Paula Connolly, associate professor of English, will discuss her work “Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010” at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 24, at the J. Murrey Atkins Library. This talk is part of the Personally Speaking series, presented by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and the library.
“Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010” is considered the first comprehensive study of its kind. The work examines the politicizing nature of children’s literature and explores how political ideologies intersect childhood with nationhood.
According to Connolly, in many ways, the history of American children’s literature about slavery is a history of how literature has been used to preserve or challenge a racialized status quo. As much as children’s literature is a means by which adults try to shape the future, children’s literature about slavery tells the story of the nation’s racial struggles and desires, its stories serving as a record of the racial myth-making of the United States from the nation’s beginnings to the present day.
Connolly’s March 24 Personally Speaking talk is free and open to the public; reservations are requested. A book signing and reception will follow.
A member of the English faculty, Connolly also is coordinator of the department’s children’s literature programs. Her areas of research include representations of slavery and race in American literature, particularly in American children’s literature, as well as visual semiotics and film in children’s literature and childhood studies.
She has served on the editorial board of Children’s Literature in Education: An International Quarterly, and she is working on “Stories of Slavery, Stories for Children, 1800-1865,” an edited collection of stories about slavery culled from rare-book collections.
A graduate of Boston College, Connolly completed a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.