Iskander, Sylvia Patterson 1940- (Sylvia W. Iskander, Sylvia W. Patterson)

PERSONAL:

Born June 27, 1940, in Boston, MA; daughter of Herbert Edward (an industrial contractor in oil refinery business) and Mary Elizabeth (a homemaker) Wiese; married William Henry Patterson, Jr., June 2, 1962 (divorced, April 11, 1977); married Awad A. Iskander (a professor of mathematics), May 22, 1982; children: (first marriage) Deborah Ann Patterson Onnebane; (second marriage) Alexandra Lucia. Ethnicity: "German Irish." Education: Louisiana State University, B.S., 1961; University of Southwestern Louisiana (now University of Louisiana at Lafayette), M.A., 1965; Florida State University, Ph.D., 1969. Religion: Methodist. Hobbies and other interests: Travel, reading, dogs.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Lafayette, LA. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, assistant professor, 1969-73, associate professor, 1973-82, professor of English, 1982-2001, distinguished professor, 1991, professor emeritus, 2001—, director of Writing Center, 1980-82 and 1983-86.

MEMBER:

International Research Society for Children's Literature, Children's Literature Association (member of executive board, 1982, 1995-2001; president, 1999-2000), International Board of Books for Young People, Modern Language Association of America, U.S. Board of Books for Young People, College English Association, National Council of Teachers of English, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, American Association of University Professors, Popular Culture Association, South Central Modern Language Association (chair of Children's Literature Section, 1984-85 and 1993-94), South Central College English Association, Southeastern Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, South Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Louisiana Association for Language Arts (member of editorial board, 1978-81), Phi Beta Delta, Phi Kappa Phi.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Florida State University, dissertation fellowship, 1968-69; grants from American Association of University Women, 1975, and Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 1992; Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Scholar, 1998-2000.

WRITINGS:

(Under name Sylvia W. Patterson) Rousseau's Emile and Early Children's Literature, Scarecrow Press (Metuchen, NJ), 1971.

(Editor) The Image of the Child: Proceedings of the 1991 International Conference of the Children's Literature Association …, Children's Literature Association (Battle Creek, MI), 1991.

Contributor to reference books and other works, including Anne Frank: Reflections on Her Life and Legacy, edited by Hymen A. Enzer and Sandra Solotaroff-Enzer, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 2000. Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including Five Owls, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Louisiana English Journal, Bookbird, Journal of Popular Culture, Armchair Detective, Children's Literature Journal, and Teaching and Learn-ing Literature. Newsletter editor, Louisiana Association for Language Arts, 1981-82. Some early writings appear under the name Sylvia W. Iskander or Sylvia W. Patterson.

SIDELIGHTS:

Sylvia Patterson Iskander once told CA: "After completing my Ph.D. in English, I returned to my native Louisiana, where I taught until my retirement. My original area of concentration—eighteenth-century British literature—ultimately led me to the field of children's literature, a field which developed in university English departments across the country in the 1970s. I consider myself fortunate to have been a part of this new development since its inception. A new literary area opens up multiple opportunities, and I had the advantage of publishing in many of my areas of interest, such as Anne Frank and Robert Cormier, the genres of detective fiction and fairy tale, censorship, and multiculturalism, especially in regard to the Middle East, an interest that began as a result of living in that area during the 1982-83 academic year."

Later Iskander added: "Since my retirement, I have been teaching a course in life-writing and enjoying writing my memoirs along with members of the class."