Department of English Language & Literature

Education

• Ph.D., Literature, Bowling Green State University, 1997
• MA, English, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1992
• BA, Communications, Virginia Tech, 1987

Interests and Expertise

• Children's and adolescent literature, media, and culture.
• Folktales
• Literary and cultural theory and criticism 

Courses

• CHL 207 Introduction to Children's Literature
• CHL 352 Folktales
• CHL 450-WI Children's Literature: Criticism and Response, writing intensive
• CHL 453 Illustrated Texts 
• CHL 516 Introduction to Graduate Studies in Children's Literature
• CHL 582 Folktales
• CHL 583 Illustrated Texts
• CHL 585 Children's Literature: Criticism and Theory
• CHL 587 Children's Media Studies

Publications and Presentations

Books

• Boys in Children’s Literature and Popular Culture: Masculinity, Abjection, and the Fictional Child. New York: Routledge, 2008. Short-listed as a ChLA recommended book, 2010.
• Editor. Mediated Boyhoods: Boys, Teens, and Young Men in Popular Culture and Media. New York: Peter Lang, 2011.
• Editor, with Michelle Ann Abate. Global Perspectives on Tarzan: From King of the Jungle to International Icon. New York: Routledge, 2012.
• Editor, with Jennifer Miskec. The Early Reader in Children’s Literature and Culture: Theorizing Books for Beginning Readers. New York: Routledge, 2016.  Awarded the ChLA Honor Award (runner up) for best edited collection, 2018.

Articles and Chapters

• “‘This is a well-loved book’: Weighing (in on) Jeff Smith’s Bone.” Comics Storytelling for Young People. Ed. Michelle Ann Abate and Gwen Athene Tarbox. U of Mississippi Press. 2017.
•  “Guilty Pleasures: Neil Gaiman’s Children’s Books for Adults.” Neil Gaiman: Critical Insights. Ed. Joseph Sommers. Salem Press. 2017.
• “The Great American Graphic Novel: Jeff Smith’s Bone and Its Influences.” Good Grief! Children and Comics: A Collection of Companion Essays. Eds. Michelle Ann Abate and Joe Sutliff Sanders. Columbus, OH: Ohio state University Libraries, 2016. PDF. DOI: 10.18061/1811/77539
• “Babymouse in Space: Locating the Reader, Text, Character, and Brand.” The Early Reader Reader in Children’s Literature and Culture: Theorizing Books for Beginning Readers. Ed. Jennifer Miskec and Annette Wannamaker. New York: Routledge, 2016.
•  “A ‘Heap of Meaning’: Objects, Aesthetics and the Posthuman Child in Janne Teller’s Y.A. novel Nothing.” The Lion and the Unicorn 39.1 (January 2015). 82-99.
• “ ‘Missing Everybody’: Language and Identity in Catcher in the Rye.” Critical Insights: Coming of Age. Ed. Kent Baxter. Salem Press, 2013. 196-210.   
• “Now, Tarzan make war!”: World War II ‘B’ Movies, Profits and Propaganda.” Global Perspectives on Tarzan: From King of the Jungle to International Icon. Ed. Annette Wannamaker and Michelle Ann Abate. New York: Routledge, 2012.
• “ ‘Salvation is just words too’: Addie Bundren and the Language of Motherhood.” Approaches to Teaching As I Lay Dying. Ed. Chris O’Donnell. Modern Language Association, 2011.
• " ‘The Attack of the Inedible Hunk!': Food, Language and Power in Captain Underpants." Food in Children's Literature: Critical Approaches. Eds. Kara Keeling and Scott Pollard. New York: Routledge, 2009.
• "Reading in the Gaps and Lacks: (De)Constructing Masculinity in Holes." Children's Literature in Education 37.1 (March 2006) 15-33. Reprinted in Children’s Literature Review. Vol. 200. Edited by Lawrence J. Trudeau. Detroit: Gale, 2015. 6-15.
• "Men in Purple Cloaks, Men Wielding Pink Umbrellas: Witchy Masculinities in the Harry Potter series.” The Looking Glass: Alice's Academy 10.1 (January 2006).
• "Marking Time: Bertolt Brecht's Antigone as tragedy of Revolution and Exile." The Brecht Yearbook 31 (2006) 337-352.
• "Present(ing) Historical Memory: Beah Richards' 'A Black Woman Speaks,' Performance, and a Pedagogy of Whiteness." Theatre Topics 14.1 (March 2004) 339-352.
• "Specters of Potters: Inheritance in the Harry Potter Series." Elsewhere: Selected Essays from the "20th Century Fantasy Literature: From Beatrix to Harry" International Literary Conference. Edited by Deborah Bice. UP of America, 2003, 45-57.
• " ‘Memory Also Makes a Chain': The Performance of Absence in Griselda Gambaro's Antigona Furiosa." Fall 2000/Winter 2001 Journal of The Midwest Modern Language Association, 73-85. Reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism: Griselda Gambaro. Edited by Sarah M. Misemer. Detroit: Gale, 2016.