CFP Panel on Where the Wild Things Are (1/15/14)

A head's up courtesy the American Literature Association (click for pdf).

CALL FOR PAPERS
Children’s Literature Society
American Literature Association
25th Annual Conference
May 22-25, 2014
Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill
400 New Jersey Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001

Panel #2: The Wild Things. Where Are They Now?

Fifty years after the publication of the iconic picture book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, the public imagination is still captivated by Max's story of adventure, mischief, power, journey, fantasy, repression, surrealism, and illusion in place and time. The expansion of Sendak's imagination for this title has led to a feature length film and to a popular culture phenomenon based on the impact of his work on readers. Likewise literary criticism in children's literature has continued to explore the importance of this work and its reverberations through the genre of children's literature. In this panel, we invite scholars to broadly explore Where the Wild Things Are expanding their approaches to this text or related texts (e.g., Jon Klassen's This is Not My Hat) considering the fifty years of research, literary, art and philosophical thought since its publication.

Please include academic rank and affiliation and AV requests
Please send abstracts or proposals by Wednesday, January 15, 2014 to Dorothy Clark (Dorothy.g.clark@csun.edu), Linda Salem (salem.sdsu@gmail.com)

Conference details may be found at the American Literature Association web
site: www.americanliterature.org

Cryptid Heroes from the Kroffts

Here's the last set for tonight, two cryptid heroes from Sid and Marty Krofft:

Monster (Super)Heroes and (Super)Villains

Here's a mixed group of shows featuring monsters as superhero-like heroes and villains. Details on all five shows can be found on their respective Wikipedia pages.

Relative of Kong?

Grape Ape, also from Hanna-Barbera, is a humorous take on the figure of King Kong. Grape is a hero and, instead of a boy, has a canine companion.

Frankenstein Jr.

Another classic Hanna-Barbara series. Again, like Frankenstein, Milton, and Speed Buggy, the robot known as Frankenstein Jr. (voiced by Ted Cassidy) is a created being and, like Godzilla and The King Kong Show, has a boy companion.




Frankenstein Jr. seems also a bit inspired by another series from the 1960s, Gigantor, as revealed below:

King Kong Cartoons

Two series featuring the cryptid King Kong. Both feature the giant gorilla (Gigantopithecus?) as a heroic figure.

The first series, from the 1960s, introduces a recurrent theme when the preternatural is translated into children's culture and follows the now familar motif of a boy and his monster.



The second, a more recent series, also allies Kong with humans and, like the Godzilla cartoon from the 1980s, grants the monstrous hero superpowers.