Elizabeth Marshall Keynote: Global Girls and Strangers: Transnational Travel in The Nancy Drew Mysteries

Elizabeth Marshall Keynote (Room 182) 11:00 A.M. – Noon

While the Nancy Drew series is most often associated with North America, the mysteries are also a global phenomenon. Since the inception of the original series in the 1930s, the books have been translated into numerous languages and sold or marketed across the globe. In addition, the character Nancy Drew regularly travels across national borders to solve mysteries. The Nancy Drew materials demonstrate how fictional representations of “strange” places and contact with “strangers” remain central to texts produced for and marketed to young readers within contemporary North American children’s culture.

Dr. Elizabeth Marshall

Elizabeth Marshall is associate professor in the faculty of education at Simon Fraser University, where she teaches courses in children’s and young adult literature. She is co-editor of Rethinking Popular Culture and Media, and has published articles on the representation of North American girlhoods in children’s literature, popular culture, and women’s memoir. Dr. Marshall’s work has been published in Harvard Educational Review, Gender and Education, Reading Research Quarterly, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, College English, Children’s Literature Quarterly, and Rethinking Schools.

The Keynote Address she’ll be presenting at Stranger in a Strange Land is entitled Global Girls and Strangers: Transnational Travel in The Nancy Drew Mysteries.

More information can be found on Dr. Marshall’s website.

Conference Details

Featured

Stranger in a Strange Land: Exploring Texts and Media for Young People Across Cultures and Continents is a Peer-Reviewed Graduate Student Conference on Children’s Literature and Cultural Texts with keynote speakers Elizabeth Marshall and Sarah Park held at the University of British Columbia on Saturday, April 28, 2012.

This is a one-day conference showcasing graduate research that explores and questions any facet of children’s literature. We are particularly interested in research that draws
upon the broadly interpreted themes of navigation, exploration, and narrative.

The conference fee of $18 for students and presenters, and $35 for faculty and professionals, includes morning and afternoon refreshments and a catered lunch.