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English Professor Receives Howard Foundation Fellowship
Dr. Karen Coats
Karen Coats, Associate Professor of English, has been awarded one of twelve nationally competitive Howard Foundation Fellowships. The award of $20,000 will augment her sabbatical leave. While on sabbatical, Coats will work on a book investigating humor in children’s literature and analyzing how the humor deployed in texts for children functions as a force for development rather than simply passive entertainment or an additive to help instruction go down more smoothly. “I will argue that the use of dramatic irony in children’s picture books develops certain literary and subjective competencies that enable children to negotiate a supple postmodern identity,” said Coats. “I will also be looking at how humor can create affirmative communities, especially among traditionally marginalized and disenfranchised groups, whose members then emerge with the power and confidence to subvert or challenge the hegemony of cool that dominates teen social structures.”

 

 

The George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation, administered by Brown University for the Board of Administration of the Howard Foundation, supports scholars in the middle stages of their careers whose work to date is evidence of their promise and achievement. The Foundation funds original and creative contributions to academic fields, and candidates are expected to have a significant record of publication beyond the dissertation and be working on at least their second or third scholarly project.

A member of the English faculty since 1998, Coats received her Ph.D. in Human Sciences from The George Washington University and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees in English from Virginia Polytechnic and State University. Prior to coming to Illinois State, she taught at The George Washington University, Virginia Tech, and in the Jones County Public Schools in North Carolina and Chesapeake Public Schools in Virginia. Among her many honors are fellowships at Calvin College and The George Washington University, and an Honor Article Award for Literary Criticism in Children’s Literature given by the International Children’s Literature Association. Coats is also the author of Looking Glasses and Neverland: Lacan, Desire and Subjectivity in Children’s Literature, which was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2004.  

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