Children’s Literature and Comics/Graphic Novels at MLA 2014

With thanks to Craig Svonkin for assembling the children’s literature panels list and Charles Hatfield for assembling the comics panels list, here’s a list of panel sessions on either children’s literature or comics/graphic novels at the Modern Language Association Conference in Chicago, 9-12 January 2014.  Is there anything missing here?  Drop me a line, and I’ll add it.

---

Thursday, 9 January 2014

97. Children’s Literature and the Common Core

3:30—4:45 p.m., Belmont, Chicago Marriott

Program arranged by the Division on Children’s Literature

Presiding: Jan Christopher Susina, Illinois State Univ.

Speakers: Daniel D. Hade, Penn State Univ., University Park; Michelle Holley Martin, Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia; Kristin McIlhagga, Michigan State Univ.; Sarah Minslow, Univ. of North Carolina, Charlotte; Joe Sutliff Sanders, Kansas State Univ.

This roundtable will address how the English Language Arts Standards of the Common Core State Standards (www.corestandards.org) will affect the teaching of college courses in children’s and adolescent literature, given that many of the students enrolled in these courses are preparing for careers in K—12 education.

This session has been chosen by MLA President Marianne Hirsch to be part of the presidential theme, “Vulnerable Times.”

Children’s Literature Division Executive Committee Meeting

Thursday, 10 January, 5:15-6:30 pm, Dupage, Marriott

---

Friday, 10 January 2014

193. Pre-Raphaelite, Aesthetic, and Fin de Siècle Children’s Literature

Friday, 10 January, 8:30—9:45 a.m., Addison, Chicago Marriott

Program arranged by the William Morris Society and the Children’s Literature Association

Presiding: Andrea Donovan, Minot State Univ.

1. “Laurence Housman’s Field of Clover and the Pre-Raphaelite Politics of Making,” Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Ryerson Univ.
2. “Mapping the Invisible and the Multivalent: Arthur Hughes’s Illustrations for George MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind,” Carey Gibbons, Courtauld Inst. of Art
3. “Illustrated Labors: Text, Textile, and ‘Wise-talk’ in Christina Rossetti’s Sing-Song,” Jesse Cordes Selbin, Univ. of California, Berkeley
4. “Art Critics in the Cradle: Fin de Siècle Painting Books and the Move to Modernism,” Victoria Ford Smith, Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs

269. Deliver Us to Normal: Children’s Literature and the Midwest

Friday, 10 January, 10:15—11:30 a.m., Los Angeles—Miami, Chicago Marriott

Program arranged by the Children’s Literature Association

Presiding: Katharine Slater, Pacific Lutheran Univ.

1. “The American Urban Jungle: Tarzan of the Apes and Chicago,” Michelle Ann Abate, Ohio State Univ., Columbus
2. “Coming of Age in a Divided City: Navigating Chicago Cultures in Sandra Cisneros’s Poetic Bildungsroman and Veronica Roth’s Dystopian Fiction,” Suzanne Hopcroft, Yale Univ.
3. “When Myth Becomes Truth: Adolescent Identity in Depression-Era Kansas,” Jill Coste, San Diego State Univ.
4. “Environmental Conservation and Racial Purity in the Fiction of Gene Stratton-Porter,” Sarah Clere, The Citadel

310. Randall Jarrell at One Hundred

1:45—3:00 p.m., Great America, Chicago Marriott

Program arranged by the Division on Children’s Literature

Presiding: Chamutal Noimann, Borough of Manhattan Community Coll., City Univ. of New York

1. “The Child Is the Animal in Randall Jarrell’s Animal Family,” Patricia Oman, Hastings Coll.
2. “Jarrell the Heroic Reader,” Molly McQuade, American Library Assn.
3. “Randall Jarrell’s Impossible Children,” Stephen Louis Burt, Harvard Univ.

Respondent: Richard McDonnell Flynn, Georgia Southern Univ.

388. Transnational Comics

Friday, 10 January, 5:15—6:30 p.m., Chicago X, Sheraton Chicago

Program arranged by the Discussion Group on Comics and Graphic Narratives and the Division on Literature and Other Arts

Presiding: Anke K. Finger, Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs; Nhora Lucia Serrano, California State Univ., Long Beach

1. “Traveling Comics; or, What Happened When Winsor McCay’s Innocents Went Abroad?” Mark McKinney, Miami Univ., Oxford
2. “Graphic Memories of Revolution: Women on the Verge in Iran and Lebanon,” Julia Watson, Ohio State Univ., Columbus
3. “Transnational Regards from Serbia,” Ioana Luca, National Taiwan Normal Univ.
4. “Conceiving the Cosmopolitan Muslim Superhero in The 99,” Stefan Meier, Chemnitz Univ. of Tech.

428. Cash Bar Arranged by the Division on Children’s Literature and the Discussion Group on Comics and Graphic Narratives

Friday, 10 January, 7:00—8:15 p.m., Grand I, Chicago Marriott

---

Saturday, 11 January 2014

437. Diaries of the Young Girl: The Craft of Female Selfhood

Saturday, 11 January, 8:30—9:45 a.m., Indiana-Iowa, Chicago Marriott

Program arranged by the Division on Children’s Literature

Presiding: June S. Cummins, San Diego State Univ.; Rocío G. Davis, City Univ. of Hong Kong

1. “Writing to Survive: Child-Writing Characterization in Sade Adeniran’s Imagine This,” Suzanne Ondrus, Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs
2. “Constructing the Self: Pocket Diaries as Discipline in Nineteenth-Century America,” Martha L. Sledge, Marymount Manhattan Coll.
3. “‘Okay! Fine! You Can Read It!’: Memory, Adolescence, and Belonging in Lauren Weinstein’s Girl Stories,” Tahneer Oksman, Marymount Manhattan Coll.
4. “Witness, Re-vision, and the Constraints of Child Authorship in Nadja Halilbegovic’s My Childhood under Fire: A Sarajevo Diary,” Anastasia Ulanowicz, Univ. of Florida

541. Queer Youth: Sexuality and Adolescent Transformations

Saturday, 11 January, 12:00 noon—1:15 p.m., Chicago F, Chicago Marriott

A special session

Presiding: Philip Nel, Kansas State Univ.

1. “The Queer Case against Willa Cather’s Paul,” Adam Sonstegard, Cleveland State Univ.
2. “Queer Sentiments: Tomboys and Familial Belonging in Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding,” Kristen Proehl, State Univ. of New York, Brockport
3. “When Queer Isn’t So Queer: The Absent Adolescent in the Work of David Levithan,” Kent Baxter, California State Univ., Northridge

Responding: Sarah Sahn, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana

563. Postcolonial Graphic Memoirs

575. A Reading and Conversation with Katherine Paterson

Saturday, 11 January, 1:45—3:00 p.m., Chicago D, Chicago Marriott

Program arranged by the Conference on Christianity and Literature

Presiding: Roger W. Lundin, Wheaton Coll., IL

Speaker: Katherine Paterson, Barre, VT

595. Comics and Fine Arts

Saturday, 11 January, 3:30—4:45 p.m., Lincolnshire, Chicago Marriott

Program arranged by the Discussion Group on Comics and Graphic Narratives

Presiding: Hillary L. Chute, Univ. of Chicago

1. “Art Worlds, War Worlds, Girl Worlds: Henry Darger, Henry James,” Michael D. Moon, Emory Univ.
2. “Cartoonists Greet the Future: The Antiart of Comics, Modernism, and the Armory Show,” Peter Sattler, Lakeland Coll.
3. “Not Made to Be Looked at with ‘Aesthetic’ Eyes”: Boxed Works by Chris Ware and Marcel Duchamp,” Jonathan R. Bass, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick

---

Sunday, 12 January 2014

691. Broadway Babies

8:30—9:45 a.m., Great America, Chicago Marriott

A special session

Presiding: Donelle Ruwe, Northern Arizona Univ.

1. “Belting: The Construction of Childhood Voice in Annie,” James Leve, Northern Arizona Univ.
2. “‘There’s Going to Be a Change in This Workhouse’: Lionel Bart’s Oliver! and Postwar Youth Culture,” Marc Napolitano, United States Military Acad.
3. “Urchins, Unite: Newsies as an Antidote to Annie,” Marah Gubar, Univ. of Pittsburgh

Abstract:
“Broadway Babies” examines Annie, Oliver!, and Newsies, musicals in which the child is at first isolated, unloved, and impoverished and then is brought into a nurturing, albeit non-traditional, “family.” As the panelists demonstrate, these shows’ dual fantasy of the vulnerable child in need of rescue and the redemptive child who rescues others is complicated by the medium of musical theater.

755. Female Rebellion in Young-Adult Dystopian Fiction

Sunday, 12 January, 12:00 noon—1:15 p.m., Sheffield, Chicago Marriott

A special session

Presiding: Sara K. Day, Southern Arkansas Univ.

1. “‘I Am Beginning to Know Myself’: Rebellious Subjectivities in Young-Adult Dystopian Fiction,” Miranda A. Green-Barteet, Univ. of Western Ontario
2. “‘Rebel, Rebel, You’ve Torn Your Dress’: Distractions of Competitive Girlhood in Young-Adult Dystopian Fiction,” Amy L. Montz, Univ. of Southern Indiana
3. “Docile Bodies, Dangerous Bodies: Sexual Awakening and Social Resistance in Young-Adult Dystopian Novels,” Sara K. Day

768. Collaboration in Comics

Sunday, 12 January, 12:00 noon—1:15 p.m., Colorado, Sheraton Chicago

Program arranged by the Discussion Group on Comics and Graphic Narratives

Presiding: Charles Hatfield, California State Univ., Northridge

1. “Multimodal Composition and the Rhetoric of Comics: A Study of Comics Teams in Collaboration,” Molly Scanlon, Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ.
2. “‘A Story Lived, Photographed[,] Told[,] Written and Drawn’: The Dance of Pen and Camera in Guibert and Lefèvre’s The Photographer,” Birte Wege, Freie Univ.
3. “The Problem of Collaborative Authorship in the Comics Jam,” Isaac Cates, Univ. of Vermont
4. “Collaboration as Consciousness Raising: The Bodies of Feminism in Wimmen’s Comix,” Margaret Galvan, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York