Sarah Park Keynote: Storying Adoption

Sarah Park Keynote (Room 182) 4:30 – 5:30 P.M.

Since the early 1950s, more than 200,000 Korean children have been sent from South Korea to North America and Europe to be adopted into previously all-white families. More than 110,000 were adopted into the United States and Canada. Representations of these transnationally and transracially adopted Koreans have appeared in over fifty American children’s books since 1955. What kinds of stories do they tell? How are librarians and educators to evaluate these books? And what do Korean adoptees think of these depictions? In this keynote, Dr. Park will share her analyses regarding the content and context of children’s literature depicting transracially adopted Koreans.

Dr. Sarah Park

Dr. Sarah Park is an assistant professor of Library and Information Science at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her research interests include representations of the Korean diaspora in children’s and young adult literature, youth services librarianship, social justice, transracial
adoption, and Korean diasporic history. She teaches courses on children’s and young adult literature, social justice, web design, and library and information science. Her book, Diversity in Youth Literature, edited with Jamie Naidoo, is set to be released this summer by ALA Editions.

The Keynote Address she’ll be presenting at Stranger in a Strange Land is entitled Storying Adoption.

More information on Dr. Park can be found on her 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.