Lewis Carroll Society of North America Spring Meeting

Join us for the Lewis Carroll Society of North America Spring Meeting Friday, March 8 and Saturday, March 9, 2019! Various events and readings will be held throughout Friday and Saturday, including our very own Dr. Joseph Thomas’ talk on Shel Silverstein’s “Alice” poem and Dr. Philip Serrato’s talk “It’s Not Easy Being a Girl in Heteropatriarchy.”

The meeting starts Friday, March 8 at 10:30 AM with the Maxine and David Schaefer Memorial Reading in the San Diego Central Library. The meeting concludes with Iain McCaig’s “Opus Alice: The Madness of Re-Illustrating Alice Returns! Activities also include a tour of the Children’s Library and Rare Book Room, and a visit to the once-lost Alice in Wonderland mural.

The meeting is free and open to SDSU faculty, staff, students, and the wider San Diego community. 

We can’t wait to see you there!

(SS)

Be Very Afraid: The Literature Monsters are Here!

There’s nothing scarier than a terrifying monster in literature: the one not on a television screen, the one we can’t see or hide from because our imagination is running wild and incessantly conjuring up what it may look like in the story. Sitting alone in your darkened room, your every breath overly loud in the silent house, you’re unable to put the book down for fear of discovering that that dark shadow is actually sitting in front of you. Often times the question arises: why we are so attracted to horror stories?

When dealing in horror texts for children, adults often convolute what exactly is acceptable for children and what is too scary form, drawing a blurred line that changes over generations. And what is then even more curious is the question: why are children’s books — once dark and then sanitized until they had squeaky-clean happy endings — now becoming once again tales with darker themes?

Just think of it. Children already live in a scary world where there are giants all around them (adults) and chairs that are too high. The richness of the macabre in contemporary children’s literature seems only a continuation of the fairy-tale tradition, but now it’s been updated to take the anxieties of the modern world into account. Children’s darker tales and horror stories use fairy-tale-esque metaphors in order to tackle the fears and desires lurking beneath the surface of children’s lives — worries not just about death, but about alienation, insecurity, loss, and lack of agency in their lives. Just as adult horror stories provide a more palatable way to absorb the notions of death, bodily decay, and the bleakness of the human condition that would otherwise be too disgusting or distressing to deal with, so, too, do the vampires, ghosts, and ghouls in children’s literature address issues that even adults find too difficult to explain. Horror stories are honest with children in a way that adults, especially parents, are often not, and thus teaching them how to survive against monsters and, in turn, be powerful as well; they can confront their fear in a safe way.

The author of The Uses of Enchantment Bruno Bettelheim writes in his introduction, “While it entertains the child, the fairy tale enlightens him about himself, and fosters his personality development. It offers meaning on so many different levels, and enriches the child’s existence in so many ways…” (Bettelheim 12). And there is something for every child’s (and adult’s) taste, with as many variations of the supernatural as the number of snakes on Medusa’s head.

Here is a list of the 5 scariest monsters in literature we’ve compiled. Until next time, Happy Halloween!

1. Jabberwok — The villian in the nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll was published in his novel Through the Looking-Glass. The Jabberwock stood “with eyes of flame,/ came whiffling through the tulgey wood,/ and burbled as it came!” This terrifying monster first came to life with John Tenniel’s famous illustration. His interpretation of the creature included the body of a dragon with a catfish-like head, with his “claws that catch” and his “jaws that bite.” Judging by the grotesque yet whimsical description, no one would want to wander into a forest and run into this beast!


2. Bunnicula — Because what’s more terrifying than a vegetable-sucking, domesticated rabbit? Bunny rabbits are supposed to be the picture of innocence! Until this Bunnicula open their mouth that is. James Howe’s series about the fanged little creature perfectly blends humor and mythical lore about vampires and makes kids look twice at the animals they are responsible for. 


3. The Nothing — Now this is possibly the most existential monster in children’s literature. The Nothing is the evil, mysterious force of Fantasia in Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story, which the protagonist Atreyu is sent to destroy in order to save the citizens of Fantasia. In order
   
   to protect them from death and sickness, Atreyu must face The Nothing, and in the process, learns that this force is the embodiment of the darkest parts of humanity, everything evil and destructive, depriving the world of meaning and hope and creating a nothingness that will soon engulf us all. 


4. The Dark Family — This particular “monster” is perhaps the one kids can relate with the most, because children often have that tense relationship with their parents and other adults. Children struggle to make their voices heard in a world that assumes they know and see less than they do or that their knowledge is somehow lesser or invalid. R.L. Stine’s The Girl Who Cried Monster’s parents are literally the monsters at the end of the novel, and this trope of adults who do not validate what their children know is common in The Goosebumps series and costs the adults dearly in the end. However, nothing is more representative of the Dark Family than Coraline’s Other Mother. She is the ultimate representation of the anxieties of smothering, possessing parents, for she “loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold… Coraline knew she was a possession, nothing more” (Gaiman 127).
   
   
   


5. The Goblins — Maurice Sendak is no stranger to darker tales for children. While you may be familiar with Where the Wild Things Are, he wrote another story, Outside Over There, the story of set of goblins that kidnap a young baby, replacing him with an icy doppelganger that melts in his sister’s arms; his older sister then leaves the house through a window to “outside over there” to rescue her kidnapped sibling. In an interview, Sendak says that the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case and seeing the baby’s remains in a newspaper clipping inspired him to write Outside Over There. In an interview with the Paris Review, he states, “You had to form a kind of fake life, to protect yourself. Because you learn very quickly that parents can’t protect you. It leaves a lurking fear. You never feel safe, never believe, really, that your parents are any safer than you, or could protect you from the unknown.

Notes:

• Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1976. Print.


• Steinbrg, Avi. "Maurice Sendak on 'Bumble-Ardy.' The Daily. n.p. 27 Dec. 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.

Getting Ready for Alice Week

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is our song and dance this week and we want everyone to come join in the festivities. Everyone has a great opportunity to become more versed in the world of Alice through the fun events (or maybe tricks) planned around campus this week.

First, be sure to check out Dr. Michael Heyman who is visiting the SDSU campus and giving a talk on March 4. He is considered an expert on aspects of Lewis Carroll’s work and is also an expert of nonsense. He is the head editor of The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense and the Faculty advisor for the Debate and Slam Poetry clubs. Dr. Heyman has been published in The Horn Book, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, The Lion and the Unicorn, The Five Owls, and Children's Literature and the Fin de Siecle. His latest book This Book Makes No Sense: Nonsense Poems and Worse (2012) is filled with some great nonsense poems, stories, chants, and songs. But moving past the nonsense, this event is one definitely worth attending because it will be jabbertastic.

But, that is not all. This Friday, March 6th, the Experimental Theatre is making room for a pre-show talk panel from the Children’s Literature Department. Doors open at 5:30pm and the panel will begin at 6pm. It will be led by the Director of the National Center for the Study of Children's Literature at SDSU, Dr. Joseph Thomas, and it will also feature Dr. Michael Heyman from Berklee College, Dr. Shelley Orr from SDSU’s School of Theatre, and several graduate students from the English department including yours truly, Cristina and Meg. This panel is intended to stir up some fun trouble in honor of the theater’s next great play: an adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. ALICE: Curiouser and Curiouser! starts March 6th and goes through March 15th at the Don Powell Theatre.

If there was ever a time to familiarize yourself in the curious world of Wonderland, this is definitely it! However, we cannot guarantee that you won't be tumbled, rumbled, squmbled, and lampeled just a bit.

Looking forward to see all you Alice fans there.

Spring is Bringing Greatness: A Lecture on Lewis Carroll Coming 2015

Joseph Thomas, the Director of SDSU's National Center for the Study of Literature, interrupts your regularly scheduled web surfing for this important message:

Great news! Noted poet, musician, scholar, & Words with Friends player Michael Heyman has confirmed that he will journey from the snurfish lerds of Boston to the ersatz shores of San Diego to give a public lecture on Lewis Carroll this spring (2015) for SDSU's National Center for the Study of Children's Literature! Evidently the Alice books are turning, like, twenty nine or something, so Carroll fever is spreading like a kinder, gentler Ebola virus across the Southland.

Lecture date to be announced!

Michael Heyman will join the malfuscant ranks of poets and scholars like Yetta Howard,Charles Hatfield, Kate Capshaw, Richard Flynn, Kenneth Kidd (did he end up doing one? I can't remember--he did something, tho), & many others ... ** O frabjuous play! O merciless lay! Let ring your horns, let blare your rings! Spring's a coming! Spring's a coming! And so's that Heyman kid!

**For example, Marah Gubar gave a fantastic NCSCL sponsored talk a few years ago, as did poet, scholar, librarian, and writer of Eldritch fictions Michael Joseph. The brilliant Leonard S. Marcus is also among this esteemed crew; as are Pamela Ryan, Gene Luen Yang, Gary Soto, and a slew of others!**

Related Resources:

News about the world-wide celebration of the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
http://lewiscarrollresources.net/server/fe/index.html

SDSU's Alice Mural Restoration
http://library.sdsu.edu/support-library/mural-homepage/alice-wonderland-mural

SDSU Theatre Department's Performance of Margaret Larlham's adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
http://ttf.sdsu.edu/index.php/season_of_plays/alice

Info on Michael Heyman, visiting lecturer extraordinaire

• At Berklee College of Music:
  http://www.berklee.edu/people/michael-heyman

• His book, The Tenth Rasa:
  http://www.amazon.com/The-Tenth-Rasa-Anthology-Nonsense/dp/0143100866

• His Tenth Rasa Blog:
  http://www.tenthrasa.blogspot.com/

• The Making of the Anthology of World Nonsense:
  http://jabberwokabout.blogspot.com/

ChildLit Cartography: The Hunting of the Snark

My professor shared the following "map" with me out of a bit of whimsy and amusement. Taken from The Hunting of the Snark, by Lewis Carroll, the map mirrors the crew's wit, intelligence, and imagination: it's completely blank. Thus "they found it to be / A map they could all understand."

Gut reaction tells us this is ridiculous! To respond to complete emptiness, with no "Mercator's North Poles and Equators,/ Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines," cannot logically lead to success (or lead to anything), because it lacks all the necessary markings, what they view them simply as "conventional signs." If you're familiar with this epic tale of adventure and mystery, then you know conventionality is no ingredient to the tale, so for the purposes of absurdity, it makes sense.

But, its blankness can also depict what every cartographer wants to achieve with a map: scientific fact as autonomous from social dimensions, with assumptions that reality and representation are linked. The map, blank as it is, depicts the entire sea as one sees it: vast, nearly limitless, a blank slate (what brews beneath or above is not articulated). So, ironically, yes, this map depicts the ocean at its cartographic best.

But that blankness of course leaves room for all of our assumptions, because, as JB Harley puts it, "there is a second text within the map" which carries social or political weight. This particular map allows every viewer to read their own hierarchy of markers and symbols. In fact, if you look carefully at the image, the map is blank but its margins carry symbols; those symbols, even on the strict scientific map, contain "a dimension of 'symbolic realism' which is no less a statement of political authority and control than a coat of arms." Basically, you can't escape social theory, no matter what blank slate you are given.