Alison Halsall

Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies » Faculty & Staff » Faculty Profiles

Associate Professor
Coordinator, CCY Studies

Office: Vanier College, 234
Phone: 416-736-2100 Ext: 33944
Email: ahalsall@yorku.ca

Media Requests Welcome

Alison Halsall's teaching and scholarly strengths are interdisciplinary and trans-generic, and she has won several teaching awards, including the 2017 Department of Humanities Excellence in Teaching Award and the 2010 Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence. She specializes in Victorian and modernist literatures, with a particular emphasis on Visual Cultures, which includes the study of paintings and illustrations, contemporary film, comics and graphic novels. She co-edited the first-ever collection, The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader (UP Mississippi 2022), which won an Eisner Award for the Best Academic / Scholarly Work. Her monograph project, Growing Up Graphic: The Comics of Children in Crisis, an examination of the lived experiences of young people as represented in comics culture, was just published by The Ohio State University Press (2023). She is currently editing the scholarly collection, Taylor Swift and Transmedial Storytelling, which is under contract with The Ohio State University Press.

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Degrees

Ph.D, York University
Master's of English, Carleton University
Bachelor of Arts (Highest Honours), Carleton University

Research Interests

Arts and Culture , Children and Youth, Social Justice Narratives, LGBTQ+, Comics and Graphic Narratives, Taylor Swift

Winner of an Eisner Award for Best Scholarly / Academic Work for The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader: Critical Openings, Future Directions - 2022
Nominated for a LAMBDA Literary Award for The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader - 2022
Department of Humanities Excellence in Teaching Award - 2017
Nominated for LA&PS Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching - 2017
Nominated for Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence - 2012
Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence - 2010

Current Research Projects

Growing Up Graphic: The Comics of Children in Crisis

Summary:

My monograph focuses on graphic narratives for and about children and youth, from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, varied regions of the world, wide-ranging gender identities and levels of ability. All of the graphic texts that this project analyzes feature particular predicaments and challenges experienced by young people that can deepen young readers' sociopolitical understanding of the world and move them towards an awareness of social justice.

Description:

The graphic texts that I have selected for this study remind readers that young people are political, and that they are capable of agency and power—even and especially in relation to adversity. These texts are designed to help readers understand themselves as they react to, and sometimes resist, worldly pressures.

Role: Primary Investigator

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The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader

Summary:

The first of its kind, The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader will honour LGBTQ+ work that emerged from and was influenced by comics’ post-WWII convulsions and transformations, the emergence and flourishing of the underground and alternative comix movement, the expansion of voices and cultures represented within mainstream comics, and the history of LGBTQ+ liberation to become what nonetheless remains an underrepresented sub-category in comics scholarship: LGBTQ+ comics, their critical implications, their provocative current iterations, and their future directions.

Description:

The aim of The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader is to provide a platform for sustained, theoretically rigorous thinking about the various social, economic, historical, cultural, ethical, affective, and pedagogical issues at work in LGBTQ+ comics and cartoons, from around the world.

Role: Co-editor

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Collaborator: Jonathan Warren

Those 'dreadful' Victorians: Penny Dreadful as Neo-Victorian Speculative Fiction

’What is the use of a book… without pictures or conversations?’: Incorporating the Graphic Novel into the University Curriculum.

“Sartorial Modernism: Anthropologie’s “HD in Paris” and “Vanessa Virginia” as Popular Clothing Brands.”

Special Issue of International Research in Children's Literature (IRCL) on "Possible & Impossible Children: Children's Literature and Childhood Studies."

Summary:

This is a special issue that collects some key papers from the 2017 IRSCL Conference, held at York University, Toronto, Canada.

Description:

The selected papers reflect several theoretical changes that have occurred or are in the process of occurring in the interstices of childhood studies and children's literature, and that also represent dynamic approaches to the overall congress theme.

Role: Co-editor

Books

Publication

Year

Growing Up Graphic: The Comics of Children in Crisis. Ohio State University Press, 2023.

2023

The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader, edited by Halsall and Warren. UP of Mississippi 2022.

2022

White Rose and the Red by Delia Alton (H.D.) Ed. Alison Halsall. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009.

2009

Book Chapters

Publication

Year

The Cambridge Companion to the American Graphic Novel, edited by Hugo Frey, Jan Baetens, Fabrice Leroy. Cambridge UP, 2023.

2023

The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader, edited by Halsall and Warren. UP of Mississippi, 2022.

2022

“Gord Downie and Jeff Lemire’s Graphic Narrative Secret Path: Analysis of a Transmedia Adaptation.” Cultural and Creative Industries of Childhood and Youth. Eds. Valérie-Inés de La Ville, Pascale Garnier, and Gilles Brougère. Peter Lang Publishing, 2021, 273-89.

2021

“Graphic Experiences of Immigration, Migration, and Diaspora: Shaun Tan's 'The Arrival' and Matt Huynh’s Interactive Graphic Adaptation of Nam Le’s ‘The Boat.’” Graphic Embodiments: Graphic Perspectives on Health and Embodiment. Eds. Lisa DeTora and Jodi Cressman. U Leuven Press, 2021, 61-73.

2021

“Intersectionalities in Canadian LGBTQ Comics.” The LGBTQ Comics Studies Reader. Eds. Halsall and Warren. UP of Mississippi. [Under contract].

2021

“Harry Potter and the Development of Narrative and Media Literacies.” Transmedia Harry Potter: Essays on Storytelling Across Platforms. Ed. Christopher Bell. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2019, 48-61.

2019

“The Politics of Identity in Collins’s The Hunger Games and Roth’s Divergent.” Handmaids, Tributes, & Carers: Dystopian Females’ Roles and Goals. Ed. Myrna Santos. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018. 52-71.

2018

“’What is the use of a book… without pictures or conversations?’: Incorporating the Graphic Novel into the University Curriculum.” Teaching Graphic Novels in the English Classroom: Pedagogical Possibilities of Multimodal Literacy Engagement. Ed. Alissa Burger. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 87-101.

2017

“Bigger Longer & Uncut: South Park and the Carnivalesque.” Taking South Park Seriously. Ed. Jeffrey Weinstock. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. 23-37.

2008

Monographs

Publication

Year

Growing Up Graphic: The Comics of Children in Crisis. The Ohio State University Press, 2023.

2023

Journal Articles

Publication

Year

“Disney's Frozen Franchise and Transmedia Adaptation.” The South Atlantic Review 84.1 (Spring 2019): 141-159.

2019

“Playing with Space in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games Trilogy and Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale: Remastered.” The Journal of Popular Culture 52.1 (2019): 117-136.

2019

“Nobody’s Home: Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and Its Visual Adaptations.” Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society 1.3 (Fall 2017): 334-353.

2018

Special Issue of International Research in Children’s Literature (IRCL) on “Possible & Impossible Children: Children’s Literature and Childhood Studies.” 11.2 (December 2018): v-x. [Co-wrote introductory essay, “Editorial: ‘Possible’ and ‘Impossible’ Children” (50%), with Cheryl Cowdy.]

2018

“Those ‘dreadful’ Victorians – Penny Dreadful as Neo-Victorian Speculative Fiction.” The Confidential Clerk 2 (2016): 95-114.

2016

“’A Parade of Curiosities’: Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Lost Girls as Neo-Victorian Pastiches.” The Journal of Popular Culture 48.2 (2015): 253-269.

2015

“H. D. and the Victorian Spectres of White Rose and the Red.” College Literature 38.4 (Fall 2011): 115-133.

2011

“Rendering Women: H.D.’s Revision of the Pre-Raphaelite ‘cult of youthful beauty.’” Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies 7 (2004): 43-59.

2004

“Take my blood, not my money!: Vampires, Capital, and Class.” New Comparison 35-36 (Spring/Autumn 2003): 145-62.

2003

“Pathos and Wizardry: Narrative Rhetoric in Harry Potter.” Canadian Journal of Rhetorical Studies 13 (September 2002): 39-50.

2002

“Manipulating the Dystopia: Margaret Atwood’s Deliberative and Epideictic Rhetoric in The Handmaid’s Tale.” Canadian Journal of Rhetorical Studies 10 (September 1999): 81-96.

1999

Conference Proceedings

Publication

Year

“Visualizing the Gothic in Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and Its Illustrated Adaptations.” Dialogues between Media, edited by Paul Ferstl. De Gruyter, 2021, pp. 123-142.

2021

Degrees

Ph.D, York University
Master's of English, Carleton University
Bachelor of Arts (Highest Honours), Carleton University

Research Interests

Arts and Culture , Children and Youth, Social Justice Narratives, LGBTQ+, Comics and Graphic Narratives, Taylor Swift

Awards

Winner of an Eisner Award for Best Scholarly / Academic Work for The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader: Critical Openings, Future Directions - 2022
Nominated for a LAMBDA Literary Award for The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader - 2022
Department of Humanities Excellence in Teaching Award - 2017
Nominated for LA&PS Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching - 2017
Nominated for Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence - 2012
Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence - 2010

Current Research Projects

Growing Up Graphic: The Comics of Children in Crisis

Summary:

Description:

Project Type:

Role:

Start Date:

Month:

Year:

End Date:

Month:

Year:

The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader

Summary:

Description:

Project Type:

Role:

Start Date:

Month:

Year:

End Date:

Month:

Year:

Collaborator:

Those 'dreadful' Victorians: Penny Dreadful as Neo-Victorian Speculative Fiction

’What is the use of a book… without pictures or conversations?’: Incorporating the Graphic Novel into the University Curriculum.

“Sartorial Modernism: Anthropologie’s “HD in Paris” and “Vanessa Virginia” as Popular Clothing Brands.”

Special Issue of International Research in Children's Literature (IRCL) on "Possible & Impossible Children: Children's Literature and Childhood Studies."

Summary:

This is a special issue that collects some key papers from the 2017 IRSCL Conference, held at York University, Toronto, Canada.

Description:

Project Type:

Role:

All Publications

Book Chapters

Publication

Year

The Cambridge Companion to the American Graphic Novel, edited by Hugo Frey, Jan Baetens, Fabrice Leroy. Cambridge UP, 2023.

2023

The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader, edited by Halsall and Warren. UP of Mississippi, 2022.

2022

2021

“Intersectionalities in Canadian LGBTQ Comics.” The LGBTQ Comics Studies Reader. Eds. Halsall and Warren. UP of Mississippi. [Under contract].

2021

2019

2018

2017

“Bigger Longer & Uncut: South Park and the Carnivalesque.” Taking South Park Seriously. Ed. Jeffrey Weinstock. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. 23-37.

2008

Books

Publication

Year

Growing Up Graphic: The Comics of Children in Crisis. Ohio State University Press, 2023.

2023

The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader, edited by Halsall and Warren. UP of Mississippi 2022.

2022

White Rose and the Red by Delia Alton (H.D.) Ed. Alison Halsall. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009.

2009

Monographs

Publication

Year

Growing Up Graphic: The Comics of Children in Crisis. The Ohio State University Press, 2023.

2023

Journal Articles

Publication

Year

“Disney's Frozen Franchise and Transmedia Adaptation.” The South Atlantic Review 84.1 (Spring 2019): 141-159.

2019

“Playing with Space in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games Trilogy and Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale: Remastered.” The Journal of Popular Culture 52.1 (2019): 117-136.

2019

“Nobody’s Home: Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and Its Visual Adaptations.” Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society 1.3 (Fall 2017): 334-353.

2018

“Those ‘dreadful’ Victorians – Penny Dreadful as Neo-Victorian Speculative Fiction.” The Confidential Clerk 2 (2016): 95-114.

2016

“’A Parade of Curiosities’: Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Lost Girls as Neo-Victorian Pastiches.” The Journal of Popular Culture 48.2 (2015): 253-269.

2015

“H. D. and the Victorian Spectres of White Rose and the Red.” College Literature 38.4 (Fall 2011): 115-133.

2011

“Rendering Women: H.D.’s Revision of the Pre-Raphaelite ‘cult of youthful beauty.’” Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies 7 (2004): 43-59.

2004

“Take my blood, not my money!: Vampires, Capital, and Class.” New Comparison 35-36 (Spring/Autumn 2003): 145-62.

2003

“Pathos and Wizardry: Narrative Rhetoric in Harry Potter.” Canadian Journal of Rhetorical Studies 13 (September 2002): 39-50.

2002

“Manipulating the Dystopia: Margaret Atwood’s Deliberative and Epideictic Rhetoric in The Handmaid’s Tale.” Canadian Journal of Rhetorical Studies 10 (September 1999): 81-96.

1999

Conference Proceedings

Publication

Year

“Visualizing the Gothic in Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and Its Illustrated Adaptations.” Dialogues between Media, edited by Paul Ferstl. De Gruyter, 2021, pp. 123-142.

2021

Current Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Fall/Winter 2024	AP/CCY3998 6.0	A	The Child & the Book: Research Methods	SEMR
Fall/Winter 2024	AP/CCY4900 6.0	A	CCY Work-Focused Placement Course	BLEN