Dahlen to deliver 2020 Gryphon Lecture

Sarah Park Dahlen

Sarah Park Dahlen (MS '09, PhD '09), iSchool research fellow and associate professor in the Master of Library and Information Science Program at St. Catherine University, will deliver the 2020 Gryphon Lecture on November 12. Sponsored annually by The Center for Children's Books (CCB), the lecture features a leading scholar in the field of youth and literature, media, and culture.

In "(Re)Presenting Korea: The Carpenters and the White American Imaginary," Dahlen will discuss how the writings of Frances and Frank Carpenter influenced Asian American youth literature.

Frances Carpenter was a 20th century writer who authored several children's books that were partially influenced by her travels with her father, Frank Carpenter, a journalist and travel writer. In 1908, they visited Korea while Japan was in the process of annexing the country. This trip and her continuing interest in Korea thereafter, likely inspired her writing of the children's folktale collection, Tales of a Korean Grandmother (1947). This book, in turn, inspired Newbery Award winner Linda Sue Park to write Seesaw Girl, her first chapter book.

Through her analysis of the Carpenters' archives, Dahlen hypothesizes that "Carpenter wrote compassionately about Koreans, despite the larger geopolitical context in which she published, because of her visits to Korea and experiences with Korean people."

"It was at the University of Illinois that my journey with Frances Carpenter really began," said Dahlen. "I first started studying Carpenter in Dr. Christine Jenkins' History of Children's Literature class in the 2000s; only recently did I begin to revisit Tales of a Korean Grandmother and decide to make it my next research project."

Dahlen's research addresses transracially adopted Koreans in children's literature, the information behaviors of adopted Koreans, and diversity in children's literature and library education. She is co-founder of the scholarly journal Research on Diversity in Youth Literature, with Gabrielle Halko, and co-editor of Diversity in Youth Literature: Opening Doors Through Reading (2013), with Jamie Campbell Naidoo. She facilitated the creation of the 2015 and 2018 Diversity in Children's Books Infographics based on data from the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Bickers joins administrative team

Hope Bickers joined the iSchool on May 22 as an office manager. In her new role, she will provide administrative support for the associate dean for academic affairs and program directors.

Hope Bickers_Headshot

iSchool course introduces students to career pathways

iSchool undergraduates have the opportunity to explore various career pathways and meet potential employers through a unique course, IS 200 CE: Career Exploration and Development (formerly IS 199 EE: iSchool Explore, Engage, Develop). This one-credit course focuses on professional development and career exploration by connecting students with industry representatives, alumni, current students, faculty, and staff. It provides an opportunity for students to build a professional network and teaches them the skills to do so through course assignments, informal interview and career fair presentations, and other professional workshops.

IS 200 Students

2022 Downs Intellectual Freedom Award given to New College of Florida Defenders

For their tireless efforts to support academic freedom, New College of Florida faculty, librarians, student reporters of The Catalyst, and the Defend New College and Save New College student and alumni organizations have collectively been named the 2022 recipient of the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award. The award is given annually by the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and cosponsored by Sage, global academic publisher of books, journals, and library resources.

MSLIS degree leads to meaningful career for Orphan

For Stephanie Orphan (MSLIS '98), the best part of her job as program director at arXiv is knowing that she is contributing to something meaningful that helps individuals as well as society. That was the same reason that she decided to earn a degree in LIS. "It seemed like a move that would lead me to gratifying, meaningful work, and that has turned out to be true."

Stephanie Orphan

Fab Lab hosts visitors during Boneyard Arts Festival

The Informatics Program’s Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab hosted over 200 visitors of all ages for an open house on April 16. The event was held during the Boneyard Arts Festival, an annual three-day event hosted by 40 North | 88 West that showcases local artists, businesses, and organizations in the Champaign-Urbana community. The iSchool oversees Informatics Programs for the University.

Fab Lab open house visitors