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'What's So Funny?' Coats Delivers Gryphon Lecture

February 13, 2009

The cross-disciplinary Youth Literature Interest Group (YLIG) at the Center for Children's Books (CCB) is hosting the fifth annual Gryphon Lecture, which will feature Dr. Karen Coats. Coats is on the faculty of the English department at Illinois State University. The lecture will take place on Friday, March 6, at 6:30 p.m.

Her talk, "What's So Funny About Children's Literature?" will describe and discuss the linguistic and psychoanalytic conditions necessary for children to acquire a sense of humor and understand jokes, and the ways in which children's books facilitate this achievement.

Coats teaches children's and young adult literature and critical theory at Illinois State University, where she is the director of English Education. She is the co-editor of The Gothic in Children's Literature: Haunting the Borders and the forthcoming Handbook of Research on Children's and Young Adult Literature. She is also the author of Looking Glasses and Neverlands: Lacan, Desire, and Subjectivity in Children's Literature (U of Iowa, 2007).

The event will be held in room 126 of the GSLIS building and a reception will follow the presentation, which is open to the public. Evening parking is free in Lot C10 at Fifth and Daniel, entrance on 5th. Please enter through the east door of the GSLIS building.

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