Children's Literature Online Lecture Series: "Picturing Langston Hughes" with Professor Michelle H. Martin

Lecture with Q&A and social time to follow Langston Hughes, best known for his poetry and writings for adults, played an important role in the Harlem Renaissance. With Arna Bontemps, his lifelong friend and his erstwhile collaborator for more than 40 years, Hughes produced a substantial body of work for young people—so much so that scholars consider them the “fathers” of African American children’s literature. Hughes' legacy lives on today in numerous picture books that focus on the artist and his works. Taken together, these picture books present a multi-faceted perspective of the complex artist Hughes was, while honestly portraying the realism of racism and hardship for a child audience. Martin will share her research on how picture book texts, illustrations, historical details, and Hughes’ own words work together in pursuit of racial counter-aggressions—the means by which Hughes persistently resisted the discriminatory systems that pervaded his artistic world. To register and receive a Zoom link to these events, please email KidLit@hollins.edu . Visit us on FB @HollinsUniversityChildrensLiterature For graduate program information, visit Hollins.edu/childlit Michelle H. Martin became the Beverly Cleary Endowed Professor in Children and Youth Services in the Information School at the University of Washington in September 2016. From 2011–June 2016 she was the inaugural Augusta Baker Endowed Chair in Childhood Literacy at the University of South Carolina. She teaches children’s and young adult literature and youth services courses and has published Brown Gold: Milestones of African-American Children’s Picture Books, 1845-2002 (Routledge 2004) and co-edited (with Claudia Nelson) Sexual Pedagogies: Sex Education in Britain, Australia, and America, 1879–2000 (Palgrave, 2003). Martin cofounded Camp Read-a-Rama ( www.Read-a-Rama.org ), a nonprofit that uses children’s books as the springboard for year-round and summer camp literacy immersion programming. Martin publishes widely on issues of diversity in children’s literature and reviews dozens of children’s books annually. She is also Co-PI on a three-year IMLS-funded grant with Katie Campana, Ricardo Gomez, and J. Elizabeth Mills called Project VOICE that is creating a toolkit to help librarians plan outreach with—not for—their communities with a social justice lens and through participatory design activities.