Selected Publications and Presentations
Varga, D. (2025). Forward. A. Davies & B. Richardson (Eds.). Disrupting Developmentalism in Canadian Early Years Education: Critical Activist Knowledges. Canadian Scholars Press.
Varga, D. (2024). The Coloniality of Monstrous Animal Othering in Children’s Books, Toys and Films. Lexington Books/Bloomsbury.
Zuk, R., & Varga, D. (2024) The racist legacy of Florence and Bertha Upton’s Golliwogg adventure series. Libri liberorum: Journal of the Austrian Society for Children’s and Young People’s Literature Research, 25(60):117-132. https://oegkjlf.univie.ac.at/publikationen/libri-liberorum/
Blume Oeur, F., & Varga, D. (2024). Colonialism, Racism, and Childhoods: Introduction. American Behavioral Scientist, OnlineFirst.. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642241268546
Varga, D. (2024). Adventures with daddy: Anthropocentric innocence in picturebook hunting. Northeast Popular / American Culture Association. 4 October.
Varga. D. (2023). To the zoo with you! Colonialist animal commodification through stories and toys. Northeast Popular / American Culture Association. 13 October.
Varga, D. (2022). “And then there were none”: Children’s stories and colonialist discourses of animal suffering as comical entertainment. Northeast Popular / American Culture Association. 21 October.
Varga, D. (2021). Playing at slaughter: Marketing animal destruction as childhood pleasure. Northeast Popular / American Culture Association. 23 October.
Varga, D. (2021). Wack-a-Head: The arcade of animal abuse in Eurocentric children’s literary and material culture. Children’s Literature Association Conference. 9 June.
Varga, D. (2021). The racist view in developmental psychology textbooks. In Textbook as a Model of the World and Society [conference proceedings] (pp. 48-55). Saint-Petersburg: St. Petersburg Center for the History of Ideas. http://academcabinet.ru/textbook-as-a-model/?fbclid=IwAR3ganirwpUuOTNwjecqun5cOIGSX_I9YuK-ZeCNzYWhD6ltPZTvBi5IstQ.
Varga, D. (2021). Winnie: Troubling the idealization of the bear as childhood innocent. In J. Harrison (Ed.). Positioning Pooh: Edward Bear after 100 years. (pp. 19-44). University Press of Mississippi.
Zuk, R., & Varga, D. (2021) Hearing from and listening to: Dialectical tensions in the pedagogical pursuit of critical analysis. Conference Proceedings Atlantic Universities’ Teaching Showcase 2018.
Varga, D. (2021). Challenging the anthropocentrism of Eurocentric children’s popular and educational culture. Southwest Popular/America Culture Association. February 23.
Varga, D. (2021). The Racist View in Developmental Psychology Textbooks. The International Online Conference: Textbook as a Model of the World and Society. January 30.
Varga, D. (2020). Materialism in children’s culture. Sage Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Varga, D. (2020). The legacy of recapitulation theory in the history of developmental psychology. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. Oxford University Press.
Varga, D. (2020). Beware the beast: Racialized animals as the monstrous-other in children’s popular culture. Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association. Southern New Hampshire University, October.
Varga, D. (2019). Other than us: The colonialist legacy of developmental psychology in popular culture. Canadian Psychological Association 80th National Convention, Halifax, NS, June.
Varga, D. (2019). Colonialists ‘r Us: Depictions of the wolf, and other animals, as ‘freaks of nature’ in children’s popular culture. Rethinking Canid-Human Relations. Brock University, ON. Nov.
Varga, D. (2018) Innocence versus savagery in the recapitulation theory of child study: Depictions in picture books and other cultural materials. Journal of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (11.2).
Varga, D. (2018). The racialized animal connection in the history of child development theory. International Congress of Applied Psychology. June, Montreal.
Varga, D. (2017). White Pet/Black Beast: Possible and impossible animal-child innocence. International Research Society for Children’s Literature. Congress 2017, Toronto, ON.
Varga, D., Willis, S., Thomey, L. (2016). From “I don’t belong here” to “It changed my life” The necessity of critical hope in adult education. Atlantic Regional meetings of The Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education. Oct., Halifax, NS.
Varga, D., & Dempsey, V. (2016). Happy captives and monstrous hybrids: The flamingo in children’s stories (pp. 309-326). In M. Anderson (Ed.). Flamingos: Behavior, Biology, and Relationship with Humans. Nova Publishers.
Varga, D. (2014). Black Skin White Innocence: Idealizing Racist Children’s Book Culture. Twelfth International Conference on Books, Publishing and Libraries. Nov., Boston, MA.
Varga, D., & Zuk, R. (2013). Golliwogs and teddy bears: Embodied racism in children’s popular culture. Journal of Popular Culture, 46(3), 647-671.
Varga, D. (2012 ). Printed in More Innocent Times”: Racialized Innocence and Popular Understanding of Children’s Picture Books. Popular Culture Association. May, Boston, MA.
2011 Look-Normal: The colonization of childhood through developmental science. History of Psychology, 14 (2) 137-157.
2009 Gifting the bear and a nostaligic desire for childhood innocence. Cultural Analysis, 8, 71-88.
2009. Teddy’s bear and the transfiguration of savage beasts into innocent children, 1890-1920. Journal of American Culture 32.2; 98-113.
2009. Babes in the woods: Wilderness aesthetics in children’s stories and toys, 1830-1915. Society & Animals 17; 187-205.
Varga, D. (2009). Teddy Bear Culture: Childhood Innocence and the Desire for Adult Redemption. Popular Culture Association. April, New Orleans, LA.
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