Download or read book Constructing Adolescence in Fantastic Realism written by Alison Waller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-12-22 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constructing Adolescence in Fantastic Realism examines those fundamental themes which inform our understanding of "the teenager"—themes that emerge in both literary and cultural contexts. Models of adolescence do not arise solely from discourses of psychology, sociology, and education. Rather, these models—frameworks including developmentalism, identity formation, social agency, and subjectivity in cultural space—can also be found represented symbolically in fantastic tropes such as metamorphosis, time-slip, hauntings, doppelgangers, invisibility, magic gifts, and witchcraft. These are the incredible, supernatural, and magical elements that invade the everyday and diurnal world of fantastic realism. In this original study, Alison Waller proposes a new critical term to categorize a popular and established genre in literature for teenagers: young adult fantastic realism. Though fantastic realism plays a crucial part in the short history of young adult literature, up until now this genre has typically been overlooked or subsumed into the wider class of fantasy. Touching on well-known authors including Robert Cormier, Melvin Burgess, Gillian Cross, Margaret Mahy, K.M. Peyton and Robert Westall, as well as previously unexamined writers, Waller explores the themes and ideological perspectives embedded in fantastic realist novels in order to ask whether parallel realities and fantastic identities produce forms of adolescence that are dynamic and subversive. One of the first studies to deal with late twentieth-century fantastic literature for young adults, this book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of adult attitudes toward adolescent identity.
Download or read book Magic Realism in Holocaust Literature written by J. Adams and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-10-03 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major contribution to Holocaust studies, the book examines the capacity of supernatural elements to dramatize the ethical and representational difficulties of Holocaust fiction. Exploring texts by such writers as D.M. Thomas and Markus Zusak it will appeal to scholars and students of Holocaust literature, magic realism, and contemporary fiction.
Download or read book Contemporary Adolescent Literature and Culture written by Maria Nikolajeva and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a wide range of critical perspectives, this volume explores the moral, ideological and literary landscapes in fiction and other cultural productions aimed at young adults. Topics examined are adolescence and the natural world, nationhood and identity, the mapping of sexual awakening onto postcolonial awareness, hybridity and trans-racial romance, transgressive sexuality, the sexually abused adolescent body, music as a code for identity formation, representations of adolescent emotion, and what neuroscience research tells us about young adult readers, writers, and young artists. Throughout, the volume explores the ways writers configure their adolescent protagonists as awkward, alienated, rebellious and unhappy, so that the figure of the young adult becomes a symbol of wider political and societal concerns. Examining in depth significant contemporary novels, including those by Julia Alvarez, Stephenie Meyer, Tamora Pierce, Malorie Blackman and Meg Rosoff, among others, Contemporary Adolescent Literature and Culture illuminates the ways in which the cultural constructions 'adolescent' and 'young adult fiction' share some of society's most painful anxieties and contradictions.
Download or read book In Transition written by Emily Corbett and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2024-06-17 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book-length work of its kind, In Transition: Young Adult Literature and Transgender Representation examines the shift in the young adult book market towards increased representation of transgender characters and authors. Through a comprehensive exploration of historical conventions, genres, character diversity, and ideologies of trans representation, Emily Corbett traces the roots of trans literature from its beginnings in a cisgender-dominated publishing world to the recent rise in trans creators, characters, and implied readers. Corbett describes how trans-ness was initially perceived as an issue to be overcome by cisgender authors and highlights the ways in which the market has changed. Through careful analysis of texts that have until now received little scholarly attention, Corbett weaves together different theoretical approaches and fields of study to provide a map of the textual and cultural histories of this twenty-first-century publishing phenomenon. Focusing on trans authorship, authentic storytelling, and intersectional diversity, this book charts changing public attitudes, the YA book market, and the unique sociocultural moment in which these books are published. In Transition contributes new perspectives on the intersections of adolescence and trans-ness and sheds light on a dynamic subset of YA literature that has yet to receive sustained analysis.
Download or read book Patricia A McKillip and the Art of Fantasy World Building written by Audrey Isabel Taylor and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-08-11 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From wondrous fairy-lands to nightmarish hellscapes, the elements that make fantasy worlds come alive also invite their exploration. This first book-length study of critically acclaimed novelist Patricia A. McKillip's lyrical other-worlds analyzes her characters, environments and legends and their interplay with genre expectations. The author gives long overdue critical attention to McKillip's work and demonstrates how a broader understanding of world-building enables a deeper appreciation of her fantasies.
Download or read book Death Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Adolescent Literature written by Kathryn James and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-02-10 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Considering the trope of woman/death, the eroticizing of death, and the ways in which the gendered subject is represented in dialogue with the processes of death, dying, and grief, James shows how representations of death in young adult literature are invariably associated with issues of sexuality, gender, and power.
Download or read book Reading the Adolescent Romance written by Amy Pattee and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-01-25 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this critical study, Pattee examines the series’ content, structure, and reader base, investigating an influential marketing and literary phenomenon, and interrogating the intersecting influences of history, audience positioning, and readability that allowed "Sweet Valley" to flourish, and continues to allow other teen series to enjoy popular acclaim.
Download or read book The Subversive Harry Potter written by Vandana Saxena and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seven books in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series bring together a variety of aspects of young adult fiction and portray youthful rebellion as well as cultural containment and an adolescent's negotiations through these conflicting forces. This detailed study of Harry Potter explores the limits of the formulaic structure of adolescent fantasy fiction and also examines the impulse of exploration, subversion, and resistance contained within the formula. Within both subversion and containment in the narrative, young adult fantasy becomes an embodiment of the experience of adolescence--its angst, rebellion and also its journey of personal maturation.
Download or read book Female Heroes in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction written by Leah Phillips and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-01-26 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The heroic romance is one of the West's most enduring narratives, found everywhere, from religion and myth to blockbuster films and young adult literature. Within this story, adolescent girls are not, and cannot be, the heroes. They are, at best, the hero's bride, a prize he wins for slaying monsters. Crucially, although the girl's exclusion from heroic selfhood affects all girls, it does not do so equally- whiteness and able-bodiedness are taken as markers of heightened, fantasy femininity. Female Heroes in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction explores how the young female-heroes of mythopoeic YA, a Tolkienian-inspired genre drawing on myth's world-creating power and YA's liminal potential, disrupt the conventional heroic narrative. These heroes, such as Tamora Pierce's Alanna the Lioness, Daine the Wildmage, and Marissa Meyer's Cinder and Iko, offer a model of being-hero, an embodied way of living and being in this world that disrupts the typical hero's violent hierarchy, isolating individuality, and erasure of difference. In doing so, they push the boundaries of what it means to be a hero, a girl, and even human.
Download or read book Melvin Burgess written by Alison Waller and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Melvin Burgess has made a powerful name for himself in the world of children's and young adult literature, emerging in the 1990s as the author of over twenty critically acclaimed novels. This collection of original essays by a team of established and new scholars introduces readers to the key debates surrounding Burgess's most challenging work, including controversial young adult novels Junk and Doing It. Covering a variety of critical and theoretical perspectives, the volume also presents exciting new readings of some of his less familiar fiction for children, and features an interview with the author.
Download or read book A Companion to the Action Film written by James Kendrick and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-01-25 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative guide to the action-packed film genre With 24 incisive, cutting-edge contributions from esteemed scholars and critics, A Companion to the Action Filmprovides an authoritative and in-depth guide to this internationally popular and wide-ranging genre. As the first major anthology on the action film in more than a decade, the volume offers insights into the genre’s historical development, explores its production techniques and visual poetics, and provides reflections on the numerous social, cultural, and political issues it has and continues to embody. A Companion to the Action Film offers original research and critical analysis that examines the iconic characteristics of the genre, its visual aesthetics, and its narrative traits; considers the impact of major directors and stars on the genre’s evolution; puts the action film in dialogue with various technologies and other forms of media such as graphic novels and television; and maps out new avenues of critical study for the future. This important resource: Offers a definitive guide to the action film Contains insightful contributions from a wide range of international film experts and scholars Reviews the evolution of the genre from the silent era to today’s age of digital blockbusters Offers nuanced commentary and analysis of socio-cultural issues such as race, nationality, and gender in action films Written for scholars, teachers and students in film studies, film theory, film history, genre studies, and popular culture, A Companion to the Action Film is an essential guide to one of international cinema’s most important, popular, and influential genres.
Download or read book Children s Fantasy Literature written by Michael Levy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-16 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fantasy has been an important and much-loved part of children's literature for hundreds of years, yet relatively little has been written about it. Children's Fantasy Literature traces the development of the tradition of the children's fantastic - fictions specifically written for children and fictions appropriated by them - from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century, examining the work of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, C. S. Lewis, Roald Dahl, J. K. Rowling and others from across the English-speaking world. The volume considers changing views on both the nature of the child and on the appropriateness of fantasy for the child reader, the role of children's fantasy literature in helping to develop the imagination, and its complex interactions with issues of class, politics and gender. The text analyses hundreds of works of fiction, placing each in its appropriate context within the tradition of fantasy literature.
Download or read book Innovations in English Language Arts Teacher Education written by Heidi L. Hallman and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2017-02-02 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of English language arts teacher education has experienced change over the past two decades. Changes in the discipline have produced a much more expansive understanding of literacy and of what teachers of English language arts do. This volume will focus on innovations in English language arts teacher education.
Download or read book International Cinema and the Girl written by Fiona Handyside and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-29 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the precocious charms of Shirley Temple to the box-office behemoth Frozen and its two young female leads, Anna and Elsa, the girl has long been a figure of fascination for cinema. The symbol of (imagined) childhood innocence, the site of intrigue and nostalgia for adults, a metaphor for the precarious nature of subjectivity itself, the girl is caught between infancy and adulthood, between objectification and power. She speaks to many strands of interest for film studies: feminist questions of cinematic representation of female subjects; historical accounts of shifting images of girls and childhood in the cinema; and philosophical engagements with the possibilities for the subject in film. This collection considers the specificity of girls' experiences and their cinematic articulation through a multicultural feminist lens which cuts across the divides of popular/art-house, Western/non Western, and north/south. Drawing on examples from North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, the contributors bring a new understanding of the global/local nature of girlhood and its relation to contemporary phenomena such as post-feminism, neoliberalism and queer subcultures. Containing work by established and emerging scholars, this volume explodes the narrow post-feminist canon and expands existing geographical, ethnic, and historical accounts of cinematic cultures and girlhood.
Download or read book Mastering Fear written by Rikke Schubart and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-07-12 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mastering Fear analyzes horror as play and examines what functions horror has and why it is adaptive and beneficial for audiences. It takes a biocultural approach, and focusing on emotions, gender, and play, it argues we play with fiction horror. In horror we engage not only with the negative emotions of fear and disgust, but with a wide range of emotions, both positive and negative. The book lays out a new theory of horror and analyzes female protagonists in contemporary horror from child to teen, adult, middle age, and old age. Since the turn of the millennium, we have seen a new generation of female protagonists in horror. There are feisty teens in The Vampire Diaries (2009–2017), troubled mothers in The Babadook (2014), and struggling women in the New French extremity with Martyrs (2008) and Inside (2007). At the fuzzy edges of the genre are dramas like Pan's Labyrinth (2006) and Black Swan (2010), and middle-age women are now protagonists with Carol in The Walking Dead (2010–) and Jessica Lange's characters in American Horror Story (2011–). Horror is not just for men, but also for women, and not just for the young, but for audiences of all ages.
Download or read book The Myth of Persephone in Girls Fantasy Literature written by Holly Blackford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-04-23 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the myth of Persephone and Demeter as it informs the development of a long discourse about civilization, the development of children, child psychology, and fantasy literature. The pattern in the myth of girls who descend into underworlds and negotiate a partial return to the earth is a marked feature of girls’ literature, and the cycle also reflects the change of seasons and fertility/death. Tracing the parallel between the myth and girls’ literature enables an understanding of how female development is mourned but deemed necessary for the reproduction of culture. Blackford looks at the function of toys in children’s literature as a representation of the myth’s narcissus, combining this approach with classic interpretations of the myth as expressive of female psychology, mother-daughter object-relations, hieros gamos (fertility coupling) rituals, transition from matriarchal to patriarchal order, and excursions into the creative/artistic unconscious. The story of Persephone’s separation from her mother and abduction into the underworld is explored as an expression of ambivalence about female development in works such as Hoffmann’s Nutcracker and Mouse King, Alcott’s Little Women, Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Barrie’s Peter and Wendy, Burnett’s The Secret Garden, White’s Charlotte’s Web, Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Meyer’s Twilight, and Gaiman’s Coraline. With this book, Blackford offers a consideration of how literature for the young squares with broader canons, how classics flexibly and uniquely speak through novels that enjoy broad appeal, and how female traditions are embedded in novels by both men and women.
Download or read book Young Adult Gothic Fiction written by Michelle J. Smith and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection is the first to focus exclusively on twenty-first-century young adult Gothic fiction. The essays demonstrate how the contemporary resurgence of the Gothic signals anxieties about (and hopes for) young people in the twenty-first century. Changing conceptions of young adults as liminal figures, operating between the modes of child and adult, can be mobilised when combined with Gothic spaces and concepts in texts for young people. In young adult Gothic literature, the crossing of boundaries typical of the Gothic is often motivated by a heterosexual romance plot, in which the human or monstrous female protagonist desires a boy who is not her ‘type’. Additionally, as the Gothic works to define what it means to be human – particularly in relation to gender, race, and identity – the volume also examines how contemporary shifts and flashpoints in identity politics are being negotiated under the metaphoric cloak of monstrosity.
