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The University of Winnipeg

Naomi Hamer

Naomi Hamer Title: Assistant Professor, Ryerson University
Email: naomi.hamer@ryerson.ca

Degrees:

  • Ph.D. (Institute of Education, University College London)
  • M.A. (UBC)
  • B.A. (McGill)

Biography:

Naomi Hamer’s current research and publications examine the cross-media adaptation of children’s literature with a focus on picture books, mobile apps, and children’s museums. She is the co-editor of More Words about Pictures: Current Research on Picture Books and Visual/Verbal Texts for Young People (eds. Hamer, Nodelman and Reimer, 2017), and The Routledge Companion of Fairy-tale Cultures and Media (eds. Greenhill, Rudy, Hamer, and Bosc, forthcoming 2018). Dr. Hamer received the David Almond Fellowship for Research in Children’s Literature (2013) for research at Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books (Newcastle, UK). She has expanded this project to examine how media is used to negotiate the cultural discourses of childhood, nationalism, gender, race, class, sexuality, and ability within children’s museum exhibits. Framed by “queering the museum” and “the participatory museum” movements, the next phase of this research will invite young people to engage as collaborative-curators. She is also the President of the Association for Research in the Cultures of Young People (ARCYP), and serves on the editorial board for the journal Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures.

Current Projects:

Transmedia Storytelling and the Picture Book
Primary investigator. Monograph prospectus in preparation for submission. This research examines the relationship between transmedia storytelling, cross-media adaptation, and franchising of picture books across a range of modes for both adult and child readers including mobile platforms that adapt classic picture books. My chapter in the volume, More Words about Pictures: Current Research on Picture Books and Visual/Verbal Texts for Young People (Routledge 2017) also incorporates findings from this research.

The Children’s Story Museum: The Design of Spaces for Interactive and Immersive Experiences with Children’s Books
This research examines the children’s story museum as a distinctive international institution focused on children’s literature, storytelling, and literacy. I was awarded the David Almond Fellowship for archival research with the picture book collections at Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books, Newcastle, UK, and expanded the project from this work. The primary focus is immersive and mediated engagement with children’s books at transnational exhibitions/museum sites for young audiences. This second phase of a multi-year research project examines how young audiences subvert and negotiate the cultural discourses of nationalism, gender, race, mobility, and sexuality through mediated engagements and as co-curators at select sites. Co-researcher Dr. Ann Marie Murnaghan (Dept. of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Ryerson University).

Six Seasons of the Asiniskow Ithiniwak: Reclamation, Regeneration, and ReconciliationSSHRC Partnership Grant (2017-2024) Collaborator for Production Team; Project Director Dr. Mavis Reimer (University of Winnipeg). Building on the SSHRC-funded project that produced Pīsim Finds Her Miskanow (2013), this collaboration involves the development of picture books and apps (Tactica Interactive) focused on the experiences of the proto-contact period for the Asiniskow Ithiniwak (Rocky Cree). Co-applicants include Dr. Jason Lewis (Concordia University), Dr. Eric Meyers (University of British Columbia).

The Story Fort Project: Student Curatorial Projects with University Library Special Collections
In 2014, I lead the coordination of an extended project around study space and interactive student programs at the University of Winnipeg library with a final report for future research and practical recommendations. In Winter term 2015, the students organized and held a Dr. Seuss Story time (2015) with a special reading by the Carol Shields writer-in-residence, Jennifer Still. In Winter 2017, the practicum course designed two events focused on experiential learning and student experience (UW library and archives) and Perry Nodelman’s special collection of Maurice Sendak books and related texts (at CRYTC). My current practicum students (Fall 2017) will contribute to a digital exhibit using the illustrated texts and picture book collection of the Children’s Literature Archive housed at the Centre for Digital Humanities at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Research Interests:

Children’s and adolescent literature; picture books; film and the visual cultures of young people; childhood and youth studies; transmedia and digital storytelling; New Literacies and museum education; cultural theory, identity, and audience studies

Publications:

Book and Journal Section Editor:

Featured Publications:

  • “Media”. Keywords for Children’s Literature. 2nd Edition. Ed. Philip Nel, Lissa Paul, and Nina Christensen. NYU Press. 9 pages. (In progress. Forthcoming 2018).
  • “Picture books, Merchandising, and Franchising.” The Routledge Companion for Picture Books. Ed. Bettina Kuemmerling-Meibauer. Routledge. 505-514. (2018.)
  • “The Design and Development of the Picture Book for Mobile and Interactive Platforms: ‘You get to BE Harold’s Purple Crayon.’” More Words about Pictures: Current Research on Picture Books and Visual/Verbal Texts for Young People. Ed. Naomi Hamer, Perry Nodelman, and Mavis Reimer. Routledge, 2017. 93-119.
  • “Re-mixing The Chronicles of Narnia: The reimagining of Lucy Pevensie through film franchise texts and digital cultures.”Children’s Film in the Digital Age: Essays on Audience, Adaptation and Consumer Culture. Ed. Karin Beeler and Stan Beeler. McFarland, 2015. 63-77.
  • “Jumping on the ‘Comics for Kids’ Bandwagon.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 5.2 (2013): 165-187.