Gabrielle Halko
Professor
Main Hall 543
GHalko@wcupa.edu
610-436-2371
Education
- Ph.D., Western Michigan University
- M.F.A., Bowling Green State University
- B.A., College of William & Mary in Virginia
Interests
- Children's & Young Adult Literatures and Cultures
- Diversity and Representation in Childhood Studies
- Children's Experiences of War/Internment/Occupation in Children's Literature
- Japanese American Incarceration in Children's Literature
- Literature of the Great Depression
- Pedagogy of Poetry
- American Poetry
Selected Scholarship
In 2016 I co-founded a new scholarly journal, Research on Diversity in Youth Literature, and served as inaugural co-editor for Volumes 1-4. RDYL is online, peer-reviewed, and open access; our mission is to publish scholarship attending to issues of diversity, equity, social justice, inclusion, and intersectionality in youth literature, culture, and media.
As part of my research into children's lives during World War II, I created the website “War Stories: Children’s Experiences of Occupation & Internment in WWII.” This site is a unique resource that offers crucial insight into what children’s lives were like under occupation and internment in the U.S., Canada, and throughout the Pacific. https://kidsandwar.com/
I have two forthcoming book chapters:
“Reclaiming History: The Contradictory Work of Picture Books About Japanese American Incarceration” will appear in the collection Alt KidLit: What Children’s Literature Has Been, Never Was, and Might Yet Be from the University Press of Mississippi.
“Docile Bodies in the Classroom: Invisibility, Erasure, and the Racial Violence of Children’s Literature” will appear in the collection I Die Daily: Police Brutality, Black Bodies, and the Force of Children's Literature from the University Press of Mississippi.
My article, “Baseball, Blue Jays, Bracelets, and Barbed Wire: Picture Books and the Visual Iconography of Japanese American Incarceration” is forthcoming in the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly.
In addition, I give conference presentations several times a year, including these recent talks:
“Decolonizing Children’s Literature: Diversity & Representation in Six Scholarly Journals.” Poster Presentation with undergraduate English majors Camryn Carwll, Kathleen Fricke, Shannon Montgomery, Shannon Solley, and Samantha Walsh. WCU Research & Creative Activities Day, April 2020.
“Creating the Space We Need: Inquiry, Representation and Community on the Path to a New Scholarly Journal.” Part of combined roundtable, “Spirited Inquiry on Equity and Social Justice.” National Conference of Teachers of English (NCTE): Baltimore, MD, November 2019
“What Does Justice Look Like? Hybridity and Reader Activism in Fred Korematsu Speaks Up” Children’s Literature Association: Indianapolis, IN, June 2019