The Instantiation of Narrative in Picturebook Forms

Description:

Narratives have been instantiated across an array of materials, media, and modalities, including oral storytelling, film, novels, tapestries, comics, theater, and children’s picturebooks for centuries. In addition, narrative picturebooks come in many different forms, contain a variety of modalities, primarily written and oral language, visual images, and design elements, and are produced using an array of material and production technologies. Similar to the continuing evolution of narratives in general, narrative picturebooks are part of an extended history of visual and multimodal communication and have been instantiated as printed codices, moveable or pop-up books, volvelles, electronic books, and as digital and augmented reality software applications. As narratives instantiated in picturebook forms continue to evolve, children’s literature scholars need to explore a wider range of theoretical foundations, including semiotics, multimodality, narratology, and ideological aspects of literary phenomena. This seminar will examine how narrative picturebooks are embedded in an array of social, cultural, and literacy practices, specifically the syntactical, modal, compositional, mediational, material, technological, historical, and sociocultural aspects of the instantiation of narrative in picturebook forms.

Professional Bio: Frank Serafini

Frank Serafini is a Professor of Literacy Education and Children’s Literature at Arizona State University. Frank has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles in the field of literacy education, multimodality, and children’s literature. His latest book entitled Beyond the Visual: An Introduction to Researching Multimodal Phenomena was published in 2022.

Frank has been an elementary classroom teacher, a literacy specialist, and an educational consultant for the past twenty-five years. Frank has garnered numerous awards for his teaching and scholarship including the Distinguished Professor of Children’s Literature from the International Literacy Association, the Dina Feitelstein Research Award from the International Literacy Association, and the Distinguished Educator Award from the International Visual Literacy Association.

Frank’s current research projects include visual and multimodal research designs, the history of picturebooks, the instantiation of narrative in multimodal forms, and the complex relationship of words and images in children’s literature.