Tuesday, March 21, 2017

2017 NCSCL Visiting Scholar: Michael Joseph

“How to Do Things with Poems”

The 2017 NCSCL Visiting Scholar’s Lecture

Event Details:
Who: Michael Joseph
Rutgers University

Date: Tuesday, April 11th
Time: 3:00 p.m.–4:30 p.m.

The National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature are proud to sponsor this year’s visiting scholar, poet Michael Joseph. His lecture, “How to Do Things with Poems” will consider what Xenephon of Athen’s definition of beauty as “the luminous manifestation of a perfect character of being” has to contribute to our understanding of children’s poetry. Our consideration will take the form of a close analysis of two children’s poems by Robert Graves, an English poet, novelist, critic and classicist.

More information can be found here.

Michael Joseph is a poet, author, critic, and rare books librarian. He received his M.A. in English Literature from the University of Hartford and an M.A. in library service from Columbia University. He is the author of 13 artists’ books and chapbooks of poetry or fiction. Currently, two artists’ books featuring his poems, done in collaboration with artist Sarah K. Stengle, are in VISPO, a traveling exhibition supported by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He is the author of The Teaching Guide to the Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature and has published The True History of Puss in Boots on Mars, with illustrator Henry Charles, through Cats in the Basement Press in 2017. His book Inherent Ogres is in press, with a forward by NCSCL director Joseph T. Thomas. In addition to scholarly essays and reviews that have appeared in numerous books and journals­—including The Lion and the Unicorn and The Children’s Literature Association Quarterly (to name a few)—Michael Joseph has also taught numerous courses at Rutgers University on various subjects in children’s literature.

He is currently working on a monograph about Robert Graves’ children’s writing.


Check back for more updates as the event approaches!