Michelle Ann Abate

Headshot of Michelle Ann Abate

Professor, Department of Teaching and Learning

Program Area: Literature for Children and Young Adults

(614) 292-4405
abate.30@osu.edu

Biography

Michelle Ann Abate is Professor of Literature for Children and Young Adults.  

She is the author of six books of literary criticism: 

  • No Kids Allowed: Children’s Literature for Adults (Johns Hopkins University, 2020)
  • Funny Girls: Guffaws, Guts, and Gender in Classic American Comics (University Press of Mississippi, 2019)
  • The Big Smallness: Niche Marketing, the American Culture Wars, and the New Children's Literature (Routledge, 2016)
  • Bloody Murder: The Homicide Tradition in Children's Literature (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013)
  • Raising Your Kids Right: Children’s Literature and American Political Conservatism (Rutgers University Press, 2010)
  • Tomboys: A Literary and Cultural History (Temple University Press, 2008).

Professor Abate is also the co-editor of four books of critical essays: 

  • Graphic Novels for Young Readers: A Collection of Critical Essays, with Gwen Athene Tarbox (University Press of Mississippi, 2017)
  • C. S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia Casebook, with Lance Weldy (Palgrave, 2012)
  • Global Perspectives on Tarzan: From King of the Jungle to International Icon, with Annette Wannamaker (Routledge, 2011)
  • Over the Rainbow: Queer Children's and Young Adult Literature, with Kenneth B. Kidd (University of Michigan Press, 2010).

In addition, Professor Abate has published critical essays on a wide range of topics, including The Muppet Show, Calvin and Hobbes, Fun Home, Nancy Drew, The Far Side, The Outsiders, Garfield, The Hunger Games, Mickey Mouse, The Boxcar Children, Frozen, Where the Wild Things Are, Little Women, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Caddie Woodlawn, “Snow White,” the Left Behind novels for kids, The Book Thief, and the genres of lesbian pulp fiction and young adult novels.

In recent years, Professor Abate's work has been discussed in The Boston Globe, she has been a featured guest on NPR's The Colin McEnroe Show, and she has written invited opinion pieces for The New York Times about current trends in young adult fiction. Professor Abate's book Tomboys: A Literary and Cultural History was a finalist for the national Lambda Literary Awards in the category of LGBTQ Studies.

Education

  • PhD, English, Graduate School and University Center of the City, University of New York, New York, 2004
    • Certificate in Women’s Studies
  • MPhil, English, Graduate School and University Center of the City, University of New York, New York, 2001
  • BA, English, Canisius College, Buffalo, New York, 1997

Research Interests

Experience

July 2018 – Present   Professor of Literature for Children and Young Adults, 

The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.  

    • Department of Teaching and Learning
    • Department of English (Courtesy Appointment)
    • Affiliated Faculty with Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 

August 2013 – June 2018    Associate Professor of Literature for Children and Young Adults, 

The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.  

    • Department of Teaching and Learning
    • Department of English (Courtesy Appointment)
    • Affiliated Faculty with Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 

2010 – 2013    Associate Professor of English, Hollins University, Roanoke, Virginia.

    • Faculty Member in the M.A./M.F.A. Program in Children’s Literature
    • Affiliated Faculty with Gender and Women’s Studies Program

2004 – 2010 Assistant Professor of English, Hollins University, Roanoke, Virginia.

    • Faculty Member in the M.A./M.F.A. Program in Children’s Literature
    • Affiliated Faculty with Gender and Women’s Studies Program

Honors

  • 2009, Herta Freitag Faculty Legacy Award, Hollins University.

Selected Grants

  • 2016, Summer Repository Research Fellowship, Indiana University, Institute for Advanced Study
  • 2014, Faculty Research Grant, Children's Literature Association
  • 2010, Cabell Grant (competitive monetary award given to support sabbatical travel and research), Hollins University
  • 2009, Faculty Research Grant, Children’s Literature Association
  • 2005-2011, Faculty Travel and Research Grant, Hollins University

Selected Publications

Peer-Reviewed Books:

Peer-Reviewed Co-Edited Collections of Critical Essays:

  • Abate, M. A. and G. A. Tarbox, (Eds.)  (2017).  Graphic Novels for Children and Young Adults: A Collection of Critical Essays.  Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press.
  • Abate, M. A. and L. Weldy (Eds).  (2012).  C. S. Lewis:  The Chronicles of Narnia casebook.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan Press.
  • Wannamaker, A. and M. A. Abate. (Eds.)  (2012).  Global Perspectives on Tarzan:  From King of the Jungle to International Icon.  New York: Routledge.
  • Abate, M. A. and K. B. Kidd. (Eds.)  (2011).  Over the Rainbow:  Queer Children’s and Young Adult Literature.  Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.  

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles:

  • Abate, M. A.  (2020). The Far Side of Comeeks:  Gary Larson, Lynda Barry, and Ugliness.  ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Studies in Comics, 11 (2).  Available here:  http://imagetext.english.ufl.edu/archives/v11_2/abate/
  • Abate, M. A.  (2019).  Drawing racial lines: The aesthetics of Franklin in Peanuts.  INKS: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society, 3 (3).  227 – 248.
  • Abate, M. A.  (2019).  “They’re quite strange in the larval stage”: Children and childhood in Gary Larson’s The Far Side.”  International Journal of Comic Arts, 21 (1).  390 – 422.
  • Abate, M. A. (2019). “A gorgeous waste”:  solitude in Calvin and Hobbes.  The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 10 (5 & 6).  488 – 504.
  • Abate, M.A.  (2019).  “Do you want to build on a racist tradition?”:  Olaf from Disney’s Frozen and Blackface Minstrelsy.  The Journal of Popular Culture, 52 (5).  1058 – 1080.
  • Abate, M. A.  (2019).  The new millennium minstrel show:  Blackface elements in Seinfeld, Parks and Recreation, and Miranda Sings.  Journal of Popular Film and Television, 47 (3).  132 – 151.
  • Abate, M. A. (2019).  Out of the Past:  Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, the AIDS Crisis, and Queer Retrosity.  Research on Diversity in Youth Literature, 2 (1).  
  • Abate, M.A.  (2019). Taking The Hidden Staircase to the Murder Castle: The Nancy Drew Mystery Series and the First Serial Killer in the United States. Clues: A Journal of Detection, 37 (1). 91 – 104.
  • Abate, M. A. (2018).  Reading capital: Graphic novels, typography, and literacy.  English Journal, 108 (1). 66 - 72.
  • Abate, M. A. (2018). “You Are Een the House of Sanjak!”:  Terry and the Pirates, the first lesbian character in U.S. comics, and the roots of Wonder Woman.”  ImageTexT, 9 (3). Available full-text here:  http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v9_3/abate/ 
  • Abate, M.A. (2017). “Good times are ahead. Or behind.  Because they sure aren’t here”: Garfield and Negative Space.  INKS:  The Journals of the Comics Studies Society, 1 (3).  288 – 308.
  • Abate, M. A. (2017).  Mickey Mouse as Teddy’s Bear:  The political cartoons of Clifford Berryman and the origins of Disney’s iconic character.  Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 42 (4).  396 – 416.
  • Abate, M. A. (2017).  “Springtime in the South is like a song in my heart”:  Raina Telgemeier’s Drama, the romanticization of the plantation South, and the romance plot.  Children’s Literature in Education, 48 (4).  355 – 377.
    • Reprinted in slightly modified form in I Die Daily: Police Brutality, Black Bodies, and the Force of Children’s Literature.  Eds. Michelle Hite and Althea Tate.  Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2020.
  • Abate, M. A. and S. B. Fletcher.  (2017).  “Staring into all their yellow eyes”: Where the Wild Things Are, the 1960s, and the Vietnam war.  International Research in Children’s Literature, 10 (1).  59 – 73. 
  • Abate, M. A.  (2017). “Soda attracted girls like honey draws flies”:  The Outsiders, the boy band formula, and adolescent sexuality.  Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 42 (1).  43 – 64. 
    • Reprinted in Critical Insights: The Outsiders.  Ed. M. Katherine Grimes.  Amenia, NY:  Grey House, 2018.  156 – 186.
  • Abate, M. A. (2016). From battling adult authority to battling the opposite sex: Little Lulu as gag panel and comic book. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 7 (4).  381 – 402.
  • Abate, M. A. (2016). “The tricky reverse narration that impels our entwined stories”:  Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and queer temporalities.  The ALAN Review. 43 (4), 30 – 44.
  • Abate, M. A. (2016). Not hoovervilles, but hooch:  Gertrude Chandler Warner’s The Boxcar Children and the roaring twenties. Children’s Literature in Education.  47 (3), 257 - 256.   
  • Abate, M. A. (2016).  “There is something very different about this book!’:  Mabel Maney’s The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse, the Nancy Drew mystery stories, and religion.” Literature and Theology, 30 (2), 164 - 181.     
  • Abate, M. A. (2016). “The bombs were coming—And so was I”:  The trauma of war and the balm of bibliotherapy in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief.  Red Feather:  An International Journal of Children in Popular Culture, 7 (1), Available here:  http://www.redfeatherjournal.org
    • Reprinted in Children’s Literature Review: Markus Zusak.  Gale/Cengage Learning, 2021.  
  • Abate, M. A. (2015). Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers as board book:  From the matter of materality to the way that materiality matters. Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, 7 (2), 40 - 64.
  • Abate, M. A. (2015). “The capitol accent is so affected almost anything sounds funny in it”: The Hunger Games trilogy, queerness, and paranoid reading.  Journal of LGBT Youth, 12 (4), 397 - 418.
  • Abate, M. A.  (2015). “Always gettin’ in trouble”:  The Li’l Tomboy comic book series, the good female consumer, and the fifties bad girl. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 6 (1), 59 - 90. 
  • Abate, M. A.  (2014). “Learning how to be the boy or girl that you are”:  Me Tarzan, You Jane, the crusade to ‘cure’  pre-homosexual children, and the new face of the ex-gay movement in the United States. Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, 7 (3), 534 - 555.  
  • Abate, M. A. (2014). “And don’t forget to vote!”:  Political parodies of popular pictures books and the new American broadside.”  The Lion and the Unicorn, 38 (1), 1- 29.  
  • Abate, M. A. (2014).  The biggest loser:  Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter Series, the queer art of failure, and the American obsession with achievement. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature, 52 (1), 1 -10.
  • Abate, M. A.  (2013). A womb with a political view:  Barbara Park’s MA! There’s Nothing To Do Here!, prenatal parenting, and the battle over personhood.  Children’s Literature in Education, 44 (4), 326 - 343. 
  • Abate, M. A.  (2012). “You must kill her”:  The fact and fantasy of filicide in “Snow White.”  Marvels and Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies, 26 (2), 178 - 203. 
  • Abate, M. A.  (2012). When clothes don’t make the man:  Sartorial style, conspicuous consumption and class passing in Lothar Meggendorfer’s Scenes in the Life of a Masher.  Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 37 (1), 43 - 65.  
  • Abate, M. A. (2011). “The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties. . . off with his head!”:  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the anti-gallows movement. Papers:  Explorations in Children’s Literature, 21 (1), 33 – 56.
  • Abate, M. A. (2011).  Constructing modernist lesbian affect from late-Victorian masculine emotionalism:  Willa Cather’s “Tommy, the Unsentimental” and J. M. Barrie’s Sentimental Tommy. Women’s Writing,  18 (4), 468 - 485.
  • Abate, M. A.  (2010). Plastic makes perfect:  My Beautiful Mommy, cosmetic surgery, and the medicalization of motherhood. Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 39 (7), 715 - 746.
  • Abate, M. A. (2010).  From Christian conversion to children’s crusade:  The Left Behind Series for Kids and the changing nature of evangelical juvenile fiction. Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, 2 (1), 84 - 111.
  • Abate, M. A. (2010).  Bury my heart in recent history:  Mark Twain’s ‘Hellfire Hotchkiss,’ the massacre at Wounded Knee, and the dime Western formula. American Literary Realism, 42 (2), 114 - 128. 
  • Abate, M. A. (2009). Taking silliness seriously:  Jim Henson’s The Muppet Show, the Anglo-American tradition of nonsense, and cultural critique. The Journal of Popular Culture, 42 (4), 589 - 613.  
  • Abate, M. A.  (2009).  The politics of prophecy:  The U.S. culture wars and the battle over public education in the Left Behind Series for Kids. International Research in Children’s Literature (IRCL), 2 (1), 1 - 20.  
  • Abate, M. A. (2009).  “One state, two state, red state, blue state”:  Bringing partisan politics to picturebooks in Katharine DeBrecht’s Help! Mom! Series. The Lion and the Unicorn, 33 (1), 77 - 103.
  • Abate, M. A. (2008). Becoming a ‘red-blooded’ American:  White tomboyism and American Indian tribalism in Caddie Woodlawn.  Mosaic:  A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, 41 (4), 143 – 159.
  • Abate, M. A. (2008).  Zona Gale’s Friendship Village:  Expanding the scope of feminist fabulation and broadening the boundaries of speculative fiction.  Extrapolation, 49 (1), 5 - 23.
  • Abate, M. A. (2008).  Trans/Forming girlhood:  Transgenderism, the tomboy formula, and Gender Identity Disorder in Sharon Dennis Wyeth’s Tomboy Trouble. The Lion and the Unicorn, 32 (1), 40 - 60.
    • Abridged version reprinted (2015) in R. C. Evans (Ed.), Critical Insights: LGBTQ Literature (pp. 291 – 316), Hackensack, NJ: Salem Press/EBSCO.
    • Abridged version reprinted (2014) in M. S. Breen (Ed,), Critical Insights: Gender, Sex, and Sexuality (pp. 226 – 243), Hackensack, NJ: Salem Press/EBSCO.
  • Abate, M. A. (2007).  From Cold War lesbian pulp to contemporary YA novels:  Vin Packer’s Spring Fire, M. E. Kerr’s Deliver Us from Evie, and Marijane Meaker’s fight against fifties homophobia.  Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 32 (3), 231 - 251.
  • Abate, M. A. (2007).  The “possessed” reassessed:  Elizabeth Stoddard’s The Morgesons, the Salem witchcraft hysteria and literary (anti)nationalism. ATQ:  American Transcendental Quarterly.  21 (1), 47 - 65.
  • Abate, M. A. (2006).  Topsy and Topsy-Turvy Jo:  Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and/in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Children’s Literature, 34, 59 - 82.
  • Abate, M. A. (2006). Launching a gender b(l)acklash:  E. D. E. N. Southworth and the emergence of (racialized) white tomboyism.  Children’s Literature Association Quarterly.  31 (1), 40 - 64.
  • Abate, M. A. (2005).  Oversight as insight:  Reading the Second Shepherds’ Play as the Second Shepherd’s Play.”  Early Theatre.  8 (1), 95 - 108.  
  • Abate, M. A. (2001).  Reading red:  The man with the (gay) red tie in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. The Mississippi Quarterly.  54 (3), 293 - 312.
    • Reprinted (2008) in H. Bloom (Ed.), Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations:  William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (pp. 181 – 196), New York: Infobase.

Chapters in Peer-Reviewed Books:

  • Abate, M. A. (2020). “The Effect of Affect:  YA Literature, Literary Theory, and Emotionalism.”  Teaching Young Adult Literature.  Eds. Mike Cadden, Roberta Seelinger Trites, and Karen Coats.  Modern Language Association.  1 – 27.
  • Abate, M. A.  (2020).  “Mo Van Pelt: Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For and Charles Schulz’s Peanuts.”  The Comics of Alison Bechdel:  From the Inside Out.  Ed. Janine Utell.  University of Mississippi Press.  68 – 88. 
  • Abate, M. A. (2019).  “All by myself:  Single-panel comics and the question of genre.”  The Oxford Handbook of Comic Book Studies.  Ed. Frederick Luis Aldama.  Oxford UP.  DOI:  10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190917944.013.41
  • Abate, M. A.  (2016). The Boxcar Children and The Box-Car Children: The rewriting of Gertrude Chandler Warner’s classic and the origins of the early reader.  In J. Miskec and A. Wannamaker (Eds.), The early reader in children’s literature and culture (pp. 26 - 37). New York: Routledge.
  • Abate, M. A. (2014.)  Pundit knows best: The self-help boom, brand marketing and The O'Reilly Factor for Kids,” In A. N. Howe and W. Yarbrough (Eds), Kidding around: The child in film and media (pp. 139 – 164). New York:  Bloomsbury Press. 
  • Abate, M. A. (2013.) “Mischief of one kind and another”:  Nostalgia in Where the Wild Things Are as text and film.”  In V. B. Cvetkovic and D. Olson (Eds.), Portrayals of children in popular culture: Fleeting images (pp. 139 - 152). Lanham, MD:  Lexington/Rowan & Littlefield Press.  
  • Abate. M. A.  (2012.) “An axe in the hands of a burly negro cleft the captain from forehead to chin”: Tarzan of the Apes and the American urban jungle.”  In A. Wannamaker and M. A. Abate (Eds.), Global perspectives on Tarzan:  From king of the jungle to international icon (pp. 13 - 27). New York: Routledge.
  • Abate, M. A. (2010.)  When girls will be bois: Female masculinity, genderqueer identity, and millennial LGBTQ culture. In A. Wannamaker (Ed.), Mediated boyhoods: boys, teens, and tweens in popular media and culture (pp. 15 - 35). New York: Peter Lang.  

Critical Introductions to Peer-Reviewed Books:

  • Tarbox, G. A. and M. A. Abate. (May 2017).  Graphic novels for young readers: A collection of critical essays.  (Eds. M. A. Abate and G. A. Tarbox.)  Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press.  3 – 16.
  • Abate, M. A. and A. Wannamaker.  (2012). “Think Locally, Swing Globally:  The Adventures of Tarzan from American Ape-Man to International Icon.”  Global Perspectives on Tarzan:  From King of the Jungle to International Icon. (Eds. M. A. Abate and A. Wannamaker).  Routledge, 2012. 1 – 10.
  • Abate, M. A. and K. B. Kidd.  “Introduction.”  Over the Rainbow:  Queer Children’s Literature.  (Eds. M. A. Abate and K. B. Kidd.)  University of Michigan Press, 2011.  1 – 11. 

Co-Edited Collections of Peer-Reviewed Companion Essays for Museum Exhibits:

  • Abate, M. A. and J. S. Sanders (Eds.)  (2016).  Good grief! Children and comics: A collection of companion essays. 
    • A digital collection of peer-reviewed essays that accompanied the exhibit “ ‘Good Grief!’:  Children and Comics,” which was on display at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, June 2016 – October 2016.  I co-curated the exhibit with Karly Marie Grice.  Available here:  https://cartoons.osu.edu/children/#Table_of_Contents  

Selected Presentations

  • Abate, M. A. (2019).  “The Aesthetics of Franklin in Peanuts:  The Prevalence of Structural Racism and the Limits of White Activism.”  Children’s Literature Association Conference (ChLA). Indianapolis, IN.  June 13th – 15th, 2019.
  • Abate, M. A. (2018). “Out of History: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, the Reclamation of History, and Queer Retrosity,” Modern Language Association Convention (MLA).  New York, NY.  January 4th – 7th, 2018.
  • Abate, M. A. and S. B. Fletcher. (2017).  “Staring into all their Yellow Eyes”: Where the Wild Things Are, the 1960s, and the Vietnam war.  Midwest Modern Language Association Conference (MMLA).  Cincinnati, OH.  November 9th – 11, 2017.
  • Abate, M. A. (2017).  Equal parts timely as timeless:  Dr. Seuss’s You’re Only Old Once!, the 1980s, and the AIDS epidemic.  Children’s Literature Association Conference (ChLA). Tampa, FL.  June 22nd – 24th, 2017.
  • Abate, M. A. (2017).  “You are een the house of Sanjak!”:  Terry and the Pirates, the first lesbian character in U.S. comics, and the roots of Wonder Woman.  American Literature Association Conference.  Boston, MA.  May 25th – 27th, 2017.
  • Abate, M.A. (2017).   Adultescents, kidaults, and rejuveniles: Children’s literature for adults and remapping the boundaries of age and audience.  Panel session title: “Adolescence.”  Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention, Philadelphia, PA.  January 5th – 8th, 2017.
    • MLA president Anthony Appiah selected the panel for inclusion in the convention theme, “Boundary Conditions.”
  • Abate, M. A. (2017). Post-racial, but not post-racism: The romanticization of the plantation South and the whitewashing of history in Raina Telgemeier’s Drama.”  Panel session title:  “I Die Daily: Police Brutality, Black Bodies, and the Force of Children’s Literature.” Modern Language Association Convention (MLA), Philadelphia, PA.  January 5th – 8th, 2017.
  • Abate, M. A. (2015).  Not timeless, but timely:  Dr. Seuss’s You’re Only Old Once! and the AIDS crisis. Midwest Modern Language Association Conference, Columbus, OH. November 12th – 15th, 2015.  
  • Abate, M. A. (2015). “From the top, stupid!”:  The Li’l Tomboy comic book series, female juvenile delinquency, and the comics code.  Children’s Literature Association Conference (ChLA).  Richmond, VA.  June 18th – 20th, 2015.
  • Abate, M. A. (2015).  The good, the bad, and the weird:  What to expect when co-editing a collection of critical essays.  Building a Career in Children’s Literature Panel.  Children’s Literature Association Conference (ChLA).  Richmond, VA.  June 18th – 20th, 2015.
  • Abate, M. A. (2015).  “Off with their heads!’: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the anti-gallows movement. Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  January 8th – 11th, 2015.
  • Abate, M. A. (2014). The Boxcar Children and The Box-Car Children:  The jazz age story behind Gertrude Chandler Warner’s Classic Story  National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Session:  Research Roundtable 4—Research Focused on Methods and Materials, Washington, D.C.  November 20th – 25th, 2014.  
  • Abate, M. A. (2014). “Always gettin’ in trouble”: The Li’l Tomboy comic book series, the good female consumer, and the 1950s bad girl. International Comics Arts Forum.  The Ohio State University.  November 13th – 15th, 2014.
  • Abate, M. A. (2014). The biggest loser:  Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter series, the queer art of failure, and the American obsession with youth achievement. Youth and/in Literature and Society Conference, New University of Lisbon.  Lisbon, Portugal.  July 9th – 11th, 2014.
  • Abate, M. A. (2014).  “Learning how to be the boy or girl that you are”: Me Tarzan, You Jane, the crusade to ‘cure’ LGBTQ youth and the new face of the ex-gay movement in the United States.  Children’s Literature Association Conference (ChLA), Columbia, SC.  June 19th – 21st, 2014.
  • Abate, M. A. (2014).  The American urban jungle:  Tarzan of the Apes and Chicago. Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, Chicago, IL.  Panel title:  Deliver Us from Normal—Children’s Literature and the Midwest.  January 9th – 12th, 2014.
  • Abate, M. A. (2013).  A womb with a political view: Barbara Park’s MA! There’s Nothing to Do Here!, prenatal parenting, and the battle over personhood.  Children’s Literature Association Conference (ChLA). The University of Southern Mississippi.  Biloxi, MS.  June 13th – 15th, 2013.  
  • Abate, M. A. (2012). The big smallness:  Niche market picture books and the new children’s literature. Annual Conference of The International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY).  Conference theme:  Beyond the Book.  Roehampton University.  London, England.  November 10th, 2012.
  • Abate, M. A. (2012). No kids allowed:  The Littlest Bitch, Go the F**k to Sleep, and misopedia. Children’s Literature Association Conference (ChLA).  Simmons College, Boston, MA.  June 14th – 16th, 2012.
  • Abate, M. A. (2011). “The Tricky Reverse Narration That Impels Our Entwined Stories”:  Queer temporalities in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.  International Conference on Comics and Graphics Novels.  Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain.  November 10th – 12th, 2011.
  • Abate, M. A. (2011). “A Grand Amount of Fagginess”:  The Faggiest Vampire, bizarro fiction for children, and the de-homosexualization of LGBTQ terminology.  Children’s Literature Association Conference (ChLA).  Hollins University, Roanoke, VA.  June 23rd – 25th, 2011.
  • Abate, M. A. (2010). “Old Father, Old Artificer”:  Time, memory, and aging in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.  Modern Language Association Conference (MLA).  Panel Session: “Graphic Aging.”  Co-Sponsored by the Age Studies and Comics and Graphics Novels Discussion Groups.  Los Angeles, CA.  January 6th – 9th, 2011.
  • Abate, M. A. (2010). “Making mischief of one kind or another”:  Turning literary rebellion into filmic reminiscence in Where the Wild Things Are.”  Mid-Atlantic Popular / American Culture Association Conference (MAPACA).  Alexandria, VA. October 28th – 30th, 2010.
  • Abate, M. A. (2010). Plastic makes perfect:  My Beautiful Mommy, cosmetic surgery, and the medicalization of motherhood.  Children’s Literature Association Conference (ChLA).  Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI.  June 10th – 12th, 2010.
  • Abate, M. A. (2009). Pundit knows best:  The self-help boom, brand marketing, and The O’Reilly Factor for Kids.  Children’s Literature Association Conference (ChLA).  University of North Carolina, Charlotte.  Charlotte, NC.  June 11 – 13th, 2009.
  • Abate, M. A. (2008). A Sunday school for the end of the world:  The Left Behind – The Kids series and the battle for young adult souls.  Children’s Literature Association Conference (ChLA).  Illinois State University, Normal/Bloomington, IL.  June 12th – 15th, 2008.
  • Abate, M. A. (2008). Bury my heart in recent history:  Mark Twain’s “Hellfire Hotchkiss,” the massacre at Wounded Knee, and the dime Western formula.  Panel on “New Approaches to Mark Twain.”  Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Conference (NeMLA). Buffalo, NY. April 10th – 13th, 2008.
  • Abate, M. A. (2007). From lesbian pulp fiction to YA novels and back Again:  The many literary genres (and pen names) of M. E. Kerr.  Panel on “Jumping Between Audiences.”  Modern Language Association Annual Conference (MLA), Chicago, IL.  December 27th – 30th, 2007.
  • Abate, M. A. (2007). Becoming a ‘red-blooded’ American:  White tomboyism and American Indian tribalism in Carol Ryrie Brink’s Caddie Woodlawn. Children’s Literature Association Conference (ChLA).  Christopher Newport University.  Newport News, VA.  June 14 – 16th, 2007.
  • Abate, M. A. (2006). Trans/Formations:  Sharon Dennis Wyeth’s Tomboy Trouble and transgenderism in contemporary picture books. Children’s Literature Association Annual Conference (ChLA), Manhattan Beach, California, June 8 – 10th, 2006.
  • Abate, M. A. (2006). Gendering the genre in Zona Gale’s Friendship Village:  The reimagination of single women and/as the reimagination of speculative fiction. Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Conference (NEMLA), Philadelphia, PA, March 2 – 5th, 2006.
  • Abate, M. A. (2005). Launching a gender backlash:  E. D. E. N. Southworth’s The Hidden Hand and the emergence of American tomboyism.  Modern Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature (MCACL), Nashville, TN.  March 31 – April 2nd, 2005.
  • Abate, M. A. (2004). Finding queer studies in children’s literature:  Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble and/in Sharon Dennis Wyeth’s Tomboy Trouble,” Children’s Literature Discussion Circle, South Atlantic Modern Language Association Annual Conference (SAMLA), Roanoke, VA, November 12th, 2004.
  • Abate, M. A. (2002). Going “back to the future” in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland:  The death of the tomboy and The Birth of a (Primitive) Nation.”  University of California at Los Angeles, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies Program Annual Conference, November 16th, 2002.
  • Abate, M. A. (2001). Topsy and Topsy-Turvy Jo:  Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and American popular culture. University of California at Los Angeles, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies Program Annual Conference, October 27th, 2001.
  • Abate, M. A. (2001). Putting a new spin on spinsters:  Old maids, widows and single women in Zona Gale’s Friendship Village. The Graduate Center, English Students’ Association Conference, March 30th, 2001.
  • Abate, M. A. (2000).  Reading red:  The man with the (gay) red tie in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.  University of California at Los Angeles, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies Program Conference, November 18th, 2000.
  • Abate, M. A. (2000). Being “Frank”:  James Whale’s monster films as war films in Christopher Bram’s Father of Frankenstein. University of Southern California, English Graduate Students’ Conference, March 25th, 2000.
  • Abate, M. A. (1999). Building on the bildungsroman:  The coming of age/coming out story in Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John. Iona College, New Rochelle, New York, New York State College English Association, April 9th, 1999.
  • Abate, M. A. (1998). Reading Jewett Reading Stowe to read Jewett:  Uncle Tom’s Cabin and A Country Doctor.  Nazareth College, Rochester, New York, New York State College English Association, September 19th, 1998.