Reading the Rupture
Investigating representations of adoption in children's literature and how adult adoptees might talk back to these stories.
(2023-ongoing)
Project Overview
Client: 2024 University of Pittsburgh Humanities Center Undergraduate Fellowship; Digital Narrative and Interactive Design Capstone (University of Pittsburgh Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences)
A two-year research project examining how transracial adoptees encounter, reinterpret, and talk back to the stories that shaped them, focusing on children’s literature from the 2000s.
Across writing, visual annotation, interviews, and digital experiments, the project asks: how do early narrative interfaces shape identity formation over time?
For the fellowship, I developed methods combining autoethnography, slow looking, and participatory reflection, producing multiple research outputs rather than a single artifact.
Additionally, I completed simultaneous research for Capstone I and created a high-fidelity prototype of a different research object. This work grounds my HCI interests in ethics, memory, and human-centered research methods.
research design
iterative digital storytelling
presentation
scholarly writing
literary analysis
Mentors
Research Product I: Interactive StoryMap
I designed and iterated an interactive StoryMap, combining historical context, literary analysis, and critical commentary on adoption narratives, culminating in a presentation at the December 2024 colloquium. This work emphasized accessible storytelling, visual clarity, and engaging narrative pathways.
Research Product II: Manuscript
To explore how these texts function in adult adoptee lives, I employ an autoethnographic approach and re-read the adoption-related children’s books from that period. This methodology offers an opportunity to consider how does this revisiting offers an opportunity to examine adoption and these texts beyond a simple good/bad evaluation of representation.
Building on these insights, I am developing a full manuscript throughout 2025, with the goal of submitting to the UIUC Research Diversity Youth Literature Journal, translating both my StoryMap and research on adoption in children’s literature into a scholarly contribution.
Currently undergoing copy edits.
Selected Bibliography
Reflection
This manuscript is the result of two years of dedicated, and largely independent, research and exploration. I have emerged from this project a much better scholar and a more curious and empathetic individual and member of the adoptee community.
I'm extremely grateful to have had this opportunity, and to have gained so much confidence in myself and my abilities thanks to the empowerment of my mentors.