Associate Professor Carol Tilley will be a keynote speaker at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), which will be held on February 28-March 1. C2E2 brings together the best of pop culture, including comics, graphic novels, and manga, as well as movies, TV, video games, and more.
In her keynote, "Comics Librarianship: Censorship, Gatekeeping—and Growth," Tilley will have a conversation with Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table (GNCRT) President-Elect Alea Perez (MS '15) about the complicated and often contradictory relationship of libraries, comics, kids, and reading. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session moderated by Arianna Adkins (MS '19).
"It's a great pleasure to be invited to be the keynote speaker for the American Library Association's GNCRT programming at C2E2," Tilley said. "The GNCRT has been an official organization for less than a year, which is a marker of both how far comics have come in terms of acceptance with the library community as well as a marker for how far the medium still has to go. It is especially fulfilling for me as a faculty member to have Alea Perez and Arianna Adkins serve as moderators for this event because they are both former students of mine. I like to think I had at least a small role in helping them see the value of librarians' advocating for comics."
At the iSchool, Tilley teaches courses in comics reader's advisory, media literacy, and youth services librarianship. Part of her scholarship focuses on the intersection of young people, comics, and libraries, particularly in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. Her research on anti-comics advocate Fredric Wertham has been featured in The New York Times and other media outlets. An in-demand speaker on the history of comics readership and libraries, Tilley was a 2016 Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards judge and is a past president of the Comics Studies Society.