Here are all of the Children’s Literature and Comics/Graphic Novels sessions at the 2022 MLA, held this year in person in Washington, DC! Some of the conference will also be held on-line at [insert your location here]! I plan to be there in person, which will be my very first in-person conference or invited talk since early 2020 – indeed, since the last in-person MLA, in Seattle, in January of that fateful year.
Did I miss any sessions that should be here? Let me know and I’ll add ’em. Thanks!
All times are Eastern Standard Time.
Sessions marked by a “V” are on-line only.
12 – Graphic Narrative in Spanish: Memory as Transitional Justice
Thursday, 6 January 2022, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM
Marriott Marquis – Marquis 15
For related material, write to estherclaudio@g.ucla.edu
Presider: Esther Claudio, U of California, Los Angeles
Presentations
- The Graphic Narrative of Jesús Cossio about Accomarca during the Peruvian Transitional Justice Process, Carla Sagastegui, Pontificia U Catolica del Peru
- Trauma and the Grotesque in Carlos Giménez’s España una, grande y libre, Elizabeth Warren, U of Utah
- La narración visual como soporte biográfico y transmisor de historias de vida, Denisse Torena, U de Granada
Session Information
Keywords
42V – Indigenous Young Adult Novels
Thursday, 6 January 2022, 1:45 PM – 3:00 PM
Presider: Angela Calcaterra, U of North Texas
Presentations
- Decolonizing the Indigenous Tongue: Language in Joseph Bruchac’s Code Talker, Namrata Dey Roy, Georgia State U
- Dreams as Resistance in Indigenous Futurist Novels for Adolescents, Ruth Gehrmann, Johannes Gutenberg U Mainz
- Replacing the Dystopian Hero with Heroic Kin, Kaylee Mootz, U of Connecticut, Storrs
- Indigenous Girl Power and Pleasure in Hearts Unbroken, Mandy Suhr-Sytsma, Emory U
Session Information
- Forum: American – LLC Indigenous Literatures of the United States and Canada
- Program: Forum Sessions
- Subject: Genre, Theory, Method – Children’s Literature
Keywords
77 – Drum Dream Girls and Northern Lights Kids: New Models of Constructing Childhood for New Children
Thursday, 6 January 2022, 3:30 PM – 4:45 PM
Marriott Marquis – Howard University
Presider: Cristina Rhodes, Shippensburg U
Presentations
- Remaking Archives of Childhood: Surveillance, Documentation, and Memory in Native Children’s Literature, Laura Soderberg, U of Southern Indiana
- The Creative Potential of Black Girlhood in Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo and Parable of the Sower, Destiny Crockett, U of Pennsylvania
- Sheltered Childhood and Shelter Cats in Gaby, Lost and Found, Maria Roxana Loza, U of Texas, Austin
Session Information
- Allied Organization: Children’s Literature Association
- Program: Allied Organizations
- Subject: Genre, Theory, Method – Children’s Literature
Keywords
196 – Comics on the Border
Friday, 7 January 2022, 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM
Marriott Marquis – Mint
Examining comics that contest borders national, cultural, and linguistic in a United States context, speakers emphasize how borders in comics allow for thinking through hybrid and marginalized identities and the material constraints on communities. How might comics contribute to the creation of identity and community through production, circulation, and the making of audiences and networks?
Presider: Janine M. Utell, Widener U
Speakers
- Jose Alaniz, U of Washington, Seattle
- Marcel Brousseau, U of Oregon
- Elizabeth Nijdam, U of British Columbia
- Ricardo Quintana-Vallejo, U Nacional Autónoma de México
- Kaitlin Thomas, Norwich U
Session Information
- Forum: GS Comics and Graphic Narratives
- Program: Forum Sessions
- Subject: Comparative Literature – Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Keywords
227 – Contemporary Migration in Coming-of-Age Novels
Friday, 7 January 2022, 10:15 AM – 11:30 AM
Marriott Marquis – Marquis 16
Presider: Ricardo Quintana-Vallejo, U Nacional Autónoma de México
Presentations
- HÃ Means River: Coming of Age Vietnamese American, Lan Dong, U of Illinois, Springfield
- Food from the Holy Land: Hunger and Unreliable Memory in Diana Abu-Jaber’s The Language of Baklava, Julieta Flores Jurado, National Autonomous U of Mexico
- Articulating Adolescence: Childhood Voices of the Colombian Diaspora, Mai Hunt, Brown U
Session Information
Keywords
302V – Political Childhoods, Political Children
Friday, 7 January 2022, 1:45 PM – 3:00 PM
Presider: Mary Zaborskis, Penn State U, Harrisburg
Children’s and YA literature affirms youth are used for the political gain of others and are themselves interested in politics. This panel brings together archival research, literary objects, and historical narratives to consider what it means to be a political child and a politicized child across cultural, racial, and geographic contexts. Participants consider how children negotiate the discursive and material limits imposed on them by adults and institutions.
Speakers
- Maggie Morris Davis, Illinois State U
- Natanael Saraà GarcÃa Santos, Boston U
- Julia Lin, U of Sydney
- Charlotte Lehmann, independent scholar
- Suzanne van der Beek, Tilburg U
Session Information
- Forum: GS Children’s and Young Adult Literature
- Program: Forum Sessions
- Subject: Genre, Theory, Method – Children’s Literature
Keywords
379 – Anima Mundi: Finding Our Shared Ecological Experience in Nonenvironmental Children’s Literature
Friday, 7 January 2022, 5:15 PM – 6:30 PM
Marriott Marquis – Howard University
Presider: Heidi A. Lawrence, U of Glasgow
Presentations
- Anima Mundi and the Animal Story: Recovering One’s Ecological Self in The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, Marie Bertrand, U Paul-Valéry Montpellier
- Silver Talisman or Moral Compass: Sustainable Practices as Modeled in Elizabeth Enright’s Thimble Summer, Renee Lyons, Eastern Tennessee State U
- Save the Chupacabras: Environmentalisms, Social Justice, and Kinship in Latinx Youth Literature, Jesus Montaño, Hope C
Session Information
- Allied Organization: Children’s Literature Association
- Program: Allied Organizations
- Subject: Genre, Theory, Method – Children’s Literature
Keywords
407V – Reading and Translating Comics in Two Directions
Saturday, 8 January 2022, 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM
Presider: Lan Dong, U of Illinois, Springfield
Respondent: Yasmine Khayyat, Rutgers U, New Brunswick
Presentations
- Communicative Imagination in Metrolingual Artistic Expressions, Dina Mahmoud, Penn State U, University Park
- The 99 in Arabic and English: Translating Language, Image, and Genre, Adrienne Resha, William and Mary
- NÄdiya Nash’at: A Pioneer in Adapting American Comic Books into Arabic, Aram Shahin, James Madison U
Session Information
- Forum: GS Comics and Graphic Narratives
- Forum: Arabic – LLC Arabic
- Program: Forum Sessions
- Subject: Arabic Literature
Keywords
457 – Word Play: Nonstandard English and Multilingualism in Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Saturday, 8 January 2022, 10:15 AM – 11:30 AM
Marriott Marquis – Independence C
For related material, write to blankpaige@gmail.com
Presider: [not listed]
Presentations
- Alice Childress’s ‘Harlemese’: Race, Gender, and the Invention of Black YA Literature, James Harris, Bronx Community C, City U of New York
- Linguistic Exuberance as Political Critique in Salman Rushdie’s Luka and the Fire of Life, Rajender Kaur, William Paterson U
- Shifting Linguistic Power in Middle Grades: #OwnVoices Creators and Neurodiversity, Jennifer Slagus, Brock U
Session Information
- Forum: GS Children’s and Young Adult Literature
- Program: Forum Sessions
- Subject: Genre, Theory, Method – Children’s Literature
Keywords
528A – Children’s Literature Pedagogies in an Age of Misinformation
Saturday, 8 January 2022, 1:45PM – 3:00PM
Marriott Marquis – Judiciary Square
Presider: Philip Nel, Kansas State U
Presentations
- For the Bible Tells Me So: Adaptation Transparency in Children’s Bible Texts, Mandy Elizabeth Moore, U of Florida
- A Is for Antifa: Narrative Literacy, Anti-Fascist Education, and Children’s Literature, Annette Wannamaker, Eastern Michigan U
- Young Adult Literature after the Subject: Making Knowledge in the Post-Truth Era, Gabrielle (Brie) Owen, U of Nebraska, Lincoln
Session Information
Keywords
579 – Manga’s Global Influence
Saturday, 8 January 2022, 5:15 PM – 6:30 PM
Marriott Marquis – Independence H
Participants examine manga’s global influence as it travels to other countries (Korea, Senegal, Canada, the United States) and is transformed by local cartoonists making new work that innovates genres and intervenes as forms of anticolonial endeavors.
Presiders: Leah Misemer, Georgia Inst. of Tech; Margaret Galvan, U of Florida.
Speakers
- Ayanni Cooper, U Florida
- Mahriana Rofheart, Georgia Gwinnett C
- Aaron Kashtan, U of North Carolina, Charlotte
- Katherine Kelp-Stebbins, U of Oregon
- Junshik Yun, Brigham Young U, UT
Session Information
- Forum: GS Comics and Graphic Narratives
- Program: Forum Sessions
- Subject: Comparative Literature – Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Keywords
583 – Streetwise: Children’s Literature and Culture in the Modern City
Saturday, 8 January 2022, 5:15 PM – 6:30 PM
Marriott Marquis – Howard University
Presider: Kristin B. Bluemel, Monmouth U
Presentations
- British Children’s Classics in the Modern City: A Tale of Two Series, Amy Webster, Bishop Grosseteste U
- Building a Better London, Elizabeth West, U of Reading
- Modernism for Girls: Laura Riding’s Schooling for Street Smarts, Anett Jessop, U of Texas, Tyler
Session Information
- Allied Organization: Children’s Literature Association
- Allied Organization: Modernist Studies Association
- Program: Allied Organizations
- Subject: Genre, Theory, Method – Children’s Literature
Keywords
626 – Tactical Comics
Sunday, 9 January 2022, 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM
Marriott Marquis – Independence G
Presider: [not listed]
Presentations
- Stripping the News, Joshua Kopin, Thomas Jefferson U
- Miné Okubo, the Graphic Memoir, and the Information Culture of Internment, Benjamin Mangrum, U of the South
- The Art of the News: The Ethical Technics of Comics Journalism, Katherine Kelp-Stebbins, U of Oregon
Session Information
Keywords
643V – Art Spiegelman’s Maus at Thirty
Sunday, 9 January 2022, 10:15 AM – 11:30 AM
Art Spiegelman’s graphic memoir Maus has had an outsize influence since its publication thirty years ago. Scholars in memory studies, Holocaust studies, memoir studies, Jewish studies, and comics studies discuss the development of teaching strategies and scholarship related to Maus over the past thirty years, across the United States and beyond.
Presider: Tahneer Oksman, Marymount Manhattan C
Speakers
- Hillary L. Chute, Northeastern U
- Susan Jacobowitz, Queensborough Community C, City U of New York
- Darrell B. Lockhart, U of Nevada, Reno
- F. K. Schoeman, U of South Carolina, Columbia
- Anthony C. Wexler, Case Western Reserve U
- Josh Lambert, Wellesley C
- Mikhal Dekel, City C, City U of New York
Session Information
- Forum: CLCS Global Jewish
- Forum: American – LLC Jewish American
- Program: Forum Sessions
- Subject: Jewish Literature
Keywords
[Below: Text that I can cut-and-paste for any other sessions I need to add –]
Presider:
Aaron Kashtan
Philip Nel