Guest Speakers

We are delighted to announce our guest speakers for Accio 2008: Gillian Hall and Emer O'Sullivan.

Gill Hall

Gill Hall has been involved in reading, studying and teaching literature all her professional life. She trained to teach after taking a BA in English Language and Literature at Reading University. Several years later she returned to Reading to take an MA in Medieval Studies. Thereafter she taught part-time in the English Department for many years while researching fifteenth century literature and history. Her research involved study in Brussels, Paris, London, Cambridge and Oxford. She also contributed papers to research seminars at Reading and All Souls College, Oxford. Subsequently Gill worked in schools and colleges teaching English and Classical Studies and running workshops and study days on a variety of literary and historical topics. This gave her the opportunity to extend her lifelong interest in children's literature into one of her several professional specialisms. Recently she has rejoined Reading University as a Sessional Lecturer. Film has always been one of Gill's particular interests and, after taking a module in Media Studies as part of the university's MA in Education programme, she has combined her interests and recently taught a highly-regarded course in children's literature and film: 'From Snow White to Harry Potter'.

Emer O'Sullivan

Emer O'Sullivan is Professor of English Literature at Leuphana University Lüneburg (Germany). She has published widely in both German and English on image studies, children's literature and translation and has received international recognition for her work in comparative children's literature studies: her Kinderliterarische Komparatistik won the International Research Society for Children's Literature (IRSCL) Award for Outstanding Research 2001; her Comparative Children's Literature won the Children's Literature Association 2007 Book Award. She was Vice-President of the International Research Society for Children's Literature from 2003-2005. She has also coauthored, with Dietmar Rösler, seven genuinely bilingual children's novels (I like you, und du?, It could be worse, oder?, Watch out - da sind sie and others).