Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction

by Sara K. Day (Editor), Miranda A. Green-Barteet (Editor), Amy L. Montz (Editor)

Overview

Responding to the increasingly powerful presence of dystopian literature for young adults, this volume focuses on novels featuring a female protagonist who contends with societal and governmental threats at the same time that she is navigating the treacherous waters of young adulthood. The contributors relate the liminal nature of the female protagonist to liminality as a unifying feature of dystopian literature, literature for and about young women, and cultural expectations of adolescent womanhood. Divided into three sections, the collection investigates cultural assumptions and expectations of adolescent women, considers the various means of resistance and rebellion made available to and explored by female protagonists, and examines how the adolescent female protagonist is situated with respect to the groups and environments that surround her. In a series of thought-provoking essays on a wide range of writers that includes Libba Bray, Scott Westerfeld, Tahereh Mafi, Veronica Roth, Marissa Meyer, Ally Condie, and Suzanne Collins, the collection makes a convincing case for how this rebellious figure interrogates the competing constructions of adolescent womanhood in late-twentieth- and early twenty-first-century culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138247680
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/26/2016
Series:	Studies in Childhood, 1700 to the Present
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Sara K. Day is Assistant Professor of English at Southern Arkansas University, USA; Miranda A. Green-Barteet is joint appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Women's Studies and Feminist Research and the Department of English and Writing Studies at the University of Western Ontario, Canada; and Amy L. Montz is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Southern Indiana, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction: From “New Woman” to “Future Girl”: The Roots and the Rise of the Female Protagonist in Contemporary Young Adult Dystopias; Part I Reflections and Reconsiderations of Rebellious Girlhood; Chapter 1 Girl Power and Girl Activism in the Fiction of Suzanne Collins, Scott Westerfeld, and Moira Young, Sonya Sawyer Fritz; Chapter 2 “I’m beginning to know who I am”: The Rebellious Subjectivities of Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior, Miranda A. Green-Barteet; Chapter 3 Of Scrivens and Sparks: Girl Geniuses in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction, Rachel Dean-Ruzicka; Chapter 4 Docile Bodies, Dangerous Bodies: Sexual Awakening and Social Resistance in Young Adult Dystopian Novels, Sara K. Day; Part II Forms and Signs of Rebellion; Chapter 5 Gender Rolls: Bread and Resistance in the “Hunger Games” Trilogy, Meghan Gilbert-Hickey; Chapter 6 Rebels in Dresses: Distractions of Competitive Girlhood in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction, Amy L. Montz; Chapter 7 The Three Faces of Tally Youngblood: Rebellious Identity-Changing in Scott Westerfeld’s “Uglies” Series, Mary Jeanette Moran; Chapter 8 “Perpetually waving to an unseen crowd”: Satire and Process in Beauty Queens, Bridgitte Barclay; Part III Contexts and Communities of Rebellion; Chapter 9 Rebellious Natures: The Role of Nature in Young Adult Dystopian Female Protagonists’ Awakenings and Agency, Megan McDonough, Katherine A. Wagner; Chapter 10 Real or Not Real—Katniss Everdeen Loves Peeta Melark: The Lingering Effects of Discipline in the “Hunger Games” Trilogy, June Pulliam; Chapter 11 The Incompatibility of Female Friendships and Rebellion, Ann M. M. Childs;

Editorial Reviews

"Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction is an exciting addition to the increasingly intersecting interests of gender studies, YA literature, and dystopia. The writers ponder two vital questions: how do these recent popular YA dystopias explore gender, and how empowering are they for their young female readers? Their interesting arguments will certainly stimulate conversation about the value of dystopia to a young audience." —Elaine Ostry, SUNY, Plattsburgh, USA

"... the collection makes a convincing case for how the rebellious female protagonist in YA dystopian fiction probes the differing presentations of adolescent womanhood in late-twentieth- and early twenty-first-century culture. ... Female Rebellion provides a noteworthy and substantial critical resource for YA dystopian fiction in particular and YA fiction in general." —Rocky Mountain Review

"... all of the essays in the collection draw on contemporary scholarship in the field of young adult literature and offer excellent insight into what it means to be a rebellious teen girl in the dystopian future. ... it is an interesting and exciting addition to the Ashgate Studies in Childhood series and a supremely important work for this moment in the study of young adult literature." —Children’s Literature Association Quarterly

"It is a valuable, original contribution to the field and represents some of the best thinking to date on dystopian heroines, the cultural background which informs and influences them and the very real stakes which underpin these highly popular, influential representations in YA literature today." —International Research in Children's Literature

From the Publisher