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Naomi Hamer

Dr. Naomi Hamer

Associate Professor
EducationBA (McGill); MA (UBC); PhD (UCL/IOE)
Areas of ExpertiseChildren’s and adolescent literature; child and youth studies; picture book theory; film and the visual cultures of young people; transmedia and digital storytelling; fairy-tale media and cultures; children’s museum education and New Literacies; cultural theory, identity, and audience studies.

Twitter: @naomihamertime (external link) 

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). Her recent project in collaboration with Dr. Ann Marie Murnaghan (Curating the Story Museum: Transmedia practices, participatory exhibits, and youth citizenship) has been awarded a SSHRC Insight Development Grant. This research examines 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. See our website for more info: www.curatingstory.com (external link) . Dr. Hamer  is also the President of the Association for Research in the Cultures of Young People (external link)  (ARCYP), and serves on the editorial board for the journal Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures (external link) .

Selected publications: 

Books 

Hamer, Naomi. Enter Through the Gift Shop: Cross-media Play with the Picture Book from Mobile App to Museum. (Under review May 2019).

The Routledge Companion to Media and Fairy-Tale Cultures. Co-edited with Pauline Greenhill, Jill Terry Rudy, and Lauren Bosc. Routledge, 2018.

More Words About Pictures: Current Research on Picture Books and Visual/Verbal Texts for Young People. Co-edited with Perry Nodelman and Mavis Reimer. Routledge, 2017.

Refereed book chapters and articles in refereed journals

“Media”. Keywords for Children’s Literature 2nd Edition. Eds. Philip Nel, Lissa Paul, and Nina Christensen. NYU Press. (Forthcoming 2020).

“The hybrid exhibits of the story museum: The child as creative artist and scientist-in-training.“ Museum & Society. Special Issue: On the Properties of Things: Collective Knowledge and the Objects of the Museum. (Forthcoming 2019)

“Children’s museums.” The Routledge Companion to Media and Fairy-Tale Cultures. Eds. Pauline Greenhill, Jill Terry Rudy, Naomi Hamer, and Lauren Bosc. New York: Routledge, 2018. 435--442.

“Picture books, Merchandising, and Franchising.” The Routledge Companion for Picture Books. Ed. Bettina Kuemmerling-Meibauer. London: Routledge, 2017. 505-515

“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, Eds. Naomi Hamer, Perry Nodelman, and Mavis Reimer. New York: Routledge, 2017. 63-80.

“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. Eds. Karin Beeler and Stan Beeler. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015. 63-77.

Selected keynotes and conference presentations

“Intemperate Trains and drunk conductors: Controlling disruptive and unrestrained behaviour in the Thomas the Tank Engine books, franchise, and fandom.” International Research Society of Children’s Literature Congress. Stockholm, Sweden, August 14-18, 2019. (Accepted. Forthcoming.)

Invited keynote speaker. “Don’t let the Pigeon Curate this Exhibit!: The discursive histories of the children’s story museum.” The Intersections of Youth and Museums: How We Teach the Past. Institute of Child and Youth Studies, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. April 8, 2019.

“Transmedia storytelling, media genealogies, and picture book theory.” Synergy and Contradiction: How Picture Books and Picturebooks Work.” Homerton College, University of Cambridge, UK. September 8-9, 2018.

Special forums and journal issues

With Stuart Poyntz. Introduction to Special Section: Youngsters: On the Cultures of Children and Youth. Jeunesse: Young People’s Texts and Cultures. 9.2. 2017. 61-70.

Introduction and edited forum. “Comic Studies and Young People’s Cultures: The Challenges of Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 6.2 (Winter 2014): 96-133.