I am Me: An Unlikely Princess Against the Spectacle

Recently (say within the last 30 or so years), fairytales have been getting criticized left and right and from all sides. Feminists scholars, bloggers, and even vloggers, have left no shell unturned, no coral unexplored, when it comes to critiquing the popular folktales from the perspective of modern feminism. These stories have shaped many a young girl’s romantic expectations, with their portrayals of adolescent waiting and dreaming, romanticizations of marriage, bondage to the father before their prince comes along, and, probably the most referenced and criticized aspect of fairytales, the princess’ reliance on external rescue.

There’s no surprise, then, that fairy tale retellings are popular among children and young adult authors and this popularity exposes a complicated ideology many feminist would say needs to be reevaluated among modern fairy tales. I’d attribute this popularity, in part, to one of the most successful novels to come from this genre: Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. Up until now, I haven’t found a fairy tale retelling that could possibly compete with it because, let’s face it, that’s a pretty high bar to set — unless you count the Shrek movies. However, buying a copy of Soman Chainani’s The School for Good and Evil from Powell’s Books in Portland was the best decision I ever made in 2015.

The book begins with best friends, Sophie and Agatha, who have very different reactions to being kidnapped and whisked away to the fabled School for Good and Evil. Self-proclaimed “most beautiful girl” in their town of Gavaldon, Sophie has dreamed of this day for a long time—she’s going to earn her high marks at the School for Good and become a full-fledged princess, just as she believes she deserves. But fortune’s not quite so clear-cut and command-able as that. Sophie, with her giant pink dress and long, golden hair, is dropped onto Evil Shore, while Agatha ends up on the other side in Good, and the two must live through the fairy tale in order to get out of it.

The School for Good and Evil is filled with everything that you’d want out of a fairy tale retelling and so much more. It’ll even please fans of the Harry Potter series, with its talk of houses and common rooms and class schedules like Beautification and History of Villainy. There are princes and princesses, good is pitted against evil in classic fairy tale fashion, and it first seems like lines are very cut and clean with princesses still waiting for their prince to rescue them. And suddenly you think, “Wait. This is actually a major problem, right?” And you’d be correct.

There is a great deal at stake in what is geared toward young audiences, and subconsciously, children, especially young girls, can transfer into their lives cultural norms that do nothing but exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues.

So underneath the complex plot, the snark and the witty hilarious moments in this novel express the heteronormativity common in fairy tales, dragging it into the light and exposing its ugliness, especially when it comes to the “Good Side” of the school, which turns out to be only a hollow, superficial beauty. Read through the lens of Guy Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle,” the students of this school are all focused on regurgitating the school’s idea of who they should be, which Chainani positions as the spectacle.

The author draws a parallel between the authority figures of the school and the numerous adults who inhabit a young person’s life. Parents teach their children the values they hold important, as their own parents did for them, but what else is subtly coded in those values that more-often-than-not are asking children to conform themselves to a certain standard? When Chainani acknowledges this disjunction in Sophie’s definition of beauty and virtue, he is setting up that where we are going as a society is- The School for Good and Evil. The school resembles a society that is dominated by the spectacle, which simultaneously boxes up young people in a false binary based on superficial characteristics, like beauty and gender stereotypes, because it will maintain the heteronormative status quo—boys will be princes and girls will be princesses, but there are repercussions for students failing. And that is where this novel turns dark and eerie. Agatha realizes this before Sophie does, as she stumbles upon the Gallery of Good and “taxidermied creatures loom[ing] over her, stuffed and mounted on rosy pink walls. She dusted off their plaques to find the booted Master Cat, Cinderella’s favorite rat, Jack’s sold-off cow, stamped with the names of children who weren’t good enough to be heroes or sidekicks or servants” and when she catches sight of the beanstalk: “HOLDEN OF RAINBOW GALE. That wretched plant had once been a boy.” The mentality of sexism and homogenization is dramatized into this literal process of objectification. Like Debord says of the nature of the spectacle, it has to erase identity in order to continue on with its exploitation of the spectator (the individual).

While readers typically wave away the supernatural elements in fantasy novels, what is left is ultimately the reality within the spectacle: that what is at stake is individual identity and agency within identity in order for Sophie, Agatha, and others to be themselves. One example of this is Sophie’s mindless readiness to embody the ideology—being the princess—at any cost, even at the dissolution of her individual identity and her friendship with Agatha, though she is the one trying to get them home, which seems ridiculous, but when mirrored with our social reality, the idea is not so farfetched from the lengths young people go to fit media standards. By exaggerating the spectacle, which is an authorial force, to make it out to be ridiculous to the reader, it destabilizes its power, and makes it perhaps a little easier to think critically about and resist the spectacle.

Moreover, Agatha is one of the most fleshed-out characters I have encountered in a young adult novel in a while, and is what makes her the ideal candidate for critical resistance to the status quo at the school is her ability to have sensitivity and empathy for other people, not just for herself. She embodies the critical discourse, asking the question about whether there is the possibility of resistance. Agatha is emotionally and intellectually equipped to see the propaganda put forth by The School for Good and Evil for what is—an exposition of all that is wrong with what society teaches us to take at face value. Her greatest power, what makes her a true princess among the other girls is her power to grant wishes, and this is no more personified than in the class for Communication with Animals. In trying to communicate her wish to a magical fish (as all animals serve princesses), the process goes awry:

“The fish swelled into a ballooning black mass, creeping up her hand [. . . ] and sucked her deeper like a gelatinous grave, stifling her last breaths, leeching her every last drop of life until there was nothing left to—
 Give.
 Agatha fell back in shock.
 In her arms was a girl. No more than twelve or thirteen, with toffee skin and a tangle of dark curls. She stirred, opened her eyes, and smiled at Agatha as if she were an old friend. ‘A hundred years, and you were the first who wished to free me.’”

Soman Chainani empowers young readers to reach out as Agatha has with a power that is inherently within them but is stifled away by the dominant culture. And maybe readers will go into other books with the same eye for how those novels contribute or try to resist dominant ideologies.  

NCSCL Welcomes Everyone to the Fall 2015 Semester!

The NCSCL would like to welcome everyone to the Fall 2015 semester.

Back again, for another fantastic semester of blogging and fun NCSCL work, is Cristina Rivera. Cristina has officially begun her second year of the graduate program at San Diego State University, emphasizing in children’s literature, of course. After a year of graduate studies, she has once again found her love of folktales and psychoanalytic theory and spent the summer rereading some YA favorites. She hopes to graduate in May of 2016, after spending what she predicts to be a large number of sleepless nights writing her thesis. Although, the stone is still setting for the official thesis project, Cristina is considering the topic of repressed adult behaviors (more so, sexual tendencies) in children because of scary folktales and stories parents tell their children to make them behave. This idea came about from a paper written specifically on The Sandman and the effects of sexuality and a child’s instinctual behavior and conduct, and closely examined how the childhood story corrupted the main character of E. T. A. Hoffman’s version, ultimately creating sadomasochistic tendencies.

This semester our graduate students have the opportunity of taking two very interesting children’s literature courses: Dr. Phillip Serrato’s Children’s Gothic and Horror and Dr. Joseph T. Thomas’s Edward Gorey and Nonsense.

And here to introduce herself is our newest edition to the NCSCL team, Susan Shamoon. We are very excited to have her!

__*__*__*__*__*__*__*__*__*__*__*__

Hello everyone!

Welcome to the Fall 2015 semester — let me hear you cheer! (Or at least make a little noise to let me know you’re awake. Anyone?)

My name is Susan Shamoon, and I’m the newest addition to the NCSCL team here at San Diego State University, and I can’t explain how excited and honored I am to be given this opportunity. I accepted this position by literally responding with, “Yes. A thousand times yes.” No lie, I did. I am a first year graduate student here at SDSU, working for my M.A. in English Literature with a specialization in Children’s Literature.

I believe understanding our fellow human beings starts young and with good stories. And, really, who doesn’t love metafiction about the very last unicorn in the world, where the fantastic and the everyday blur together when they meet, and become virtually indistinguishable? Someone who hasn’t read The Last Unicorn that’s who, and that’s a sad, deprived child indeed. I will forever support the Oxford comma and buy more books than I could ever realistically read during the school year.

Looking forward to a great semester!

And as always, if you haven’t done so, please follow us on Twitter (@NCSChildLit) and on Instagram (NCSChildLit).

Interview with Linda Salem- Children’s Literature Subject Specialist at the SDSU Love Library (Part 2 of 2)

This week is part two of the blog post from our amazing interview with Linda Salem. If you didn’t get a chance to read it yet, Linda is SDSU’s very own Children’s Literature Library Specialist at the San Diego State University’s Love Library. 

Storytelling is one of Linda’s key interests, and this lead to an interesting conversation regarding the history of children’s stories through oral tradition, into what they are becoming today: e-books. There is a curiosity to understand e-books and if they should be accepted into the education community. Will e-books for children have the same effect as their counterparts in print?

When asked about the motives of children selecting their own stories, Linda responded, "When they come to the library, children sometimes have a topic, a character, or just an idea in mind and they would like to see a book about it." There is a level of certainty that children project for a type of story they might be interested in reading.

Of course I had to ask Linda what her take was on modern day fairy tales that are consuming pop-culture. She suggested that these new fairy tales and the new methods that they are being told through are a continuum of the change that stories must go through. She explained how oral tales turned into printed books and those became fancier with color prints and popup art, then adapted into large motion pictures, and finally became stories that lay face-up on an LED screen device in brightly lit images and sounds captivating the child’s attention and perhaps even our own. Linda mentioned that the previous semester a composer had contacted her for a list of fairy tales that she thought would make good symphonic composition. There is really no end to where fairy tales and storytelling for children will go next.

So in the case of the e-books, Linda as the library specialist of Children’s Literature is faced with a tough question when it is time to select books for the collection. If the book is available in the e-reader format, does that overtake the need to purchase a physical copy? Linda says selecting the print or e-book format depends on many factors.

We spent some time looking through different and neat iPad apps of e-books that incorporated Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with music, read-out-loud settings, or interactive animation (Atomic Antelope). "Ebooks editions are often media enhanced editions that may be seen as an expansion of the narrative form."

Ultimately, these examples for the evolution of storytelling perhaps make a statement about where children’s book culture is going. And really in a way, storytelling has come miles since its oral tradition. Now children are exposed to stories with graphics, activities, and music; consider not that this may be a distraction to the story itself, but that now stories incorporate so many other senses and create a new experience for the reader. The experience of the reader is changing in general with e-books, audiobooks, and movies, so why not allow children to adapt with                                                                        this shift at the same time?

The final question I had for Linda was regarding the overall study of children’s literature as a newer form of scholarship and the significance it creates in the academic field. Perhaps this question served a need for reaffirming that children’s literature is not invaluable or easy to glance over because it is merely for children. Linda says that in her work with the Children's Literature Society affiliated with the American Literature Association she sees topics of scholarship growing. She and co-editor Dr. Dorothy Clark have an edited book of essays in press now entitled Frontiers in Children's Literature; this book explores this expansion of scholarship through contributions from exciting scholars working in the field today. Also, The Children's Literature Association or ChLA at http://www.childlitassn.org is a wonderful place to start to learn more about the direction of scholarship in this subject.

The importance of stories and books through any medium is the establishment of literacy, period. So while e-books do not have the comfort of musty pages that hold history with their own existence, they are part of our evolution. Current generations of children will grow into the adults that analyze these texts in ways we cannot comprehend yet. And sometimes it takes getting to know your local librarian to understand the bigger picture of what books of all kinds really mean. 

Greetings for Spring 2015

Welcome to the new year, children's lit scholars. It's 2015, and it's going to be better than ever with a number of exciting publications on the horizon. 

Joining us this semester on our awesome blog is Meg Mardian. She is in her last semester at San Diego State University, working on her MA in Children's Literature. Her focus in research encompasses fairy tale retellings and the cultural significance of the changes produced for each new audience. 

Back for another semester of blogging for the SDSU Children’s Literature Department is Cristina Rivera. Having survived her first semester of graduate school, she is back and ready to share fun topics and information across children’s literature. 

Last semester, the Children’s Literature Department created our very own Instagram account. We are looking forward to increasing our followers and bring you the inside scoop from our marvelous department with a picturesque point of view. Please follow us!

Also, be on the lookout for our weekly updates on the blog, with the occasional extra posts from bloggers of previous semesters. 

Wishing everyone an epic semester: "May the odds be ever in your favor." 

A Recap of Brilliance and Accomplishment

In an earlier post this semester, we announced some of our every own SDSU faculty, staff and alumni were participating in the 2014 PAMLA conference held in Riverside, CA. Fortunately, two of the presenters were able to share their experiences and what they presented on for this year's conference .

Alya Hameed presented on the film Paranorman through both a Gothic and a feminist angle. “The presentation examined Norman's queerness as one that both subverts and systematically upholds heteronormative and patriarchal structures.”

This was Alya's second year presenting at the PAMLA conference. However, not only did Alya present her brilliant ideas but she was also able to sit as chair to two panels, both on the topic of Children's Literature. “As a panel experience, my paper thematically flowed with the other papers (one on Coraline and Meg's on The Sleeper and the Spindle). Those discussed female protagonists contending with different experiences of entrapment and conscription (whether by the narrative or my socialized feminine standards).” Alya explains that she was able to guide the conversation in a direction that discussed the male protagonist “with an explicitly emasculated or feminized heritage.” Together the panel was ultimately able to cover the question of gender and selfhood within the concept of child-identity.

“Chairing is also a great experience,” Alya says, “offering an opportunity to be active on the other side--no presentation needs to be prepared but you are actively listening and possibly preparing questions to garner discussion, especially if you have a quiet audience. I recommend graduate students consider opportunities to chair at conferences (as well as present, of course) if and when possible.”

Meg Mardian, a current graduate student at SDSU, presented on the socio-cultural issues that come about from the depiction of female beauty as an inborn virtue found within the young female heroines of fairy tales. The main focus was Neil Gaiman's "The Sleeper and the Spindle,” a combination of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. Since both stories portray young, beautiful girls who are punished by evil, old women, Gaiman rewrote them into a Gothic twist in order to critique current day female anxieties surrounding beauty as well as age. “My main argument [was] based on the critical work of Naomi Wolf, called The Beauty Myth, wherein she talks about why the patriarchy propagates unreasonable beauty ideals for women as a way of keeping them under control.”

Interestingly, Meg points out that women over the years have focused aggression towards one another more so than trying to fight the oppression that defines gender roles. Once the female hero can assert her independence she is able to “pass on the torch—or in this case the bloody spindle.”

However, it gets better. Meg says her favorite part of the paper was discussing the absence of older strong and beautiful women, pointing out that they are normally portrayed as bitter old women who hold resentment to the younger beauty in the story and as a result wish to steal these qualities from them. Quoting Wolf, she states, “To airbrush age off a woman’s face is to erase women’s identity, power, and history. To show children that wrinkles are not beautiful means to show them their worth is only skin deep” and it allows the patriarchy to maintain dominance, which is why women should be fighting against this.

After Meg's presentation a man asked if she thought the gender of the author (Gaiman) mattered in the these new types of fairy tales that do challenge the patriarchy's agenda. To this she replied that it shouldn't make a difference what the gender of the author is, in the same way it shouldn't matter what the gender of the person reading is. “These types of texts, if they are meant to defy status quo, should be aimed at all audiences… I can't say if a woman could have done it the same way or better, just that Gaiman succeeded in creating a new fairy tale that makes the reader question their own expectations and roles in society.” 

Two Child Lit Professor Openings

1. Assistant Professor Specializing in Children's Literature, Rowan University

The English Department at Rowan University has a tenure-track position for an Assistant Professor of children’s literature.  We are seeking broadly trained candidates prepared to teach courses in children’s literature and young adult literature as well as a foundation course for English majors, survey courses in U.S. literature and/or British literature, and seminars in area(s) of expertise.  Class size is typically 35 students or less.  A 3/3 teaching load is guaranteed for the first two years and can be renewed annually with evidence of continuing scholarship.  Course load will sometimes be split between the Glassboro campus and other nearby locations.  No Composition.  Departmental and university service is expected.  Initial interviews will be conducted at MLA.  The position begins September 1, 2014.

For more information and to apply, click here to visit view the listing.

2.   Professor of English Literature with focus on Postcolonial Literature, Université Laval (Quebec, CAN)

This opening calls for a professor specializing in postcolonial literature. It has a generalist component for the undergraduate level, at which we offer children's literature; at the graduate level we offer seminars in postcolonial literature, which the selected candidate could develop in his or her area of specialization. Description follows: 

The Département des littératures invites applications for an open-rank, tenure-track position in Postcolonial literatures   

RESPONSIBILITIES   

- Teaching postcolonial literatures at the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as teaching other English undergraduate courses as a generalist
- Supervising master’s theses and doctoral dissertations;
- Pursuing research in postcolonial literatures;
- Contributing to the administration of programs related to the teaching of English literatures
- Participating in departmental and university activities.

SELECTION CRITERIA       

- PhD (or PhD near completion) written in English with specialization in postcolonial literatures in English;
- Research experience in postcolonial literatures (relevant publications or research grants);
- University teaching experience
- Ability to teach postcolonial literatures as a specialist at all levels and readiness to teach in English literatures as generalist at the undergraduate level;
-  Perfect command of oral and written English (teaching and research) and knowledge of French (participation in departmental activities);
-  Aptitude for teamwork;
-  Interest in teaching in a second language environment.

Assets would include an interest in comparative literature and an ability to make links between the   candidate’s area of specialization and that of the Canada Research

Chair in African Literatures and Francophonie (Francophone Postcolonial Literatures).

STARTING DATE FOR THE POSITION: July 1, 2014 
Please send a letter of application, a curriculum vitae, three recent letters of reference, and a published article by December 13, 2013 to:

Madame Chantal Hébert
Directrice
Département des littératures
Pavillon Charles-De Koninck
Université Laval
Québec QC
Canada
G1V 0A6

No electronic applications will be accepted. All documents must be sent by the date indicated; all incomplete applications will be rejected.

Valuing diversity, Université Laval invites all qualified people to submit applications, in    particular women, visible minorities, Natives, and disabled peoples. Priority for this position will be given to Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada.

Open Call for PhD in Literature for Children and Young People: Aarhus University, Denmark

Application Deadline: October 1, 2013

Website: http://talent.au.dk/phd/arts/open-calls/phd-opslag-125/

LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN AN INTERMEDIAL PERSPECTIVE 

PhD scholarship in the field of Literature for children and young people in an intermedial perspective

The Graduate School, Arts, Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University invites applications for a PhD scholarship inLiterature for children and young people in an intermedial perspective. This scholarship is available as of 1 February 2014 for a period of up to three years (5+3) and of up to four years (4+4). The candidate who is awarded the scholarship must commence their PhD programme on 1 February 2014.

The Faculty of Arts at Aarhus University has made Literature for children and young people in an intermedial perspective a research priority.

Digital developments have led to fundamental changes in the text and media world of which children and young people are part. For instance, children and young people have simultaneous access to literature in the medium of books (books written on paper) and in the form of digital formats such as audiobooks, e-books and apps.

Developments indicate that the degree of interaction between forms of expression such as literature, films, computer games and music will increase in future. For instance, characters, plots and settings occur simultaneously in children’s literature and a range of other media. Literature for children and young people is developing in an interaction between aesthetic choices and media/market conditions. Within this overall framework, applicants are required to describe a project that poses a central research question which takes its point of departure in literature for children and/or young people in an intermedial perspective.

CFP: Mothers in Children's and YA Literature

Call for Papers:
Mothers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Edited by Lisa Rowe Fraustino and Karen Coats

Arguably, the most powerful figure in a child’s life is the mother, whether she is present or absent. How have mothers been represented in literature produced for and shared with children and young adults, from the oral tales of the preprint era to the present? What attitudes toward mothers and motherhood are reflected by the texts? What maternal ideologies are inscribed in young readers, and does the genre or target audience make a difference? In what ways do the books themselves, often written by women, serve as metaphorical mothers for their readers?

For this proposed collection, we seek essays from a range of theoretical perspectives that address depictions of mothers, stepmothers, adoptive mothers, foster mothers, anthropomorphized mothers, stand-ins for mothers, metaphorical mothers, and “other” mothers in nursery rhymes, fairy tales, childhood lore, picture books, early reader chapter books, middle grade fiction, young adult novels, and film adapations of classic texts to examine how the field of children’s and YA literature contributes to the phenomenon Nancy Chodorow coined “the reproduction of mothering.”

350-500 word chapter proposals are due by November 30th, 2013. Proposals should be for original works not previously published (including in conference proceedings) and that are not currently under consideration for another edited collection or journal. If the essay is accepted for the collection, a full draft (5000-7000 words) will be required by May 15th, 2014. Editors are happy to discuss ideas priot to the deadline.

Proposals and Final Essays should be submitted to:
Lisa Rowe Fraustino: FraustinoL@easternct.edu
Karen Coats: kscoat2@ilstu.edu

CFP: Worcester Papers - 'Representation of the Body in Fantasy and Gothic Literature '

Call for Papers

Representation of the Body in Fantasy and Gothic Literature 

Papers are invited for Issue 9 (2013) of Worcester Papers (ISSN 1749-1150) to be published in December 2013. This issue will be themed 'Representations of the Body in Fantasy and Gothic Literature', aiming to explore the undeniable influence of the body in these genres. This issue welcomes articles that examine the varied portrayals of the physical in the wide range of Gothic and Fantasy literature including, but are not limited to the following topics:
-    The subversive body
-    Corporeal transition/hybridity and the body
-    Embodying gender
-    Body under attack/ bodily betrayals
-    Notions of alterity
-    Body in illustrations

Please send 250 word abstracts, along with a brief biography by September 7th  2013 to n.aziz@worc.ac.uk. Successful submissions will be notified by September 21st 2013. Final articles, in MLA style, font Times New Roman font size 12, double spaced, between 4,000 to 6,000 words must be received by November 7th 2013.

About Worcester Papers.
Worcester Papers is a journal produced by the Institute of Humanities & Creative Arts at the University of Worcester, Worcester, UK. The journal is edited by postgraduate students in collaboration with an editorial board of experienced academics. The articles are peer reviewed. The journal is registered with the British Library. The International Forum for Research in Children's Literature is within the Institute of Humanities & Creative Arts under the directorship of Prof Jean Webb. IFRCL is an interdisciplinary research group working in children's literature, historical perspectives, drama, film, illustration and interpreting text in the widest sense.

We look forward to receiving your abstracts and articles. Thank you.

contact: Fateha Aziz, n.aziz@worc.ac.uk. 

CFP: Happiness Conference in Oxford

Call for Papers: Happiness, Childhood, and Children's Literature

16th November 2013, St Hilda’s College, Oxford

www.childlithappiness.wordpress.com

"Novels, like paintings or music or sport, should hold out to children the promise of happiness, and the certainty of laughter." -Fred Inglis

Jean-Jacques Rousseau claims that children are born innocent and happy; all their educators need to do is protect this natural state of childhood from being contaminated by society. In the last few years, however, a radical reassessment of happiness has taken place in critical theory, through thinkers such as Sara Ahmed and Lauren Berlant. They point to the social construction of the idea of happiness, how it varies over history and geography, and is based on predominating social values. As such, “happiness” can work as an ideology that welcomes some kinds of lifestyles and excludes others. In particular, they emphasize the difference that gender and sexuality makes to conventional models of a “happy” life. Their resituating of happiness as a normative and often oppressive ideology brings us the opportunity to reassess the place of happiness in children’s literature.

No sustained study of happiness in children’s literature has taken place since Fred Inglis’ The Promise of Happiness: Values and Meaning in Children’s Fiction was published in 1981. Inglis suggests that children’s literature is exempt from the critique of happiness: "Whatever has happened to the idea of beauty and happiness in adult art, our children must keep faith with their radical innocence." However, such children’s books as John Burningham’s Granpa, Neil Gaiman’s The Wolves in the Walls, and Michael Rosen’s Sad Book deal with the loss of loved ones and of home. Such texts reject happy endings, and implicitly or explicitly, see and value more negative emotions such as mourning, fear, and depression in children. These texts raise the issue of the purpose of children’s literature: should it prepare children for sad truths, or shield children from them? In this way, such works move to redefine the "happy ending."

Should children’s literature play a role towards encouraging or defining happiness? How do cultural differences affect children’s happiness? This conference invites papers on happiness in English and French children’s literature or theorisations of childhood.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:
-childhood “innocence”; criminal children; angelic children
-adult nostalgia; childhood idylls
-humour; play; fantasy; utopia
-unconventional modes of happiness; non-normative families; gender and sexuality
-dealing with death, tragedy and war
-representations of depression; angst; suicide
-Rousseau; Winnicott; Klein; childhood and affect
-cultural differences and happiness; post-colonial children’s literature
-adaptation, translation and changing values of happiness

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent to childlithappiness@gmail.com by no later than 21st September 2013.

This one-day conference on Saturday 16th November 2013 at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, is organized by Queen Mary, University of London. We are fortunate to welcome keynotes on French and English children’s literature, highly successful children’s authors, and the renowned producer Martin Pope ) for what promises to be an exciting day.

Keynote Speakers:
Penelope Brown, University of Manchester
Anna Kemp, Queen Mary, University of London (author of Dogs Don’t Do Ballet)
Diane Purkiss, Keble College, University of Oxford (co-author of the Corydon series)
Martin Pope, producer of The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child films

CFP: Canon Conference at the University of Tübingen, Germany

Call for Papers: Canon Constitution and Canon Change in Children’s Literature

International Conference at the University of Tübingen, Germany, 11-13 September 2014

Although several scholars have investigated how national canons of children’s literature have developed, such historical approaches have mostly focused on aesthetic matters or on changing concepts of childhood. The impact of cultural concepts that are constitutive for the construction of cultural identities (so-called social imaginaries) on canon-formation has, on the other hand, been widely neglected. The same applies to a transnational perspective on canon constitution, which transcends national boundaries and instead locates children’s literature in a more comprehensive communicative space.

Issues that might be investigated in this respect are the presentation of children’s literature in literary histories, the historical contingency of the status of canonicity, the impact of social institutions and awards on the appreciation of certain types of children’s literature, the possible reasons for excluding or including particular children’s books from/into the canon, the conceptual shifts in the acknowledgement of children’s literature in national canons, the influence of genre preferences for canon constitution and the perception of a canon of children’s literature as a transnational phenomenon.

The purpose of this international conference is to bring together scholars of children’s literature from different countries who are especially interested in the topic of canon formation in children’s literature. We particularly invite papers dealing with one or several of the following topics:

• National vs. transnational canons;
• Paul Hazard and the idea of a “World Literature for Children”;
• Divergent canon concepts (Western Canon, European Canon, Global Canon, Multicultural Canon, Postcolonial Canon);
• The concept of the “Golden Age” and its impact on the canon of children’s literature;
• Genre preferences in canonization processes;
• The impact of institutions (e.g. libraries, museums, schools, literary societies, awards) on the development of the canon;
• Canons and social imaginaries;
• Reasons for inclusion or exclusion in literary histories; 
• Falling out of the canon: the challenges of forgotten children’s books; 
• Interfaces between the canons of children’s and adults’ literature; 
• Changing criteria for canonicity.

Contributions from academics interested in the close relationship between historical and theoretical perspectives of canon research in the realm of children’s literature are particularly welcome. The proceedings of the conference will be published in book form.

Deadline for proposals: 31 July 2013.

Please send abstracts of c. 300 words (for a twenty-minute paper) and a short biographical note (c. 100 words) as e-mail attachments (Word format please) to both convenors, Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer: bettina.kuemmerling-meibauer@uni-tuebingen.de and Anja Müller: am.englit-si@muelleranja.eu

Notification whether proposals have been accepted will be made by 31 August 2013.

The conference venue is Schloss Hohentübingen, a beautiful 16th-century castle in the picturesque university town of Tübingen (close to Stuttgart international airport). For details, visit http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/museum-schloss/schloss.html

Children's Literature in English Language Education Journal Available in Open Access Format Online

The debut issue of the CLELEjournal (Children's Literature in English Language Education Journal) is available online.

CLELEjournal is a peer-reviewed, biannual, and open access journal dedicated to examining the use of children's literature in teaching English language. The first issue features the following articles:

• "The World Turned Upside Down: Exploring Alternate History with Young Adults" by Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak & Mateusz Marecki
• "From Reading Pictures to Understanding a Story in the Foreign Language" by Annett Kaminski
• "Humanizing Teaching English to Young Learners with Children's Literature" by Irma Ghosn
• "Playing with Nonsense: Toward Language Bridging in a Multilingual Classroom" by Urmishree Bedamatta
• "Response to 'The Lost Thing': Notes from a Secondary Classroom" by Sandie Mourão

Visit http://clelejournal.org to read these articles and learn more about CLELEjournal.

Reminder: Paper Proposals for PAMLA Children's Literature Panel Due April 15

The Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) Conference will be held in San Diego this year, from November 1-3, 2013 at the Bahia Resort Hotel. Below is the CFP for the children's literature panel, chaired by SDSU graduate student Lauren Benard.

Children's Literature Panel

Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association

Contact email: laurenbenard@hotmail.com

Proposal deadline: April 15, 2013

The academic interest in children's literature has been growing in popularity. Why do these stories interest a young audience as well as adults? Why are new versions of old stories still interesting? Is the story itself compelling, or are readers fascinated with the aspect of the child itself? This session will focus on children's literature as well as literature about children. Papers can range from any time period and genre (young adult, picture book, folk, film, etc.) Submit a proposal of 300-500 words explaining your project pertaining to the realm of children's literature.

Topics prospective panelists may wish to address include but are not limited to the following:

• Marketing of children's literature
• Intended audience
• Depictions of the changing child body
• The dynamic between the adult/child relationship
• Trauma
• Gender
• Creativity
• Family relations
• Visual and literary worlds of childhood

Proposals should be submitted to PAMLA's online proposal system (http://www.pamla.org) by April 15, 2013.

Direct any questions to Lauren Benard (laurenbenard@hotmail.com).

ChildLit Grad Students Off to Pop Culture Conference

The SWTX ACA/PCA Conference in Albuquerque, NM takes place this week and two SDSU childlit graduate students -- myself and Alixandria Lombardo -- will be attending. The conference, dealing with all things pop culture related, will have some featured events including talks by David Peterson, language creator of HBO's Game of Thrones and SyFy's new series Defiance. (If you recall my Tolkien forum post, you can imagine I'm thrilled to explore the makings of language in any form, especially one as topical as this).

There are numerous panels related to children's literature--the Children's Lit panels themselves, as well as one geared specifically to Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Fantasy, and Myth. Alix and I both have the privilege of presenting on one of the Children's Literature panels: "Gendered Journeys, Places, and Spaces."  Alix's paper concerns itself with the complicated issues of gendered space in Pam Muñoz Ryan's Esperanza Rising. I will be discussing the controlled space of feminine identity in Charlie Fletcher's Stoneheart Trilogy.

This is my first experience presenting at a conference, as it is for Alix, so naturally some nerves are present but this promises to be an amazing and stimulating conference and we are both exhilarated by the prospect of presenting and the excitement of listening to the other scheduled panels.

You can take a look at all the various panels and events here. 
 

Mark Your Calendar: Prof. Kenneth Kidd to give talk on April 11

We enjoyed a fantastic virtual visit with the University of Florida's Kenneth Kidd back in October, and come April, we'll get to see him in person! Kenneth Kidd will be visiting SDSU's Center for the Study of Children's Literature on Thursday, April 11, to give a talk called "Philosophy for Children." It'll be amazing. Guaranteed.

The talk will begin at 5 p.m. Stay tuned for details on the location.

Professor Kidd works primarily in children’s literature studies, but his research interests span nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature, psychoanalysis, queer theory, and cultural studies. He is the author of two books: Making American Boys: Boyology and the Feral Tale (University of Minnesota, 2004), and Freud in Oz: At the Intersections of Psychoanalysis and Children's Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 2011).

With Sidney I. Dobrin he coedited the anthology Wild Things: Children’s Culture and Ecocriticism (Wayne State University Press, 2004), and with Michelle Ann Abate he coedited Over the Rainbow: Queer Children's and Young Adult Literature (University of Michigan Press, 2011).

Professor Kidd has published in a number of children’s literature journals as well as American Imago and PMLA. Since 2004 he has served as Associate Editor of Children’s Literature Association Quarterly. He is current at work on a new book about the children’s literary classic. Learn more about him here and here, and mark your calendars for April 11!

CFP: Biennial Meeting of the Society for Psychological Anthropology along with the Anthropology of Children & Youth Interest Group

Call for Papers 

Biennial Meeting of the Society for Psychological Anthropology, in conjunction with the Anthropology of Children & Youth Interest Group

April 4-7, 2013

Hyatt Regency Mission Bay, San Diego, CA

proposal deadline: December 18, 2012

For the first time the Society for Psychological Anthropology biennial meeting will be held jointly with the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG). Psychological anthropology examines the relation among social processes, cultural meanings and human subjectivities. Psychological anthropologists study topics such as narrative, identity, experience, emotion, memory, discourse, belief, motivation, conceptualization, gender, sexuality, trauma, mental illness, stigmatization and psychological development in social and cultural contexts.

The anthropology of children and youth is the cross-cultural and ethnographic examination of infants, children, youth and adolescents. It examines such topics as child development across time and space (physical, cognitive, emotional, social); parenting, childcare and child-rearing around the world; the evolution of childhood; the impact of globalization on children and their families and communities; child health; child education and learning; children’s participation in their cultures; the socio-historical construction of childhood; child agency and vulnerability; children’s rights; the political lives of children; and critical studies of childhood.

For this biennial we welcome proposals for panels and papers representing innovative work in either field. Historical, applied and methodological topics are welcome as well.

In addition to panels and discussion groups, we will also schedule plenary sessions, coffee breaks and receptions that will bring our group together and facilitate informal conversation and networking. Saturday afternoon the ACYIG will hold a business meeting. There will be a banquet on Saturday night, highlighted by presentation of the SPA Lifetime Achievement Awards to Anthony Wallace and Jean Lave.

Panel, Discussion Group and Paper Submissions

The deadline for submitting panel and paper proposals is December 18, 2012, but earlier submissions are encouraged. Proposals for panels, groups, and papers should be SUBMITTED HERE.

Both individual papers (15 minutes) and full panels (1 hour and 45 minutes) are welcome. Younger scholars are particularly encouraged to suggest panel, paper or discussion group topics. Abstracts are required for individually submitted papers, for panels and for each paper on a panel (panel abstract and abstracts for the papers on the panel should be submitted together) and no abstract should be longer than 250 words.

Each participant is allowed to have two formal roles: to give a paper, and to be a discussant. However, we encourage the submission of less formal sessions as well. In these less formal sessions, participation does not count against the two-role rule. A discussion session can be formed by listing people who will speak for no more than five minutes, and then opening up the floor to general discussion. In this case, the session requires a session abstract but no abstracts from participants. A workshop is a focused discussion around a practical theme: for example, publication venues, team ethnography, specific methods, etc. Again, the workshop format presumes that papers are not given and the primary focus is discussion. A workshop requires a workshop abstract, but no abstracts from participants. Film and poster proposals are also welcome.  

Registration
Information on the registration process is forthcoming.

The Conference Hotel and Venue
The meeting will be held at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay in San Diego, CA. The Hyatt Regency Mission Bay and Marina is a resort near Sea World. It features waterfront rooms, a health club, spa, fire pits, water slides and a marina with kayaks and whale excursions. Workers at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay are represented by UNITE-HERE. This hotel is on the approved list of the AAA Committee on Labor Relations.

For more information, contact Claudia Strauss (SPA President): 
claudia_strauss@pitzer.edu

Details for Peter Pan & Wendy Discussion Circle, Thursday Nov 29

This Thursday (Nov 29) at 6:30 pm in the SDSU Black Box Experimental Theater, The National Center for the Study of Children's Literature, in collaboration with director Margaret Larlham, SDSU's School of Theatre, Television, & Film, and our own Children's Literature Graduate Student Association, will be leading a discussion circle about J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan. This discussion can be part of your experience of seeing the production of Peter Pan and Wendy now showing at the Don Powell theatre or simply for your own edification (attending the show is not mandatory, and the discussion circle is FREE). Please tell your students and friends, and plan on attending yourselves. It should be a wonderful event, with or without (though especially WITH) the added delight of Peter Pan and Wendy.

Participants include Joseph Thomas, the director of the NCSCL, children's literature scholar Mary Galbraith, the director Margaret Larlham, and SDSU English graduate students (and ChildLit Grad Student Association members) Kelsey Wadman, Alya Hameed, Alix Lombardo, Lauren Benard, and Jill Coste.

Please attend! For more information, follow the link above to the School of Theatre, Television, & Film's Peter Pan & Wendy site, or contact Joseph Thomas at jtthomas@mail.sdsu.edu.

New Academic Titles in Children's Literature

The Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature series, published by Palgrave Macmillan, announces its 2012 publications:

Children’s Literature, Popular Culture, and Robinson Crusoe by Andrew O’Malley

Children’s Literature and Capitalism: Fictions of Social Mobility in Britain, 1850-1914 by Christopher Parkes

Playing with Picturebooks: Postmodernism and the Postmodernesque by Cherie Allan

Previous books in this series include:

New World Orders in Contemporary Children’s Literature: Utopian Transformations (paperback) by Clare Bradford, Kerry Mallan, John Stephens, and Robyn McCallum

Empire in British Girls’ Literature and Culture: Imperial Girls, 1880-1915 by Michelle J. Smith (Winner of the European Society for the Study of English Book Awards Category B – Junior Scholars, 2012)

Narrative Pleasures in Young Adult Novels, Films and Video Games by Margaret Macke

For further details please visit the Palgrave site: http://www.palgrave.com

Kenneth Kidd Brown Bag Session Recap!

University of Florida professor of children's literature Kenneth Kidd virtually joined a group of graduate students and faculty yesterday for a discussion about his book Freud in Oz, among other topics. SDSU Children's Literature faculty Joseph Thomas, June Cummins, Phillip Serrato, and Mary Galbraith eagerly asked questions of their UF colleague Kidd, who answered with eloquence and the occasional self-effacing humor.

Belying his modesty, though, is Kidd's work itself, which takes a thoughtful look at children's literature through a psychoanalytic lens. The chapter under discussion, "Child Analysis, Play, and Pooh," progresses chronologically through the early stages of psychoanalytic research into children's behavior, from Freud to his daughter Anna to Melanie Klein to D.W. Winnicott, and looks at the links between child psychoanalysis and the inherent themes of children's literature. Kidd aligns these links with "Poohology," which he describes as "a form of popular psychology and child analysis and literary criticism and theory"that "refashions the children's classic into a plaything for adults, supporting the interiorization of childhood and of childhood's forms." As Kidd describes, Winnie the Pooh, with its straightforward narration and its playful themes, is an ideal backdrop for examining how play shapes childhood.

Specific questions that came up during the brown bag session with Kidd focused largely on Kidd's treatment of Frederick Crews' The Pooh Perplex, which satirizes the intensity of literary criticism while also highlighting the promise of what literary criticism can uncover. The discussion with Kidd unearthed how Crews' work leans toward sarcasm and in fact shut the door on literary criticism of Pooh for years, but conversely may also have paved the way for analysis of children's literature. By illuminating the shortcomings of taking children's literature too seriously, Crews also may have inadvertently proposed a way of looking at children's literature with both intellectual rigor and self-awareness.

Also up for discussion was the idea of the "inner child" and how much of that is extended adolescence or performative adolescence. The group talked about how contemporary young adult authors in particular seem to be both adult and adolescent at once. Kidd discussed the later chapters in his book that trace the American fascination with adolescence from the 1950s onward and try to explicate a broader history of what we now call the YA novel. Kidd described YA authors as potentially "both therapists and an older young adult," an identity that makes them adept at writing for a teen audience.

In addition to fielding scholarly questions, Kidd also discussed the PhD program at the University of Florida (where a student can specifically focus on graduate work in children's literature) and the job prospects for nascent scholars in the field. While job openings specifically recruiting children's literature scholars are relatively scarce, Kidd pointed out that children's literature PhDs coming out of UF are also well-positioned to talk about their research in broader terms. His assertion supports what we all discover when studying children's literature: the themes and ideas that we analyze may start in children's literature, but they translate to numerous other genres within literature. And as the group also discussed in the brown bag session, we were all children once.

Overall this was an engaging and enlightening discussion with one of the premier scholars in the field of children's literature. Thanks to Kenneth Kidd for joining us via Face Time, and thanks to Joseph Thomas for arranging this brown bag session!

Addendum: An actual corporeal visit from Kenneth Kidd is tentatively planned for the Spring 2013 semester. Stay tuned for more details!

Reminder: Brown Bag Session with Prof. Kenneth Kidd on October 31

One week from today at noon in Arts and Letters room 105, the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature, in collaboration with the Department of English & Comparative Literature, will be holding a brown bag discussion session with University of Florida Professor (and Friend of the Department!) Kenneth Kidd. We’ll be reading Chapter II of his fabulous book, Freud in OZ: At the Intersections of Psychoanalysis and Children’s Literature (“Child Analysis, Play, and the Golden Age of Pooh”). Read more about Professor Kidd and this event here.

If you are interested in joining us and would like a copy of Chapter II, please email Professor Joseph Thomas and he will share the document with you.