‘The Child and the Book ’
7 - 9 April 2006, Newcastle University
Contacts| Programme | Biographies | Registration | Accommodation |
Biographies
Noga Applebaum is a Children’s Literature PhD student at Roehampton University in London. Her dissertation discusses representation of modern technology in science fiction novels written for young people. Most recent publication: "Electronic Texts and Adolescent Agency: Computers and the Internet in Contemporary Children's Fiction." Modern Children's Literature: An Introduction. Ed. Kimberley Reynolds. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2005. 250-63.
Laura Atkins worked for almost a decade in the children’s publishing industry in the United States, working at Children’s Book Press, Orchard Books, and Lee & Low Books. Her focus was on multicultural children’s literature, and she has worked on books which have won recognitions such as the Coretta Scott King Award and American Library Association Notable listings. After completing her MA in children’s literature at the University of Surrey Roehampton in 2002, she is now pursuing her PhD at the University of Newcastle. Her focus is on ways in which the publishing process affects books written by non-white authors. Most recent publication: "A Publisher's Dilemma: The Place of the Child in the Publication of Children's Books." New Voices in Children's Literature Criticism. Pied Piper Publishing, 2004.
Clive Barnes is a children’s librarian of more than twenty years experience. He reviews for and contributes to the children’s books magazine, Books for Keeps. He has an M.A. in Children’s Literature from Roehampton (2004). Most recent publication: An article, Changes in island adventure in the mid twentieth century, based on Clive’s M.A. dissertation, is recently published in Celia Keenan and Mary Shine Thompson eds. Treasure Islands in Children’s Literature.
Alice Bell has a BSc in Science & Technology Studies from UCL and an MA in Sociology of Education from the Institute of Education, London. She has worked widely in science communication, chiefly at the Science Museum and for the NESTA/ DfES “Science Year” project. She is now in the second year of a PhD in Children's Science Literature at Imperial College. This year she has also been lecturing on science and the public at Wye College and co-founded a research blog on children, science and the media.
Farzad Boobani was born in 1979 in Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province, Iran. After graduating from high school with a diploma in maths, he was accepted for the B. A. in English Literature at Tabriz University. Later he took the entrance exam for the M. A. in English Literature and, earning the first rank nation-wide, he started to study at Tehran University. For the time being he is teaching English Literature at the University of Guilan, Rasht. Recent publication: Nima Yushij and Modern Persian Poetry (A short article on Nima Yushij, the father of modern Persian poetry.)
Born and raised in Buffalo, NY, Nicole Carroll has a great love for her culturally vibrant hometown and hopes to stay there to teach and to try to take part in creating positive change. She received her B.A. in English from Ithaca College (Ithaca, NY) and is currently studying at Buffalo State College (Buffalo, NY) for her certification to teach secondary English. During her time at Ithaca College she also spent a semester studying in Dublin, Ireland, and her experiences there led her down a new path involving an important internship in art therapy and her current, much-loved work at a shelter for at-risk youth. There, she teaches independent living skills and enjoys bringing art, writing, and even a little music into the house to so that the residents can recognize the power and creativity they possess!
Jane Claes is doctoral candidate at Texas Woman's University,
School of
Library and Information Studies as well as an instructor in the School Library
& Information Science Program at the University of Houston Clear Lake in
Houston, Texas, United States. She spent ten years as a public school librarian.
Ms. Claes is a member of the American Library Association where she has served
on Notable Recordings for Children Committee and Notable Videos for Children
Committees. She has also been a member of the Texas Bluebonnet Reading Award
Program Committee. Children’s responses to reading, state book award programs,
and the history of children’s books and publishing are her main areas
of research. Most recent publication: Coast to Coast: Exploring State Book Awards
– paper presented at American Association of School Librarians National
Conference, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, October 2005 with Dr. Janet
Hilbun, Texas Woman’s University.
Anastasia Economidou is Assistant Professor at the School of Educational Sciences in Pre-school Age of the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece, where she teaches Greek and foreign literature for children. Recent publication: A Thousand and One Subversions: Innovation in Children’s Literature, Hellenika Grammata, Athens, 2000.
Susan Elsley has a longstanding interest in children’s books and children’s cultural environments and is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Edinburgh at the Centre for Research in Families and Relationships (CRFR) researching children’s views on childhood in children’s books. This has involved research in primary and secondary schools with young people aged 10 to 14 years. Susan has an MSc in Childhood Studies from the University of Edinburgh. Susan also works as an independent consultant in children’s policy and research having previously worked for Save the Children UK and has over 20 years experience in the areas of children’s services, policy and research. Most recent publication: (2006) ‘‘Miss, there’s the bell’: Researching children’s and young people’s views in the school environment’. Learning from children and young people. Participation, Inclusion and Equity Research Network (PIER), University of Stirling, 25-26 January 2006
Michele Gill is a second year, part-time research student at the University of Newcastle. Her PhD thesis is an exploration of representations of masculinities in contemporary young adult fiction published in Britain, Australia, and the USA. Michele completed an MA in Children’s Literature at the University of Roehampton in 1999. She has worked for several years as a librarian with children and teenagers and is currently the Young People’s Library Services Manager for the London Borough of Ealing. She also works as a volunteer literacy tutor with young offenders in London.
Sarah White Gilmartin is currently enrolled in her second semester of the Master of Arts English program at Buffalo State College. After completion of the M.A. program she plans to continue her education, and will work towards receiving her Ph.D. Apart from her studies, she volunteers for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, which features a world famous collection of predominantly Modern and Post-Modern art, as well as volunteering for the Buffalo Zoological Gardens.
Cassie Hague is in the second year of a PhD in Political Theory at the University of Exeter. She studies the intersection between politics and literature and focuses on exploring the range of political understandings found in youth fiction. Before arriving in Exeter, she completed an MA in Cultural, Social and Political thought at the University of Victoria, Canada and received her BA from the University of Hull. Her academic interests include green theory, poststructuralist thought, feminist theory and the interdisciplinary study of cultural forms. She also maintains an interest in the British Parliamentary system and the efficacy of various lobbying methods. In her spare time, she reads children’s novels obsessively.
Arlene Hsing comes from Taiwan where she acquired her first MA in Fine Art with the dissertation “Visual Art of Picturestory Books”. After that, she worked as an editor of children’s books and was a journalist of a book column in Taiwan. From 2003 to 2004, she gained her second MA in children’s literature at Roehampton University with the dissertation “Ambiguity in Postmodern Metafictive Picturebooks”, which was supervised by Prof. Kim Reynolds. In 2005, she came back to the UK to commence the doctoral programme. The research shifted to a broader scope with more involvement of cultural and gender studies. It investigates textual differences in translations (English-Chinese) resulting from a change in sex from authors to translators, from which it pictures how domination and subversion practice in intellectual transmission. Most recent publication: This February, one of her books Falling into the Rabbit Hole published last August was awarded The Golden Tripod Award given by the Taiwanese government to the best literary book for children and young adults.
Zoe Jaques recently completed an MA in English Studies at Anglia Ruskin University. She is currently writing a PhD on ‘Fantastic Creatures in Children’s Literature’ at the same institution.
Rachel Johnson MA MCLIP. Subject Collections Librarian: Education at the University of Worcester. MA (Literacy and Children’s Literature), Institute of Education, University of Worcester. Part-time research student in the Department of Humanities University of Worcester, working on the children’s writing of George MacDonald and G.A. Henty. Anticipated completion date 2009. Curator: Brown Collection, a research collection of items by and about the nineteenth century author G.A. Henty located in the International Centre for Primary English and Children’s Literature Research, University of Worcester. Most recent publication: Tales with Substance and Meaning. ETEN 14: Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference of the European Teacher Education Network in Viana da Costella, Portugal. May, 2004.
Maria-Venetia Kyritsi has completed the MA in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia and has been previously awarded with the Diploma in Translation from the British Council in Athens, Greece. She translates primarily between English and Greek and her research interest lies mainly in the translation of children’s literature. She is currently completing her PhD at UEA with the subject “Historical Analysis of the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen”, while working as a freelance translator, Greek language teacher and as production editor for UEA’s in-house translation journal Norwich Papers. She also speaks German and Spanish, has published various journal articles and has contributed to the forthcoming Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature. Most recent publication: 2006 (forthcoming), ‘Taboo or not To Be? Edgar Taylor and the First Translations of the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen‘ in Joosen, V. and K. Vloeberghs (eds.) Changing Concepts of Childhood and Children's Literature: From Criticism of Ideology to Cultural Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press).
Margaret Labuschagne joined the Publishing Studies Programme at the Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria, in 2005, having acted as a visiting lecturer since 2003. She obtained her Masters degree cum laude in 1995 at the University of Pretoria, with a focus on feminism in children’s literature. Between 1995 and 2005, she worked as an editor and publisher at various South African publishing houses, including Kagiso Publishers, Macmillan, Maskew Miller Longman and Nasou Via Afrika. She has written several textbooks in the fields of English, Art and History. She is now continuing her research into the history of South African children’s literature written in English, which will someday become a doctorate. She is also involved in the PASA Learnership Programme, as well as the SGB (Publishing) for developing unit standards for publishing studies. Most recent paper delivered: “They shut me up in prose.” Using feminist literary approaches to analyse a history of South African children’s literature written in English”, 2nd Biennial Conference on Children’s Literature, Potchefstroom, 30 June–2 July 2005.
Rebecca Ladbrook has a first degree in English Studies and Anthropology from Oxford Brookes University and a Masters in Cognitive Evolution from the University of Reading. The combination of these fields with her experience as a classroom teacher has led to her current interest in ethnography, post-colonialism and children’s fiction. On the completion of her thesis she wishes to continue teaching, possibly combining this with postdoctoral research on children’s literature. Her current PhD project is titled: Writing The Refugee Experience: Contemporary Literature of Migration for British Children c. 2000-2006.
Sanna Lehtonen graduated from the Department of Languages/ English at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland in 2003. The title of the Master’s Thesis was ‘Contemporary British Society in the Magic World of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books 1997-2000’. She began as a postgraduate student in October 2004. During the academic year 2005-2006 she has been working on a grant from the Department of Languages. Her Ph.D. research project is on character transformations and femininity/ masculinity in Diana Wynne Jones’s and SusanPrice’s children’s fantasy.
Tammy Mielke am a presently a PhD student at University of Worcester, UK. Before beginning her study in the UK, she was an elementary school teacher so constructions of the education system in literature are of great interest to her. Recent publications include articles on the passive girl and the aggressive boy in the 1930s, graphic novels from 2000 to today, and Visual Childhood from Sambo to Speigelman.
Mare Müürsepp was born in 1958 in Tallinn. She was educated as a primary school teacher in 1980 at Tallinn Pedagogical University (today: Tallinn University). Since 1982 she has worked at the same university as a secretary of the chair, then since 1984 as a lecturer of children’s literature. She did her MA in educational science in 1995, and is a composer of textbooks and other materials for teaching of the literature. She completed her PhD in 2005, thesis by the title: The Meaning of the Child In Estonian Culture during 20th Century: Educational Sciences and Children’s Literature. A member of the Nordic Network for Children’s Literature Research; IRSCL, IRA, she participated in doctoral courses of NorChilNet 2002-2003. She works at the research group of the Estonian Children’s Literature Information Centre. Most recent publication: 2005. Sunny Side of Darkness: Children’s Literature in Totalitarian and Post-Totalitarian Eastern Europe. Collection of articles. Edited by Jean Webb and Mare Müürsepp. Tallinn University.
Jane Newland is currently in the final year of a part-time PhD course at the University of Southampton. Her research focuses on series fiction for adolescents in France and instances of commonality, variety in sequencing and resolution, and perceived character growth across series by contemporary French authors including Marie-Aude Murail, Brigitte Smadja, Jean-Philippe Arrou-Vignod and Daniel Pennac. Her theoretical framework is drawn from the thought of Gilles Deleuze and specifically his concepts of répétition and difference. A Deleuzian analysis of series helps provide an understanding of the attraction of series fiction and allows a reassessment of the traditional notions of the series form. Forthcoming publication: Book chapter entitled Beyond the formulaic: Deleuzian Becomings in Series Fiction with Cambridge Scholars Press.
Åse Marie Ommundsen (1972) is a Research Fellow at Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies at University of Oslo, Norway. She holds a Cand. Philol. degree in Scandinavian Studies and Comparative Literature from the University of Oslo (1998), and has earlier served as jurymember of the Norwegian Literature Price (Brageprisen) and as lecturer in Children’s Literature Studies at University of Oslo. Her earlier publications include a book on religious magazines for children from 1875 to 1910. She is currently working on a PhD on Norwegian late modern children’s literature. Her ongoing doctoral dissertation, Literature for Child or Adult? Crossing the borderlines between literature for child and adult, is focusing on new tendencies like all-ages-literature. Her special interest is in late modern literature, on which she has lectured and published articles. Recent publication: “Barndom i senmoderniteten” (“Childhood in late modernity”).
Anette Øster, Cand. Mag. in Comparative Literature, The University of Copenhagen 2001. Research assistant at Centre for Children’s Literature, at The Danish University of Education, Copenhagen from 2000 to 2005, Ph.D student since July 2005-. Most recent publication:”Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales in Translation”, in Coillie, Van, J. & W. Verschueren (eds.): Children’s Literature in Translation: Challenges & Strategies (working title), St Jerome Publishing, will be published in 2006.
Sarah Park is a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She is a native of Los Angeles, and received an M.A. in Asian American Studies (2004) and a B.A. in History and Asian American Studies (2002) from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests are transnational adoption, the construction of Korean American children’s experiences and identities in children’s literature and Korean/Korean American history. She is the recipient of an Institute of Museums and Library Science fellowship that focuses on recruiting and educating doctoral students from underrepresented communities to make up the next generation of Library and Information Science faculty. Her current research project interrogates the representation of Korean adoptees in children’s literature by comparing the narratives to memoirs written by Korean adoptees for more adult audiences.
Dulcie Pettigrew is a retired librarian turned student of children’s literature, currently working towards an MLitt at Newcastle University. She is a volunteer with Seven Stories, working mainly with the Collections team.
Alison Pipitone is a postgraduate student of English Literature at Buffalo State College in Buffalo, New York. She received her Bachelor’s degree in English Literature at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles.
Jennifer Sattaur completed her undergraduate degree in English Literature at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. She is currently studying as a first year PhD student, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, researching Analytical Psychology in relation to children’s and adult’s literature in Victorian Britain. Recent paper presented: Harry Potter: A World of Fear, presented at the Pottermania 2005 Conference, University of Riverside, California in October 2005.
Ulf Schöne was born in Neuwied, West Germany, in 1971. He has an academic education in Nordic Studies, German Literature and Philosophy at the universities of Bonn, Marburg, Trier and Växjö (Sweden), and a master-thesis on Tove Jansson's Moomin-books in 2000. He is currently lecturer of German at Stavanger University, Norway. Most recent publication: Fascism Represented by the Fantastic – Allusions to the “Third Reich” in Jurij Brezan’s Die schwarze Mühle and Otfried Preußler’s Krabat (to be published in 2006).
Kristen Sipper is originally from Orange County, CA, and moved to Nottingham in the summer of 2000 for her MA. Her PhD, started in 2001, is on the brief rise of popularity of Evangelical tract fiction for children in the latter half of the 19th c. After finishing her thesis, she plans on volunteering overseas for a few years, working on higher education advancement for developing countries.
Liz Thiel is in the final year of PhD study at Roehampton University where she also teaches children's literature on undergraduate and MA courses. Her research area is the nineteenth-century alternative or 'transnormative' family group as portrayed in the children's literature of the period written by women, and the way in which such portraits challenge the Victorian domestic ideal and ultimately expose it as a myth. Most recent publication: Co-editor of forthcoming publication A Victorian Quartet (Pied Piper): a study of Georgina Castle Smith, Flora Shaw, Hesba Stretton and Mrs Molesworth.
Maureen Torpey is a lecturer in composition at Buffalo State College and Niagara University in New York State. She is completing her Master's degree at Buffalo State with a thesis on the evolution and development of fairy and folk tale in the novels of Jeanette Winterson. A graduate of Boston College with a B.A. in English and Irish Studies, Torpey focuses her studies in the areas of contemporary, postcolonial and post-modern literature. Her paper is a reflection of her particular interest in the power of people to recreate their worlds through the utilisation of folktales, fairytales and storytelling. Most recent publication: "Cultural Conservation: The Influence of the Irish Literary Revival on the Harlem Renaissance" in Crossroads: A Southern Culture Annual October 2006
Born and raised in the former GDR, Sylvia Warnecke started working on children’s literature during her studies of German and English at the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle/Wittenberg in the late 1980s. After finishing her Staatsexamen in 1995, she moved to Scotland and worked at the universities of Strathclyde and Stirling. Subsequently, she went to the University of Manchester in 1999 to work on her PhD project on re-tellings of myths in GDR children’s literature, the workings of this sphere and its interdependence with the state party’s ideological and cultural-political strategies. In 2001 she returned to Scotland and specialised in the didactics and methodology of blended learning in teaching German as a foreign language. She is currently working as an associate lecturer for German studies and staff trainer for online teaching at the Open University in Scotland and holds the post of Head of Language Department at the Goethe Institut in Glasgow. Most recent publication: “Reynard the fox for children in the GDR: the story of a tamed villain’s adventures?”, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 3(2003), 171-188.
Angelika Zirker was born in Kaiserslautern (Germany) in 1977. She started to study English, French and German at Saarland University, Saarbruecken (Germany) in 1997 and spent two semesters abroad at the University of Metz (France) and at Cardiff University (Wales). During her university studies she was a scholarship holder of the German National Scholarship Foundation. After finishing her degree in November 2003, she first taught at Stuttgart University and since April 2004 has been teaching literature at the English Department of the Eberhard-Karls University in Tuebingen. She is currently writing her PhD-thesis about Lewis Carroll's Alice-books. Recent publication: “Surprises in the Alice-books” (forthcoming).
