these lessons (the chapter titles) were healing work that she has done through her life due to her trauma, so each of these lessons was inspired by, as Brown states, her therapeutic and spiritual work to heal herself. She continues, “I also think some of the lessons are rooted in bigger themes I have aspired to in my real life that readers also may find useful. For example, the last lesson, “you are unlimited, be fearless in your pursuits” is something I remind myself of over and over especially when fears and insecurities rise. My hope is that some of the lessons will be inspirational for readers, reminding them of their own potential and abilities” (We Need Diverse Books, 2020). By putting in these lessons she learned based on her real life, they feel relatable and attainable. 

Although dealing with magic, the book breaks down real life stereotypes. Beautifully said by Karen Valby in the New York Times, “Brown’s greatest gift is evoking intimacy, and as she delicately but firmly snatches the reader’s attention, we are allowed to see this girl of multitudes and her neighborhood of contradictions in full and specific detail. Stereotypes, like the bitter myth of the strong black woman, wither on the page” (Valby, 2020). 

Echo the character is balancing the worlds of stereotypes, school, her home life, and her magic, while also dealing with a “black veil”. 

There is a reoccurring image of “black veils” that Echo sees over all people. She first sees a disembodied veil: 

“At first, I assume it’s a bird, but it doesn’t move like a bird…I see it, the black veil, right outside, hovering in the dark of night. I see clearly now that it is an ominous creature with no face, shaped like a rectangular piece of fabric, that ruffles and moves like a flag in the wind.” (Brown, 77)

Her mother reveals she also has seen the veil in times of intense trauma: “Black and scary-like, hoverin’ right ova me. I started screamin’ at da top of my lungs ‘cause I didn’t know what it was…I would see it e’ry night, until finally, I sank so far down, at da bottom of myself, it finally swooped on down and covered me, my whole head. I felt like I was suffocatin’. I couldn’t breathe.” (Brown, 80)

Author Echo Brown Brown highlights an interesting metaphor of generational trauma. Like the trauma Echo’s mother passes to her, her mother also passes what I would describe as an ability to see the veil, but Echo’s mother emphasizes that the black veil must be evaded. 

Brown worked with tweaking this metaphor throughout the writing process: 

“It felt like the black veil needed to descend somehow and submerge the victim, so it eventually changed the black veil that wraps itself around its victims. This was another instance where it wasn’t enough to just describe depression as it is, which is so challenging in real life. I needed a magical concept to really describe its impact and effect in a way that straightforward reality would miss, which is how the concept of the black veil came about.” (We Need Diverse Books, 2020) 

Ultimately, Brown landed on a way to convey her trauma to the reader in such a concrete and innovative way, and in my opinion, an incredibly effective way as well. 

Only wizards, like Echo and her mother, can see this veil, but they must fight to keep the veil off: 

“Only way you can keep it off is to stay lifted. Got to stay spirited and in da light….Only way I can get mine off now is drankin’ and druggin’, othawise it’s always on me. I done learned how ta live in it mostly, but sometimes, I just cain’t control it, the darkness inside of me.” (Brown, 83) 

This section truly spoke to me. The depression is so powerful it has become a physical object that practically suffocates Echo, and appears to have pushed her mother into a deep addiction, something her mother struggles with throughout the novel. It is so real it turns into a physical black veil, almost described as a menacing creature or spirit, that must be evaded. Brown takes this portion of her life, potential trauma, and creates this metaphor of an object that can finally be understood or have logic applied to when these emotions can feel anything but logical. 

I think this is part of the importance of the magical realism in Brown’s novel. She has these events in life that she could not control and turns them into physical objects that as the author she can control. This book isn’t just Echo overcoming trauma, it’s the author rewriting her own trauma experience, as this is a memoir. Although I do not know to what exact extent the trauma in the novel is based on her own life, in this case the character Echo explores the idea of trauma to show how suffocating it can feel, while also how it is possible to overcome. 

Magical realism is a tool for Brown to portray trauma, and she uses that tool like an expert. In a way, the trauma as a physical object makes it feel possible to overcome. Trauma can feel incredibly abstract and therefore almost intangible to understand or simply deal with. By making her trauma a physical thing, it both shows the reader the overwhelming aspect of trauma, while also showing that it is possible to manage, in this case through “magic”, or her writing. Ultimately, a step of overcoming this appears to be through writing her own memoir. She wields the genre like a wizard controlling magic. 

I also notice Brown challenges the very nature of how books are written. She does this fascinating technique where she ends midsentence, then starts a new paragraph finishing the sentence but with a completely new idea. This sounds complicated but she still makes a full sentence.

Brown is not only turning what we think of memoirs on its head, but she even challenges the structure of how a book is written, as seen above. The character is not the only magic, this book itself is a magical experience made of careful artistry. 

An important aspect of the novel is she is challenging what a memoir is. We as the readers are not privy to knowing what truly did or did not happen because of the fantastical elements, so Brown is now in control of not just her narrative, but she can finally control her trauma at least to some degree. Brown takes her story and is finally able to control it. We are being guided through her story by her. Brown is there to control what is or is not seen of her in her story, something that through her experience she was initially powerless to. 

Although this is her first book, Brown has already made a name for herself in the book community. Brown shows care and expertise in her writing, creating a novel full of love and magic. I cannot wait for her sophomore novel, The Chosen One, set to publish in 2022. 

-SS 

Brown, Echo. Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard. Holt/Ottaviano, 2020.

“Q&A With Echo Brown: BLACK GIRL UNLIMITED.” We Need Diverse Books, 17 Jan. 2020,                diversebooks.org/qa-with-echo-brown-black-girl-unlimited/. 

Valby, Karen. “In Hollywood, Stories About People of Color Are Still Rare. These Y.A. Fantasy                Novels Pick Up the Slack.” The New York Times, 4 Feb. 2020,                                                                  www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/books/review/dark-and-deepest-red-anna-mari-mclemore-black-            girl-unlimited-echo-brown.html. 

Author and cover photo from goodreads.com

My Defense of “Blood Heir” by Amélie Wen Zhao

Ever since the delayed release of Blood Heir I have been following the novel’s rocky road to publication.

After reading, re-reading, and researching, I’m here to defend the book.

For those who haven’t heard, Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao was called “this year’s most controversial YA novel” by Slate Magazine.

Fellow author LL McKinney of A Blade So Black blasted Zhao’s book on Twitter calling it “anti-black”. The original blurb for Blood Heir read: “In a world where the princess is the monster, oppression is blind to skin color, and good and evil exist in shades of gray…” In a string of tweets from January 2019, Author LL McKinney states (after reading half of an advanced copy) “I don’t give a good god damn that this is an author of color. Internalized racism and anti-blackness is a thing and I…no” (Twitter, 2019). I have to admit, this is probably not the best pitch for a novel and I can see why McKinney was upset, but I was disappointed to see an author of color being torn down before her book was even published.

People responded to McKinney’s tweet saying they were immediately cancelling pre-orders of Zhao’s book.

McKinney was not the only person upset by Zhao’s novel. According to The New Yorker, “critics felt that Zhao’s slavery narrative had erased a specifically African-American experience, and they objected to a scene in which an apparently black slave girl dies in an apparently white character’s arms, in an act of self-sacrifice. Zhao, who emigrated from China when she was eighteen, said that her book drew on ‘the epidemic of indentured labor and human trafficking prevalent in many industries across Asia, including in my own home country’” (Waltman, 2019). For the “black slave girl” I believe refers to May, who is never described other than a young girl with “turquoise eyes” in the final copy. I cannot confirm that May was black in the advanced copy reviewers read; in the final copy, May’s skin tone is never referenced.

Map of the imagined Cyrillian Empire in Zhao’s novel

From the point of sending drafts to beta readers, negative reviews flooded Goodreads before she even published the book. She sent drafts to beta readers from 2014-2017 to perfectly finetune her novel (Zhao, 452), so some of the following reviewers may be beta readers.

A Goodreads reviewer addresses one controversy of the novel: “Another generic fantasy that appropriates Russian culture by twisting the tragic history of Anastasia Romanova. NO THANKS.” The reviewer shelved this on a shelf called “Cultural-Appropriation”. I also want to point out there is no direct reference to Russia in Zhao’s book besides her saying [online] that she was inspired by the story of the Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia, and I see no obvious relation to Russia, but people have argued the novel is Slavic-inspired. The map above, which can be found in the book, shows Zhao’s fantastical world does not appear to be one exact country.

Cultural appropriation is not a new criticism for young adult novels. By “another fantasy” the reviewer is referencing Leigh Bardugo’s popular young adult fantasy novels set in the make-believe Grishaverse, especially The Shadow and Bone trilogy, which has been accused of appropriating Russian culture. I am not well-versed enough in the culture to know whether Blood Heir nor Bardugo’s books have Slavic influence or not, but I have not seen anything from Zhao mentioning Slavic culture in any form on social media or directly mentioning the culture in the novel.

Another review simply states “horrible and racist” [published before the final copy’s publication].

Yet another: “the magic system in the book just felt like a rip off of the Grishaverse” [referencing Leigh Bardugo’s novels].

And finally: “I couldn’t stop thinking about the whole mess earlier in the year with the book. Yeah, that’s a personal one. I just couldn’t disconnect that, and all the vitriol from that, from the book itself. But like I said, personal. And, not having read the first version of it, I don’t know the changes that were made so. It’s a me thing.”

This last review resounded with me, because Zhao isn’t being given a second chance from everyone. She heard criticism from reviewers and changed aspects of her book, but nonetheless, Zhao has been somewhat ostracized in the YA literature community for doing something new and different.

Following the backlash, Zhao pushed back the publishing date and sent her book through many sensitivity readers and editors to address concerns.

According to Katy Waldman’s article, In Y.A., Where is the Line Between Criticism and Cancel Culture? published in The New Yorker, the intentions of the book are not as sinister as they may seem. “The book’s allegories seem mythic, not historical. They are about discovering one’s hidden potential, celebrating the liberation of the self. If anything, the damning readings of Blood Heir seem guilty of something that the Y.A. community mitigates against: the misapprehension of a cultural context unfamiliar to one’s own”.

Clearly, there was a lot of controversy before this book was even published, and that’s why I decided to pick it up. I barely touch the surface of the expansive novel and its controversies in this blog, but I wanted to address them.

Here is your spoiler warning.

The inspiration for the novel, the young

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia.

At the start of the book, Anastacya Mikhailov has been convicted of a crime she didn’t commit: killing her own father.

Zhao creates such an exciting plot and world in the very first page. From the very beginning, Zhao throws the reader into Princess Anastacya’s world. Anastacya is in prison, waiting to be sold off to a work contract or indenturement (Zhao, 12). Anastacya, disguising her identity by calling herself “Ana”, is in hiding from being accused of murdering her father, the Emperor Aleksander Mikhailov. It was rumored Princess Anastacya was executed or drowned while fleeing execution.

Blood Heir is inspired by the compelling true story of the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. The inspiration from the infamous story of Anastasia is seen in Anastacya’s story: A royal family was murdered, but rumors spread that the Grand Duchess Anastasia escaped the assassination.

From the very beginning, Blood Heir keeps the reader on the edge of the seat. After being convicted of murder and thrown in prison, Ana convinces a fellow inmate, Ramson Quicktongue, to break out of prison. Through hijinks and mayhem Ana and Ransom break out of prison to avoid being forced into “Employment Contracts”, essentially, being trafficked and forced to work.

After breaking out, fiercely independent Ana teams up with Ramson and fights to get her friend May back from the Playpen, a place Affinites are taken to perform, often against their will.

With exciting tension on every page, I had to know what happened next. With regards to the story itself and the character developments, I really loved the novel, except for the romance, but this is a common critique I have. Ramson is this bad-guy-gone-good from the Navy who is enlisted by Ana to help her find May, and of course, they fall for one another, when all I wanted was more Ana and May and less romance.  

There is an arguably forced storyline of Ana and Ramson both being damaged people fighting the urge to fall for one another, and in the end they do. That being said, I do have to appreciate Ana’s fierce determination throughout the novel never being smothered by Ramson. Through it all, Ana still is a fiercely independent woman determined to get her friend back, but I think the book would have been excellent without the love story.

While breaking out of prison, it is discovered that Ana is an “Affinite”, or a person with a special ability or connection to physical or metaphysical elements. In her case, Ana has a blood affinity, which is seen as deadly and a curse.

Back to the issue of slavery or indentured servitude, there are “employment contracts” with Affinites in the Cyrilian Empire. The employment contracts are what stirred up the controversy. Never does Zhao directly call it slavery in the book, but it has been compared to slavery by outside sources.

There is a very eerie scene for those who are familiar with the history of slavery in America. After being found without papers proving their “employment”, Ana’s friend May, another Affinite, is taken to be sold. At this trading/trafficking post, creepily called “the Playpen”, Affinites are put in glass domes and forced to perform while people bid on them.


However, some are not there against their will. “The Ice Queen”, a woman in pale blue with white hair is one of the few performers not forced to perform at the Playpen:


            “She looks like she’s enjoying it,” Ana whispered.
            “She’s a regular…She works with the brokers.” [Ransom said]
            “Under contract?”
            “Right, but…She’s not contracted against her will.” [Ransom said]

In this passage, The Ice Queen serves as this false image that those in the Cyrillian Empire are all performing of their own free will, but The Ice Queen is being paid, and from what we know of, she is not forced to dance or entertain. After learning May is scheduled to perform soon, Ana goes back to the Playpen.

This is probably one of the eeriest parts of the story, as we watch young May trapped in a glass stage being forced to show her Earth Affinity. She is advertised as the “Child of Earth” (Zhao, 223). People in the audience delightfully request for May to grow a fruit tree, juggle rocks, and make a statue from the earth, almost as if she were a circus animal. I honestly can see this being likened to a historical slave auction, and it’s truly a scary thing to read; people are ready to bet on a child, a child originally described as black. 

May breaks her glass cage when rebels storm the Playpen, and in the same scene a knife is thrown into her stomach, and May dies in Ana’s arms, as May begs Ana to carry on the Revolution of the Affinites (Zhao, 241). This is, most likely, the scene McKinney is referencing in her tweet. Although May is no longer described as black, it is interesting, and maybe problematic, to think of how May was originally written black. I don’t know how I would respond to this scene with the original details, but for those trying to attack Zhao still, I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt. Although I am sure she, being a college-educated woman, knew about American slavery, we need to be reminded Zhao did not grow up around the narrative of American slavery, she grew up in Beijing, and in the end, she listened to criticism and made changes.

Author Amelie Wen Zhao

So why did Zhao choose this controversial topic in the first place?

Zhao grew up around the narrative, and reality, of modern human trafficking.

In an interview with NPR, Zhao states: “these are forms of modern slavery that continue to impact 20 to 40 million victims around the world in countries such as North Korea, India, Thailand, Russia, Eastern Europe…And the main character, Ana - she is one of these vulnerable populations, and she's in danger of being trafficked and exploited. And that's what she fights against in the book. I really wrote her to be powerful and to be an angry girl, to really be a champion of justice and what she thinks is right.”

She continues, “At the time [of her ARC’s being read], it was really overwhelming because a few early readers had said that it was - believed my book was a portrayal of chattel slavery in America. And it snowballed into a lot of people who hadn't read the book, and there was just so much critique coming from people who hadn't read it. So that was really devastating to me because these are some real issues that draw from my background and from global issues that are ongoing and continue to affect so many people. So it was particularly devastating because it felt to me like my perspective wasn't welcome in this country. And honestly, for a while, it just felt like I wasn't allowed to have a voice in exploring deeply poignant subjects that were personal to me. Like, my fiancé is the descendant of a Chinese indentured laborer. And I believe these are difficult truths and ugly histories that need to be confronted through literature.”

On Goodreads, Zhao shared the Dear Reader letter included in the ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) of Blood Heir. A passage of the letter reads as follows:

I emigrated from China when I was 18. Drawing on my own multicultural upbringing and the complex history of my heritage that has incidences of bias and oppression. I wrote ‘Blood Heir’ from the immediate cultural perspective. The issue around Affinite indenturement in the story represent a specific critique of the epidemic of indentured labor and human trafficking prevalent in many industries across Asia, including in my own home country. The narrative and history of slavery in the United States is not something I can, would, or intended to write, but I recognize that I am not writing in merely my own cultural context. I am sorry for the pain this has caused.

Zhao also touches on those attacking her for trying to victimize herself or her characters. “I am an immigrant. I am a woman of color. And I am an ‘Other.’ In my time in the United States, I have never experienced the sense of crushing fear about my identity that I have recently. ‘Get out of my country, communist!’ is only one of the slurs I’ve had screamed at me from across the street. What I’ve experienced personally and seen across social media outlets and national television broadcasts has all amounted to a hyperawareness of my foreignness, my Otherness, and the possibility that because I am different, I am not worthy of belonging” (Goodreads, 2018).

The full letter can be found below my citations. I cannot speak to if this book is offensive or not. I don’t think the original blurb that McKinney read was a good pitch for the novel, but what is incredibly important is this author is not a western author. She grew up in Beijing and likely did not grow up with as much knowledge of the history of slavery in America as many Americans did; what she instead grew up with was the reality of human trafficking, especially in Asian countries. I think the topic Zhao is writing about is incredibly important, especially for a Western audience who may not be familiar with modern day trafficking or slavery.

Zhao’s book goes beyond just slavery. Blood Heir has brought up issues of cancel culture as well as western-centric views of slavery pushing away any other narrative of trafficking or slavery, like the narrative Zhao is trying to bring forward. Her book being “cancelled” almost proves why her book is important: people aren’t talking about the issue of modern trafficking in young adult novels. Successfully cancelling the publication of Blood Heir could have been detrimental to readers in the United States being educated about the relevance of slavery and trafficking.

With Zhao’s book, we are reminded that men, women, and children around the world are being taken and sold even today, not just historically.

We are reminded how people are discriminated against and dehumanized for being “different” from the majority. We are reminded of the cruel truth that Ana has to face head on, and Zhao and others have faced as well.

I don’t think the final copy of Blood Heir should be shot down, especially without being read. In fact, I think Blood Heir is an excellent book discussing important taboo topics such as trafficking, and I think it’s presumptuous to assume that aspects of this novel are based strictly on western slavery, especially when it is written by an author who is not from North America. I recommend those opposed to the novel in some way to actually give Zhao’s final copy of the novel a read with an open mind before jumping to criticize it.

There’s all this talk about me saying what others are saying about Blood Heir, people attacking the author, but right now, I want to say something to the author.

To Miss Zhao, who will probably never, ever read this blog:

Congratulations on a great debut novel, and I can’t wait to see the sequel.

You kept fighting to tell your story, and the story of so many other people.

Keep fighting.

I’m fighting for you, too.

-SS

Works Cited:

Garcia-Navarro, Lulu, editor. National Public Radio, 17 Nov. 2019,                                              https://www.npr.org/2019/11/17/780231746/am-lie-wen-zhao-on-blood-heir.

McKinney, LL (ElleOnWords). “I don’t give a good god damn that this is an author of color.   Internalized racism and anti-blackness is a thing and I…no. Square up.” 28 January 2019, 11:07 AM. Tweet.

Waltman, Katy. “In Y.A., Where Is the Line Between Criticism and Cancel Culture?” 21 Mar.           2019, https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/in-ya-where-is-the-line-between-       criticism-and-cancel-culture.

Zhao’s letter to the reader on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2279470600?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

Interview With Ashley Nguyen, Student

Sofia St. John had the opportunity to interview Ashley Nguyen, her fellow graduate assistant and a student of Dr. Mary Galbraith in 2018. We spoke about her experience working with Dr. Galbraith in her undergraduate class.

Image: screen grab: My Neighbor Totoro, Hayao Miyazaki from Dr. Galbraith’s English 501: Fantasy for Children syllabus

What class did you take with Dr. Galbraith, and when?

I took English 501: Literature for Children in the fall of 2018, and the theme was “fantasy and the touch of the real.” It was my first children’s literature class and I chose it to be my specialization course in preparation for the spring honors program. Of course, I was very excited! What was your favorite part about being in class with Dr. Galbraith? Dr. Galbraith was my introduction to a field I hadn’t even heard of before. It was fascinating to learn from someone who had excelled in the field for so long and still found new ways to talk and write about what she loves. This course was the first time I had taken a class in which I fell in love with the readings and knew I wanted to dig deeper – to read, discuss, and write more about children’s literature.

What was your biggest takeaway from the class? How did she impact your studies going forward as a literature scholar?

Dr. Galbraith emphasized authors’ backgrounds, claiming that their childhood experiences profoundly influenced the literature they would go on to create. We drew parallels between the authors’ life events and the events that their characters undergo. This concept has come to fruition in my own research a year later, as I am currently preparing for a ChLA panel on #ownvoices. Specifically, I am interested in how Asian American authors’ experiences as descendants of refugees influence their own writing, particularly in the creation of characters born in the United States.

How do your research interests overlap with Dr. Galbraith’s, if they do? If not, did you find any new research interests in her class?

Dr. Galbraith didn’t share much of her research interests, but I remember her telling us towards the end of the semester that she was writing (if I recall correctly) a definition for a dictionary. The term she was researching was “deixis.” I remember being floored by the complexity of her research, which she had never flouted throughout the semester. It was a moment when I realized the infinite possibility for the academic study of literature, which was formative for me as someone who was applying to a master’s program more out of necessity than passion for literature. I got my first look at the fun (and torture) of the life of a scholar, which I will develop into throughout my own studies as a graduate student.

I hadn’t had a specific research interest in mind, but her class provided an extensive survey of the different forms that children’s literature takes, including classics, novels, picture books, and animated movies. I was compelled by our early look at how fairy tales adapt over time, and this influenced the honors thesis I wrote in the following semester.

Does she have any unique teaching styles or aspects of her class which differ from other classes you have taken?

Professor Galbraith was very engaging and valued the input of her students, many of whom were not English majors. Her discussion questions and written assignments challenged us to think critically about books that are often relegated to the margins, as well as stories we’ve heard but never analyzed before. English 501 was notable because its texts explored a lot of difficult themes such as war trauma, adult condescension towards children, and parental abandonment.

Do you have a notable memory from class or from working with Dr. Galbraith?

The most heartwarming event I can recall occurred in the middle of the summer after I had taken her class. I had just graduated and was accepted to the graduate program, which I had asked her to write a letter of recommendation for. In July, I received an email from her which stated very simply:

Dear Ashley,

Congratulations on making the Dean's List-- that's a significant accomplishment!

Your proud professor,

Mary Galbraith

This email, to me, really sums up the kind of instructor Dr. Galbraith is. She remembered me from two semesters ago and went out of her way to send me an email and encourage me, whose accomplishments are incomparable to her numerous publications and international conference presentations. She is well-beloved to all who know her because she genuinely cares about others. SDSU is very fortunate to have a lecturer with such intellectual and emotional generosity.

Thank you so much to Ashley for helping us get to know Dr. Galbraith a little more!

This is part two of a series of blog posts in preparation for Dr. Mary Galbraith’s talk, "The Deictic Imaginary: Literature as Creation," to be held in LL430 on Wednesday, October 30^th from 4:00-5:00PM. Please keep an eye out for part three to come out in a few weeks!

-SS

CFP: Northeast Modern Language Association; Deadline: September 30, 2017

Northeast Modern Language Association 49^th Convention

“Global Spaces, Local Landscapes and Imagined Worlds”

When: April 12^th-15^th, 2018

Where: Pittsburgh, PA

Deadline for Abstracts: Saturday, September 30^th, 2017

How to Apply: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/CFP

Keynote Speaker: Rob Nixon, the Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Family Professor in the Humanities and the Environment at Princeton University. He is the author of four books, most recently Dreambirds: the Natural History of a Fantasy and Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, which won numerous awards, including the 2012 Sprout prize from the International Studies Association for the best book in environmental studies.

Topics with areas concerning ChildLit/YA Literature and Popular Culture:

Editor's Note: We have selected only a few areas of interest, to see the entire list of topics, please visit their website.

Superwoman: Comic Myth or Idealized Icon? (Panel)

Chair: Nicol Epple (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)

We know the four tenets of True Womanhood and understand the Feminine Mystique. But, today, what gender role prescriptions still proliferate concerning domesticity and work, family affairs and public relationships? This panel seeks to create discussion which explores feminist theories and material applications in current American cultural landscapes. What changes have transpired from past feminist viewpoints and what speculations can made of feminist scholarship and cultural production for the future?

Reboots and Revivals: The Return of Television (Roundtable)

Chair: Lisa Perdigao (Florida Institute of Technology)

While film has an extensive history of remaking classics and blockbusters for new audiences, television’s recent reboots and revivals suggest new ideas about the limitations and possibilities of continuing narratives in a medium defined by seriality. Recent reboots and revivals include Arrested Development (2013- ), Heroes Reborn (2015-2016), Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life (2016- ), Girl Meets World (2014-2017), Fuller House (2016- ), 24: Legacy (2016- ), Prison Break: Resurrection (2017- ), and Twin Peaks (2017- ) while series such as Will & Grace, Dynasty, Roseanne, Charmed, and American Idol are slated for returns in the near future.

Teaching and Learning Spaces: Real, Fantastic, and Imagined (Panel)

Chair: Carine Mardorossian (SUNY University at Buffalo)

This session is devoted to the exploration of teaching and learning as real, fantastic, and imagined spaces. It welcomes contributions that address pedagogical representations and practices, theories, issues, experiments, and debates in education.

Political Implications of the Portal Fantasy (Panel)

Chair: Emily Lauer (SUNY Suffolk County Community College)

Portal Fantasies offer a unique way to comment on the current political situation, in their capacity as invented worlds with a permeable link to our own. The portal can act as a funhouse mirror, reflecting our own world back to us in grotesque and illuminating ways, or it can offer stark contrasts to our own world which often take the form of escapist, superior alternatives. This session invites papers that explore how authors have used the portal fantasy to comment on the politics of our world in various ways.

'The World is Changed': Fantasy Literature in the Anthropocene (Seminar)

Chair: Stephanie Weaver (St. John’s University), Lisa Robinson (St. John’s University)

The Anthropocene, or "The Age of Man," focuses on the exploitation of resources and the possibilities of resiliency and sustainability in the wake of anthropocentric-induced crisis. This seminar seeks to unpack the various understandings and responses to the human-dominated geological age, specifically through the lens of the fantasy genre. Papers are sought that discuss the role of environmental crisis in various areas of fantasy literature and the multifaceted responses and solutions to preventing the destruction of worlds because of the Anthropocene.

Free Range: An Open Inquiry into the Nonhuman in Latinx Studies (Panel)

Chair: Lacie Rae Buckwalter (Cornell University)

In this panel, we propose to explore the roles of human-nonhuman encounters in the field of Latinx Studies and Literature at large. How do animal, human, botanical, and epistemological bodies alter the way we approach ontological interpretations in Latinx texts, visual art, and/or performances? In addition to these concerns, this call for papers seeks work that traverses a varied range of bodies and utilizes interdisciplinary frameworks in innovative ways. Topics might include, but are not limited to: race and animal studies, transgender bodies and queering the nonhuman, corporeal ecologies, critical approaches to landscapes, bodies of land, and water.

Arthurian Legend in the 20th and 21st Centuries (Panel)

Chair: Susan Austin (Landmark College)

The past hundred years have brought the legend of King Arthur to Broadway, television, comedy, and Disney; countless authors have appropriated or reimagined the legend and elements from it. How have films, television shows, games, comics, and books for all audiences and ages employed Arthurian characters, themes, motifs, and plots? How have these changes reflected shifting cultural attitudes and values? What do recent retellings and appropriations of Arthurian legend tell us about ourselves and the generations immediately preceding us? What do we want and need from King Arthur and his court?

Space and Psyche in Contemporary Latinx/Latin American Culture (Panel)

Chair: Thomas Conners (University of Pennsylvania)

Psychoanalysis ponders the ways in which subjects form while navigating the dynamic environments they inhabit. With movement across the Americas in constant flux, contemporary Latin American and Latinx literatures offer insights into this border-crossing psyche. Examining the implications of crossing, moving around, and standing in the spaces, we ask: how is a subject formed when straddling borders, languages, racial identities, and national affiliations? What are the formal, affective, and aesthetic manifestations of this in literature?

Human, Animal, Post-Human: Ecocriticism and Materialism in a Global Context (Panel)

Chair: Mark Epstein (Princeton University), Daniele Fioretti (Miami University)

This panel welcomes contributions that focus on the areas of tension regarding ecocriticism and the “post-human”: natural – 'human' sciences, materialism – postmodernism, global – national/regional, historical – contemporary. It also welcomes reflections on the possibilities for communication between species, and what “autonomy” and “(self)-emancipation” might possibly mean for non-human species, given the very limited forms of inter-species communication we have established so far.

Sequence and/or Simultaneity: Time and Narrative in Comics and Graphic Narratives (Panel)

Chair: Heike Polster (The University of Memphis)

This panel seeks new scholarly work on the representation of temporality in comics and graphic narratives, with a particular attention to the formal qualities of comics. Papers may address sequentiality, simultaneity, seriality, human vs. cosmic time, eruptions of the past into the present, or other experimental permutations of time in comics. Graphic narratives from other countries and traditions outside of the Anglophone world are welcome.

The Urgency of Now (and Then): Contemporary Representations of African American History (Panel)

Chair: Maria Rice Bellamy (City University of New York)

This panel seeks papers analyzing the contemporary significance of recent representations of African American history in literature, television and film as well as in the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Papers are invited on such works as Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation, WGN America’s Underground, Ava DuVernay’s 13th, and the NMAAHC. Papers should discuss the relationship between the presented history and the contemporary moment and may address such questions as: What does the current prominence of such works say about this moment in United States history and society? How do the struggles of the past resonate with the protests of the present?

New Approaches in Zombie Studies (Panel)

Chair: Derek McGrath (SUNY University at Buffalo)

This session looks at zombies, including as they were defined by Night of the Living Dead, filmed in NeMLA’s host city Pittsburgh by local director George Romero. How have zombies changed in recent years, in their composition, narrative format, and metaphorical status? What new insights can be garnered looking to earlier conceptions of the zombie, and conceptions from Haiti and around the world? How have zombies served as commentary on medicine, social media, anti-intellectualism, economics, and society?

Spaces of Hope and Desperation in Science Fiction  (Panel)

Chair: Elif Sendur (SUNY Binghamton)

This panel aims to consider speculative/science fiction’s spatial imagination vis-à-vis hope and despair. Topics may include the kinds of dystopian spaces SF proposes, space and its spatial representation, gendered spaces within the SF genre, environment and its future imagined by SF, and the representation of the instability or hope. All forms of SF literature, including short stories, novels, films, anime, manga, and TV shows are welcome. 

Monsters and Monstrosity: A Tribute to Mary Shelley (Creative)

Chair: Richard Johnston (United States Air Force Academy)

1818 marks the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. To honor Shelley’s enduring novel, and to compliment the critical panel on the literature and culture of 1818, this roundtable welcomes creative work, in any genre, on monsters or the idea of monstrosity. In the interest of including as many voices and as possible, participants will be asked to limit presentations of original creative work to 10 minutes.

Postcolonial Queers: Representations, Remediations, Revolutions (Panel)

Chair: Christian Ylagan (Western University)

While Western theories such as Judith Butler’s performative thesis have been productive in opening up the discursive grounds on gender and sexuality, these frameworks often limn bodies in abstract ways that downplay their materialities and contexts. This panel thus hopes to build on the notion of a queer intersectionality whereby gender and sexual identity are inextricable from race, geography, linguistic modes, embattled histories, and cultural contexts.

Seelenlandschaften (Soul Landscapes) in German Children and Youth Novels (Panel)

Chair: Mona Eikel-Pohen (Syracuse University)

The panel invites proposals on German children and youth novels from the late 20th / early 21st century with a focus on innovative interpretation approaches (e.g. re-telling, drawing, or building in Minecraft), on respective movie adaptations, and on the impact of symbolic and real spaced for the mental and intellectual development of younger readers and its relevance for identity formation e.g. as reading text in middle and high school or higher education.