1st Edition

Death, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Adolescent Literature

By Kathryn James Copyright 2009
224 Pages
by Routledge

220 Pages
by Routledge

220 Pages
by Routledge

Knowledge about carnality and its limits provides the agenda for much of the fiction written for adolescent readers today, yet there exists little critical engagement with the ways in which it has been represented in the young adult novel in either discursive, ideological, or rhetorical forms. Death, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Adolescent Literature is a pioneering study that addresses... Read more

Series Editor’s Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Beginning with Endings: Death in Children’s Literature

Chapter One: Points of Departure: Death, Culture, Representation

Chapter Two: Matilda’s Last Dance: Death and Historical Fiction

Chapter Three: Verisimilitude: Representing Death "In the Real"

Chapter Four: Beyond Consensus Reality: Death and Fantasy Fiction

Chapter Five: Imagined Futures: Death and the Post-Disaster Novel

Conclusion: Mapping the Landscape: The Unknown Country

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Biography

Kathryn James teaches children's literature at Deakin University, Melbourne. Her publications have appeared in Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature, Children’s Literature in Education, and New Talents 21C.

"Death is universal and inevitable, which is precisely why James (Deakin Univ, Melbourne, Australia) believes its frequent appearance in adolescent literature, to date little studied, is a topic worthy of analysis...James makes a good case for the application of her ideas to other Anglophone literature, and without doubt she breaks new ground in the study of a topic widely represented in fiction for teens, yet not widely studied...Recommended."

-- Choice, June 2009

 

 

'Uncompromising in its refusal to sentimentalise either adolescent experience or its representation, Death, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Adolescent Literature forces its readers to confront what is at stake in the ideologies underlying fiction for young adults.' - Shelley King, Times Higher Education Supplement