Conferences and Events

2007-2008 Academic Year:

• “Telling Our Stories: Transforming Our Dreams” - A lecture by award-winning Chicana author Amada Irma Pérez

  On April 10, 2008, prominent Chicana author Amada Irma Pérez visited the SDSU campus and delivered a public lecture titled “Telling Our Stories: Transforming Our Dreams.” Her lecture is part of the Latino/a Children’s Literature Lecture Series that the Center for Latin American Studies and the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature collaboratively launched several years ago. (posted 4/08)

  "Telling Our Stories: Transforming Our Dreams" Thursday, April 10, 2008 SDSU Library, Room LA 2203 San Diego State University 12:30 pm – 1:45 pm More information about Pérez’s talk can be found here and here. Both events are FREE and open to the public. For more information, contact Phillip Serrato at pserrato@mail.sdsu.edu.

  Pérez is the author of several bilingual picture books for children, including My Diary from Here to There, My Very Own Room, and Nana’s Big Surprise. In all of her books, Pérez draws upon her personal experiences to depict, among other things, the “realities of immigration [and] the strength of [Mexican-American] families.” In My Diary from Here to There, which was named a Pura Belpre Honor Book, Pérez relates in an intimate, diary-style narrative the anxiety that she endured as a young girl when her family decided to leave Juárez, Mexico, for the United States. Elaborating on the broad appeal and relevance of this book, one reviewer suggests, “Any child who has moved away from a familiar neighborhood or a best friend will identify with Amada, but her story will especially resonate with immigrant kids.” With My Very Own Room, Pérez depicts the universal importance to a child of having a place for herself where she can read, write, think, and generally be herself.
  
  Given Pérez’s commitment to encouraging literacy and multicultural understanding, it is not surprising that during her two-day visit to San Diego, besides delivering her public lecture, the author will conduct a workshop on the SDSU campus with a group of teachers from local schools to discuss strategies for prompting students to write, and she will visit a fourth grade class at Chula Vista Learning Community Charter School to read from her books and field students’ questions.

  Amada Irma Pérez, “Telling Our Stories: Transforming Our Dreams.” April 10, 2008. 12:30-1:45 pm in the SDSU Library room LA 2203. Sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies, the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature, and the International Studies Education Project (ISTEP) with additional support provided by the College of Arts and Letters, the Department of English and Comparative Literature, the SDSU Library, Pacific Review, and SDSU Press.
  

• "Can We Talk About Victorian Children's Theater?" - a lecture by Marah Gubar, University of Pittsburgh

Saturday, March 15 at 5:00 p.m., Marah Gubar from the University of Pittsburgh gave a presentation in the Love Library, Room 430 (fourth floor), entitled "Can We Talk About Victorian Children's Theater?" (posted 3/08)

Description of Presentation:

Mark Twain called children's theatre "one of the very, very great inventions of the twentieth century," and literary critics and theatre historians have concurred with this characterization. In this talk, Gubar contends that the concept of creating professional dramas designed specifically to appeal to children — and some extremely popular examples of this sub-genre — existed as early as the 1870s, making the rise of children's theatre fully coincident with the Golden Age of children's literature.

Biography of Presenter:

Marah Gubar is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, where she currently serves as Director of the Children's Literature Program. She is the author of Artful Dodgers: Reconceiving the Golden Age of Children's Literature (forthcoming from Oxford UP, December 2008). She has also published articles on Lewis Carroll, Juliana Ewing, Lucy Maud Montgomery, E. B. White, and Jack Gantos. Her new project, The Anglo-American Cult of the Child, includes a chapter on the nineteenth-century vogue for child actors, as well as a chapter on adult Victorians' habit of addressing one another in baby-talk.



• "Engaging Students Through the Art of Storytelling" - a presentation by African-American children's literature author Joyce Carol Thomas

On Thursday, February 28 from 12:30-1:45 p.m. at San Diego State University Gateway Center, room 2509. African-American children's literature author Joyce Carol Thomas gave a presentation, including a discussion of Zora Neale Hurston's "What's the Hurry Fox?" (posted 2/08)

 

 

2006-2007 Academic Year:

• "Through the Wardrobe: A Narnia Conference" Event: Friday May 5, 2006; University of California, Riverside.
  Papers on any topic relating to the Narnia novels, the film adaptations, the general C.S. Lewis/Narnia phenomenon, or the reaction to the film and books by various audiences will be presented at this conference. Potential topics include but are not limited to: the connection of Lewis' Narnia books to other works of fantasy, including works by Tolkien and Rowling (may include theorizing about the works' widely divergent receptions); The translation of Narnian Fiction into a Spectacle of Film: Issues of Adaptation Lewis's Ideas of Fantasy, Story, and Myth; The impact of Lewis's Christianity on the novels; Psychological Issues Involved in Reading the Novels, including the impact of reading fantasy on children; Philosophical, Political, and Ethical Issues: May include the depiction of evil or the issues of colonialism, imperialism, sexism, and racism; Narnia seen through the lens of ethnic or gender studies, religious studies, anthropology, sociology, psychology, folklore, etc.; The impact of Lewis's Friendships with Tolkien and the Inklings on the novels' Narnian Predecessors and Narnian Influences; Narnia and Genre Considerations; Narnia and Audience Expectations; Narnia and Educational Theory; Narnia in the Context of Children's Literature; Narnia and Its Reception: May explore the varied responses and controversies surrounding the books.
  Please send all questions to Craig Svonkin. (posted 2/06)
• The annual Children's Literature Association convention took place June 8-11, 2006, in Manhattan Beach, California. Several faculty and students from SDSU's Children's Literature Program presented papers at the conference, on a variety of topics. See: http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/chla/ for more information. (posted 1/06)
• 2006 SUMMER WORKSHOPS: BOOKS IN SPANISH FOR YOUNG READERS The Barahona Center for the Study of Books in Spanish for Children and Adolescents at California State University San Marcos announces three workshops:
  • June 12-14-Current Issues: Books in Spanish for Young Readers. Introduction to and analysis of current practices and problems in selecting and using books in Spanish for children and adolescents. Sample topics and activities are: Discussion of reader appeal and literary quality, the Spanish language publishing world, language issues. (Three-day workshop to be conducted in English. $115.)
  • June 26-28-Books and Reading Strategies for Bilingual Students in Grades K-8. This workshop will focus on reading, selecting, and using appropriate literature to teach reading strategies to bilingual students. Topics and activities will include: selecting appropriate literature-cultural and linguistic considerations, using literature to teach reading strategies such as Reader's Theater, Directed Listening/Reading Thinking Activity, Choral Reading, Preview/Review, Language Experience Approach, Reciprocal Questioning, and responding through the arts. Methods for accelerating vocabulary development and motivating readers will also be demonstrated. (Three-day workshop to be conducted in English. $115.)
  • July 10-12-Books in Spanish for children and adolescents/Los libros en español para niños y adolescentes. Introduction to quality fiction, nonfiction and reference books in Spanish for children and adolescents, including different genres, subjects and countries of publication. (Three-day workshop to be conducted in Spanish; however, Spanish-speaking ability is not required. $115.)
  
  Workshop sessions will be from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Students will be free to use the resources of the Center in the afternoons. Enrollment is limited; early registration is definitely recommended. For further information, please call (760) 750-4070, e-mail Dr. Isabel Schon or write: Barahona Center for the Study of Books in Spanish for Children and Adolescents; California State University San Marcos; 333. S. Twin Oaks Valley Road, San Marcos, CA 92096-0001; Fax: (760) 750-4073. (posted 1/06)

2005-2006 Academic Year:

• Graduate Student Conference, April 7-9, 2006, University of Newcastle, England. "THE CHILD AND THE BOOK. CHILDREN'S LITERATURE: FROM THE PAST TO THE FUTURE."  Papers are invited for the third annual postgraduate conference, The Child and the Book,was held at the University of Newcastle in the UK from April 7-9 2006.  This interdisciplinary event, inaugurated in 2004 at Roehampton University and hosted in 2005 by the University of Antwerp, attracts delegates from all over the world and provides a unique opportunity for postgraduate students to meet, present and discuss their research. The title for this year's conference was "Children's Literature: From the Past to the Future." Abstracts should in some way address this theme, although, as in previous years, the conference is inclusive to all disciplines and research areas and the final programme will reflect the diversity of current postgraduate studies. Thematic strands included: Literary theory and children's literature; Gender studies - masculinist, feminist or queer theory approaches; Ideology and/or reader response; The voice of the child; Children's literature in translation; Publishing and children's literature; and New Voices: new trends. This year's conference spanned three days and incorporated a visit to the new Seven Stories, The Centre for Children's Books ( www.sevenstories.org.uk ), as well as offering specialist research methods training in Children's Literature Studies developed by the Children's Literature Unit in the School of English at the University of Newcastle. It also coincided with the annual board meeting of the International Research Society for Children's Literature, whose members will attend the conference. (posted 12/05)

• Award-winning author Francisco Jiménez gave a free and public talk in Smith Recital Hall on the SDSU campus March 29 at 7:00 pm. Jiménez's talk launches the new Latino/a children's authors series that the Center for Latin American Studies and National Center for the Study of Children's Literature have jointly organized. Jiménez is the author of two autobiographical works, The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child and Breaking Through, as well as two illustrated books, La Mariposa and The Christmas Gift. His talk is titled "Making Connections Across Borders: The Discovery of Self, Purpose, and Place through Writing." For more information on his visit click here. During his visit, Jimenez was interviewed on KPBS. Click here to see a photo and listen to the interview. (posted 3/27/06)

• Children's book author Peter Neumeyer discussed "The Annotated Charlotte's Web, Revisited" on November 16 at 7 p.m. in Room LA2203 of the San Diego State University Library. The talk, which is co-sponsored by the library and the Department of English and Comparative Literature, is free and open to the public.

2004-2005 Academic Year:

• June 9-12, 2005: Children's Literature Association Conference was held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, CANADA. For more information please visit the website at chla.uwinnipeg.ca. Several faculty were in attendance, as well as SDSU student Christina Cheng, who presented her paper "Construction and Subjectivity of Children in the Book and Film of Ian Fleming's Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang". Visit the program page to see an abstract of her paper: http://chla.uwinnipeg.ca/sessions.cfm?idProgram=14

• August 13-17, 2005: The International Research Society for Children's Literature (IRSCL) Biennial Congress was held in Dublin, IRELAND. For more information please visit www.irscl.ac.uk.

• May 14, 2005: The San Diego Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) Conference was held Saturday, at the Mission Valley Resort. Speakers included editors Mark McVeigh and Andrea Beebe, and authors Sid Fleischman, James Bonnet, Steve Mooser, and Suse MacDonald. For more information see the SCBWI website: www.sandiego-scbwi.org.

• February, 2005: A huge, successful, Pippi Longstocking 2005 SDSU extravaganza took place February 2005! Click HERE for details!

2003-2004 Academic Year:

• June 10-12, 2004: Dreams and Visions: the 31st Annual Children's Literature Association Conference was held in Fresno, CA. For more information see the ChLA website: http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/chla/.

• March 6, 2004: Sid Fleischman returned to SDSU to receive a Monty Award for Distinguished Alumni, presented by Love Library.

• March 20, 2004: Edward Gorey Exhibit and talks by Andreas Brown, Trustee of the Gorey Estate and Peter Neumeyer, well-known Children's Literature scholar and Professor Emeritus from the English and Comparative Literature Department. Neumeyer also authored three books illustrated by Gorey as well as The Annotated Charlotte's Web. To read more about the exhibit, click here.

• February 13-14, 2004: Caldecott-winner Gerald McDermott was at SDSU as part of the "Spirit of the Land" Symposium to explore Conservation, the Environment, and the Native American Perspective. His panel was devoted to environmental issues in children's books, such as his Arrow to the Sun and Papagayo.

• January 2004: See Jerry Griswold's New York Times book review of Newbery winner The Tale of Desperaux.

2002-2003 Academic Year:

• June 5-8, 2003: Children's Literature Association Annual Conference was held at the University of Texas at El Paso. Check out the DETAILS.

• April 25-27, 2003: Read the Press Release for the FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT CONFERENCE held at CSU Fresno.

• March 26, 2003: Pam Muñoz Ryan spoke at SDSU as a part of the Children's Literature Circle Lecturer Series. Read HERE for more information.