Marek Oziewicz

Growing up in Communist Poland, I experienced the power of children’s literature to inspire visions of change, resilience in the face of oppression, and belief that a more just world is possible. This discovery drew me to comparative literature and the exploration of the cultural work of story systems. My particular interest is in how literatures for young people reflect, challenge, push against, and impact larger cultural trends. I study about how stories shape the way we think and live.

All of my work is about how literature empowers young people to reach their full potential so that they can respond to the challenges of the contemporary world in a holistic and ethical way. I study the transformative work of stories for young audiences, especially literature and media used in educational contexts. Stories are humanity’s oldest technology for social transformation. Stories is how we learn, how we know, and how we care. Any progressive change must first be imagined as a story: stories become dreams, which become work, which becomes reality. Being an environmental humanities scholar, I draw on cognitive literary studies, ecocriticism, literary criticism, psychology, linguistics, education, and other fields that shed light on processes that shape human understanding and actions. I believe that our greatest challenge today is a transition to an ecological civilization and I explore how literature helps nourish universal climate literacy. I’m proud to serve as the Director of the Center for Climate Literacy, whose mission is to transform education into an engine of a just, green transformation. I study how narratives assist young readers in the formation of global consciousness built on inclusiveness and equality. I advocate for narrative fiction as a tool for developing climate and justice literacy adequate to the current challenges. I also study global and multicultural literature as sites where we learn to appreciate difference and value diversity.

My research, service, and engagement inform the courses I teach. Through hands-on projects I help students learn about the complex cultural work of stories on individual and collective levels: how the narratives we accept or challenge transform communities, societies, as well as individuals’ hearts and minds.  

I welcome graduate students who are interested in:

• The cultural and work of children’s and young adult literature 

• Strategies for building young people’s climate and justice literacies

• Equity- and inclusion-oriented educational uses of global, diverse, and multicultural literatures for young people

• Exploring Indigenous, feminist, and non-Western knowledge and story systems in young people’s literature and media

Courses:

Please note that not all of these courses are offered each semester.

CI 1904 “Picturebooks and Graphic Novels” A freshman seminar about these two formats as crucial to the development of young people’s visual literacy. What is so appealing in the combination of visual and textual storytelling, and what is the role of picturebooks and graphic novels in young people’s lives?

CI 1908W “Children and Other Talking Animals” A freshman seminar about animal tales in children’s literature as reflecting humanity’s never entirely suppressed memory of our kinship with animals. Why is the bulk of animal tales to be found in children’s literature?

CI 3401W “Diversity in Children’s Literature” An introductory course about the diversity of genres and forms of children’s literature as well as the diversity of voices and perspectives it embraces.

HSem 2325H “Fantasy: A Ghastly Wicked Introduction” An honors seminar about how fantasy literature draws the young audience into the realms of wonder and mystery, empowering them to create visions that will change the future. Students are tortured with novels, graphic novels, and films until they discover their own special powers.

CI 5402 “Introduction to Special Collections: the Kerlan” A semester-long investigation that allows you to engage in research and develop your own project based on primary sources housed in the Kerlan: the world’s largest special collection of archival materials in the field of children’s and young adult literature.

CI 5404 “Multicultural Literature for Children and Adolescents” An exploration of contemporary multicultural literature as a site where difference can be emphasized and appreciated rather than downplayed or muted. We study award-winning works of fiction and arrive at a definition of multicultural literature for the modern classroom.

CI 5442 “Adolescent Literature, Youth Activism, and Climate Change Literacy” A course about how adolescent literature engages with the developmental and identity needs of a generation whose lives are framed by anthropogenic climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics, and other forms of slow violence inherent in the unsustainable carbon-intensive civilization. How can stories be part of young people’s fight for a sustainable future? What literature can mobilize youth activism against ecocide? Why is climate change literacy a fundamental right for adolescents today?

CI 8416 “Speculative Fiction, Radical Imagination, and Social Change.” A discussion seminar about how speculative fiction for the young reader serves as a catalyst for radical imagination that creates visions of social change. Why are we drawn to stories that interrogate dominant notions of reality and structures of meaning? How do these stories create activist sites of resistance against exclusion, systemic inequalities, and environmental degradation?