Posthumanist Readings in Dystopian Young Adult Fiction

Posthumanist Readings in Dystopian Young Adult Fiction
Author: Jennifer Harrison
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 147
Release: 2019-04-29
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1498573363

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If there is one trend in children’s and YA literature that seems to be enjoying a steady rise in popularity, it is the expansion of the YA dystopian genre. While the genre has been lauded for its potential to expand horizons, promote critical thinking, and foster social awareness and activism, it has also come under scrutiny for its promotion of specific ideologies and its often sensationalist approach to real-world problems. In an examination of six YA dystopian texts spanning more than twenty years of development of the genre, this book explores the way in which posthumanist ideologies in particular are deployed or resisted in these texts as a means of making sense of the specific challenges which young people confront in the twenty-first century.

Transhumanism and Posthumanism in Twenty-First Century Narrative

Transhumanism and Posthumanism in Twenty-First Century Narrative
Author: Sonia Baelo-Allué
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2021-05-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1000374017

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Transhumanism and Posthumanism in Twenty-First Century Narrative brings together fifteen scholars from five different countries to explore the different ways in which the posthuman has been addressed in contemporary culture and more specifically in key narratives, written in the second decade of the 21st century, by Dave Eggers, William Gibson, John Shirley, Tom McCarthy, Jeff Vandermeer, Don DeLillo, Margaret Atwood, Cixin Liu and Helen Marshall. Some of these works engage in the premises and perils of transhumanism, while others explore the qualities of the (post)human in a variety of dystopian futures marked by the planetary influence of human action. From a critical posthumanist perspective that questions anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism and the centrality of the ‘human’ subject in the era of the Anthropocene, the scholars in this collection analyse the aesthetic choices these authors make to depict the posthuman and its aftereffects.

The Necessity of Young Adult Fiction

The Necessity of Young Adult Fiction
Author: Deborah Lindsay Williams
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2023-02-07
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0192665251

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Discusses how young adult fiction offers new ways of thinking about climate change and definitions of citizenship. The Necessity of Young Adult Fiction argues that YA fiction helps us to think about some of most pressing problems of the twenty-first century by offering imaginative reconceptualizations about identity, nation, family, and the human relationship to the planet. Using examples from YA fiction that range from the Harry Potter series to Nnedi Okorafor's trilogy set in contemporary Nigeria, this book argues that the cultural work of YA fiction shapes readers perceptions, making them receptive to—and invested in—the possibility of positive social change. The novels examined could all be considered "fantastical," but they offer insights into the real world that all readers—and particularly young adult readers—might draw on in order to reimagine social structures and the well-being of the planet. The book is designed to bring readers into the conversation about how we might create cosmopolitan societies that are shaped around conversation and engagement rather than fear and isolation. Each of these novels, in different ways, illustrate the dangers inherent in fundamentalist visions of the world. Through its discussions about the relationships between reading and citizenship, monsters and families, the local and the global, The Necessity of Young Adult Fiction demonstrates that YA fiction is doing some of the most important and creative work in literature today.

Dystopian States of America

Dystopian States of America
Author: Matthew B. Hill
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2022-09-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1440873399

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Dystopian States of America is a crucial resource that studies the impact of dystopian works on American society-including ways in which they reflect our deep and persistent fears about environmental calamities, authoritarian governments, invasive technologies, and human weakness. Dystopian States of America provides students and researchers with an illuminating resource for understanding the impact and relevance of dystopian and apocalyptic works in contemporary American culture. Through its wide survey of dystopian works in numerous forms and genres, the book encourages readers to connect with these works of fiction and understand how the catastrophically grim or disquieting worlds they portray offer insights into our own current situation. In addition to providing more than 150 encyclopedia articles on a large and representative sample of dystopian/apocalyptic narratives in fiction, film, television, and video games (including popular works that often escape critical inquiry), Dystopian States of America features a suite of critical essays on five themes-war, pandemics, totalitarianism, environmental calamity, and technological overreach-that serve as the foundation for most dystopian worlds of the imagination. These offerings complement one another, enabling readers to explore dystopian conceptions of America and the world from multiple perspectives and vantage points.

School Gun Violence in YA Literature

School Gun Violence in YA Literature
Author: Laura A. Brown
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 147
Release: 2022-05-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1793622086

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Since Columbine, the topic of school shootings has become ever more prevalent in the media, in research, and in fiction. This book provides analyses of several Young Adult (YA) texts about school shootings and uncovers how the authors represent such violence (and those who perpetrate it) while developing stories that effectively speak to their adolescent readers. Employing Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, Laura A. Brown examines how the texts frame particular settings and events as important to the development of young people as a way of accounting for the shootings. Likewise, psychologist Peter Langman’s classification of the three populations of school shooters is utilized as a framework to analyze the characterization of fictional shooters in the texts. The author argues that these texts, while not easy to read, are important, as they problematize the ways we think about, approach, and react to school shootings and the students who commit such acts.

Child and Youth Agency in Science Fiction

Child and Youth Agency in Science Fiction
Author: Ingrid E. Castro
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1498597394

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This collection merges representations of children and youth in various science fiction texts with childhood studies theories and debates. Set in the past, present, and future, science fiction landscapes and technologies sometimes constrain, but often expand, agentic expression, movement, and collaboration.

Images of the Anthropocene in Speculative Fiction

Images of the Anthropocene in Speculative Fiction
Author: Tereza Dedinová
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2021-03-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1793636648

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In order to demonstrate that speculative fiction provides a valuable contribution to the discussion about the challenges of the Anthropocene, Images of the Anthropocene in Speculative Fiction investigates a range of novels whose subject matter pertains to various aspects of the Anthropocene. These include the destruction and protection of the natural environment, the relationship between human and non-human inhabitants of the planet, the role of myth in the shaping of and combat against the Anthropocene, the political dimensions of the Anthropocene, the ensuing threat of the Apocalypse, and the role of post-apocalyptic narratives. To explore these topics our authors examine the works of Patricia Briggs, M.R. Carey, Dmitry Glukhovsky, Ursula K. Le Guin, N.K. Jemisin, Stephenie Meyer, China Miéville, James Patterson, Maggie Stiefvater, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Scott Westfield. Their essays demonstrate that speculative fiction, given its ability to pursue scenarios of alternative history and present familiar things in an unfamiliar way, can alter the readers’ perception of their duties and responsibilities towards their communities and the world, so that the threat of human-wrought destruction might ultimately be averted.

Childhood, Agency, and Fantasy

Childhood, Agency, and Fantasy
Author: Ingrid E. Castro
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2021-01-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1498594301

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Joining the emergent interdisciplinary investment in bridging the social sciences and the humanities, Childhood, Agency, and Fantasy: Walking in Other Worlds explores linkages between children’s agency and fantasy. Fantasy as an integral aspect of childhood and as a genre allows for children’s spectacular dreams and hopeful realities. Friendship, family, identity, loyalty, belongingness, citizenry, and emotionality are central concepts explored in chapters that are anchored by humanities texts of television, film, and literature, but also by social science qualitative methods of participant observation and interviews. Fantasy has the capacity to be a revolutionary change agent that in its modernity can creatively reflect, critique, or reimagine the social, political, and cultural norms of our world. Such promise is also found to be true of children’s agency, wherein children’s beings and becomings, rooted in childhood’s freedoms and constraints, result in a range of outcomes. In the endeavor to broaden theory and research on children’s agency, fantasy becomes a point of possibility with its expanding subjectivities, far-reaching terrain, and spirit of adventure.

The Encyclopedia of Sexism in American Films

The Encyclopedia of Sexism in American Films
Author: Salvador Jiménez Murguía
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2019-11-29
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1538115522

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The treatment—and mistreatment—of women throughout history continues to be a necessary topic of discussion, in order for progress to be made and equality to be achieved. While current articles and books expose troubling truths of the gender divide, modern cinema continues to provide problematic depictions of such behavior—with a few heartening exceptions. The Encyclopedia of Sexism in American Films closely examines the many, pervasive forms of sexism in contemporary productions—from clueless comedies to superhero blockbusters. In more than 130 entries, this volume explores a number of cinematic grievances including: the objectification of women’s bodies the limited character types available for female performers the lack of sexual diversity on the screen the limited range of desirable traits for female performers the use of gratuitous sex the narrow focus on heteronormative depictions of courtship and romance The films discussed here include As Good as It Gets (1999), Beauty and The Beast (2017), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Do the Right Thing (1989), Easy A (2010), The Forty-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Hidden Figures (2016), Lost in Translation (2003), Mulholland Drive (2001), Showgirls (1995), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Star Wars (1977), Thelma & Louise (1991), Tootsie (1982), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), and 9 to 5 (1980). By digging deeply into more insidious forms of sexual/gender discrimination, this book illuminates one more aspect of women’s lives that deserves to be understood. Offering insights and analysis from more than fifty contributors, The Encyclopedia of Sexism in American Films will appeal to scholars of cinema, gender studies, women’s studies, and cultural history.

Screening Children in Post-apocalypse Film and Television

Screening Children in Post-apocalypse Film and Television
Author: Debbie Olson
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2023-11-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1666918687

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This collection examines the child’s role in contemporary post-apocalyptic films and television.. By exploring the function of child characters within a dystopian framework, this volume illustrates how traditional notions of childhood are tethered to sites of adult conflict and disaster, a connection that often works to reaffirm the “rightness” of past systems of social order.