Dr Emma Whatman

Dr Emma Whatman is an associate lecturer in the School of Communication and Creative Arts where she teaches children's literature, and gender and sexuality studies. Emma completed her BA (First Class Honours) at Deakin in 2013 and her PhD at Deakin in 2019. Emma's research focuses on postfeminism in contemporary texts for young people.

Contemporary children's literature and culture

Postfeminism

Feminist and gender studies

Fairy-tale studies

Digital media and social media

Adaptation studies

Australian Women's and Gender Studies Association (AWGSA)

Australasian Children's Literature Association for Research (ACLAR)

Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL)

Children's literature 

Digital media and social media

Feminism and gender studies

Literature

ALL153: Literature for Children and Young Adults

ALL154: Power Politics and Texts for Young People

ALL701: Retelling Myths and Tales: Classic to Contemporary

AGS101: Sex and Gender: Ideas that Changed the World

AGS102: Histories of Sex and Gender

AGS200: Cultural Studies of Sex and Gender

ACC100: Communication in Everyday Life

ALM101: Making Social Media 

ALC203: Exploring Digital Media: Contexts of Online Participation 

ALC205: Digital Media and the Surveillance Society

ALC701: Social Media Principles and Practices

ALC708 - Blogging and Online Communication Techniques

AIS204: Gender, Globalisation and Development

Contemporary children's literature

Feminist and gender studies

Fairy-tale studies

Digital media and social media

Adaptation studies

Selected conferences presentations:

2019 ‘Breaking the silence: Fairy-tale webcomics as sites for subversion’. International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) biennial conference: Silence and Silencing in Children’s Literature, The Swedish Institute for Children's Books, Sweden, August. 

2018 ‘Understanding postfeminist girlhood through Marissa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles’. Gender and identities in literature for young people, La Trobe University, Melbourne, December. 

2018 ‘Postfeminism in contemporary fairy-tale adaptations for young women’. Australasian Children’s Literature Association for Research biennial conference: Houses of Learning: Education in Children’s Literature and Children’s Literature as Education, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, June. 

2017 ‘“Complexity, Ambiguity and Endurance”: Australian Fairy-Take Adaptation in Shaun Tan’s The Singing Bones’. Association for the Study of Australian Literature annual conference: Looking in, Looking Out: China and Australia, La Trobe University, The University of Melbourne, Deakin University, Melbourne, July.

2017 ‘“A Girl. A Machine. A Freak”: Feminism, cyborg subjectivity and fairy-tale adaptation in Marissa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles’. Re-Orienting the Fairy Tale: Contemporary Fairy-Tale Adaptations across Cultures, Kanagawa University, Yokohama, Japan, March.

2016 ‘“I had wings once, they were stolen from me”: An ecofeminist reading of Disney’s Maleficent’. Australian Women’s & Gender Studies Association (AWGSA) conference: De-Story the Joint, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, July.

2015 ‘Playing Pretty: Fairy Tales, Beauty Ideals, and Interactive Media’. International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) biennial conference: Creating Childhoods, University of Worcester, Worcester, United Kingdom, August.

2014 “One Sick Love Story:’ Shame, Cancer and Death in The Fault In Our Stars’. Australasian Children’s Literature Association for Research biennial conference: Emotional Control: Affect, Ideology and Texts for Young People, Deakin University, Geelong, July.

2014 ‘Rethinking Rapunzel: Female Embodiment and Narrative across Media’. International Conference of the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past: Telling Tales: Children, Narrative and Image, La Trobe University, Melbourne, March.

2013 ‘Divas or Dudes?: Multiple Masculinities in Glee’. International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) biennial conference: Children’s literature and media cultures, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands, August.

2012 ‘Transgressing Boundaries: Liminality and the mother-daughter relationship within Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s Mirrormask’. Australasian Children’s Literature Association for Research biennial conference: If We’re Being Honest: The Facts and Fictions of Children’s Literature, National Library of Australia, Canberra ACT, June.

Executive Committee Member, Australian Women's and Gender Studies Association (AWGSA)

Executive Committee Member, Australasian Children's Literature Association for Research (ACLAR)

2020: Alfred Deakin Medal for Doctoral Thesis

2020: Deakin University Excellence in Teaching

2019: Deakin University Excellence in Teaching

2018: Deakin University Excellence in Teaching

2018: Monash University Excellent in Teaching

2017: Association for the Study of Australian Literature postgraduate travel bursary  ($500)

2017: Japan Foundation of the Arts postgraduate travel bursary ($1700)