Fantasy and the Real World in British Children's Literature

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317935748
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (179 download)

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Book Synopsis Fantasy and the Real World in British Children's Literature by : Caroline Webb

Download or read book Fantasy and the Real World in British Children's Literature written by Caroline Webb and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines the children’s books of three extraordinary British writers—J.K. Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones, and Terry Pratchett—and investigates their sophisticated use of narrative strategies not only to engage children in reading, but to educate them into becoming mature readers and indeed individuals. The book demonstrates how in quite different ways these writers establish reader expectations by drawing on conventions in existing genres only to subvert those expectations. Their strategies lead young readers to evaluate for themselves both the power of story to shape our understanding of the world and to develop a sense of identity and agency. Rowling, Jones, and Pratchett provide their readers with fantasies that are pleasurable and imaginative, but far from encouraging escape from reality, they convey important lessons about the complexities and challenges of the real world—and how these may be faced and solved. All three writers deploy the tropes and imaginative possibilities of fantasy to disturb, challenge, and enlarge the world of their readers.

Fantasy and the Real World in British Children’s Literature

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317935756
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (179 download)

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Book Synopsis Fantasy and the Real World in British Children’s Literature by : Caroline Webb

Download or read book Fantasy and the Real World in British Children’s Literature written by Caroline Webb and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines the children’s books of three extraordinary British writers—J.K. Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones, and Terry Pratchett—and investigates their sophisticated use of narrative strategies not only to engage children in reading, but to educate them into becoming mature readers and indeed individuals. The book demonstrates how in quite different ways these writers establish reader expectations by drawing on conventions in existing genres only to subvert those expectations. Their strategies lead young readers to evaluate for themselves both the power of story to shape our understanding of the world and to develop a sense of identity and agency. Rowling, Jones, and Pratchett provide their readers with fantasies that are pleasurable and imaginative, but far from encouraging escape from reality, they convey important lessons about the complexities and challenges of the real world—and how these may be faced and solved. All three writers deploy the tropes and imaginative possibilities of fantasy to disturb, challenge, and enlarge the world of their readers.

Children's Fantasy Literature

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Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316483134
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (164 download)

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Book Synopsis Children's Fantasy Literature by : Michael Levy

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.

Fantasy Literature for Children and Young Adults

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Author :
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 363801892X
Total Pages : 36 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis Fantasy Literature for Children and Young Adults by : Evelyn Schmitz

Download or read book Fantasy Literature for Children and Young Adults written by Evelyn Schmitz and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2008-03-06 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Frankfurt (Main) (IEAS), course: Hauptseminar HS Book Bites - From Alice in Wonderland to Harry Potter, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction This paper presents the fields of Children’s and Young Adult Literature , Fantasy Literature and both fields in context. It will firstly discuss different approaches to these fields and specify them with a description of their historical developments – especially in Great Britain, the US and Germany. The focus will lie on a specific literary piece of work – the “Harry Potter” series, containing 7 volumes, written by Joanne K. Rowling, and firstly published originally in England in 1997. This series shall be applied to the theoretical background of fantastic ChL and YAL, so that motifs, figures, narrating techniques, and intentions are considered. The paper will conclude with a justification about what “Harry Potter” really is in a literary sense: A work of fantastic ChL and YAL. 2. What are „Children’s Literature“ and „Young Adult Literature“? 2.1 Definitions Both terms “Children’s Literature” and “Young Adult Literature” are ambiguous and thus not very easy to define. For instance, one may ask, whether ChL is written by children, read by children, written about children, written about what interests children, or written for children. One might generally answer that the notion of “Children’s Literature” includes a bit of everything (except the first aspect because children usually do not write literature). Hunt (1996: 17) also refers to these controversies when attempting to define the term. Firstly, he puts it in rather general words: “it is a category of books the existence of which absolutely depends on supposed relationships with a particular reading audience: children.” This statement defines the target group of ChL what means that Hunt sees it as literature which is read by children. However, this definition does not clarify the notion regarding the characteristics of its field. Many critiques say that the term includes “books which are good for children and most particularly good in terms of emotional and moral values” (Hunt, 1996: 17). But what are emotionally and morally good values, and who decides what they are? This leads to the question, whether ChL is specifically written for children. In this case, authors of such literature decide what is good as well as the parents or teachers who decide to let children read it.

Children's Literature and Culture of the First World War

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317361679
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Children's Literature and Culture of the First World War by : Lissa Paul

Download or read book Children's Literature and Culture of the First World War written by Lissa Paul and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Because all wars in the twenty-first century are potentially global wars, the centenary of the first global war is the occasion for reflection. This volume offers an unprecedented account of the lives, stories, letters, games, schools, institutions (such as the Boy Scouts and YMCA), and toys of children in Europe, North America, and the Global South during the First World War and surrounding years. By engaging with developments in Children’s Literature, War Studies, and Education, and mining newly available archival resources (including letters written by children), the contributors to this volume demonstrate how perceptions of childhood changed in the period. Children who had been constructed as Romantic innocents playing safely in secure gardens were transformed into socially responsible children actively committing themselves to the war effort. In order to foreground cross-cultural connections across what had been perceived as ‘enemy’ lines, perspectives on German, American, British, Australian, and Canadian children’s literature and culture are situated so that they work in conversation with each other. The multidisciplinary, multinational range of contributors to this volume make it distinctive and a particularly valuable contribution to emerging studies on the impact of war on the lives of children.

Global Perspectives on Death in Children’s Literature

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317599497
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

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Book Synopsis Global Perspectives on Death in Children’s Literature by : Lesley D. Clement

Download or read book Global Perspectives on Death in Children’s Literature written by Lesley D. Clement and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-30 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume visits death in children’s literature from around the world, making a substantial contribution to the dialogue between the expanding fields of Childhood Studies, Children’s Literature, and Death Studies. Considering both textual and pictorial representations of death, contributors focus on the topic of death in children’s literature as a physical reality, a philosophical concept, a psychologically challenging adjustment, and/or a social construct. Essays covering literature from the US, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Canada, the UK, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, India, and Iran display a diverse range of theoretical and cultural perspectives. Carefully organized sections interrogate how classic texts have been adapted for the twenty-first century, how death has been politicized, ritualized, or metaphorized, and visual strategies for representing death, and how death has been represented within the context of play. Asking how different cultures present the concept of death to children, this volume is the first to bring together a global range of perspective on death in children’s literature and will be a valuable contribution to an array of disciplines.

Historical Dictionary of Children's Literature

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1538122928
Total Pages : 443 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (381 download)

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Book Synopsis Historical Dictionary of Children's Literature by : Emer O'Sullivan

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Children's Literature written by Emer O'Sullivan and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historical Ditionary of Children's Literature, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 700 cross-referenced entries. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about children's literature.

Classical Reception and Children's Literature

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Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1786723298
Total Pages : 355 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (867 download)

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Book Synopsis Classical Reception and Children's Literature by : Owen Hodkinson

Download or read book Classical Reception and Children's Literature written by Owen Hodkinson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reception studies have transformed the classics. Many more literary and cultural texts are now regarded as 'valid' for classical study. And within this process of widening, children's literature has in its turn emerged as being increasingly important. Books written for children now comprise one of the largest and most prominent bodies of texts to engage with the classical world, with an audience that constantly changes as it grows up. This innovative volume wrestles with that very characteristic of change which is so fundamental to children's literature, showing how significant the classics, as well as classically-inspired fiction and verse, have been in tackling the adolescent challenges posed by metamorphosis. Chapters address such themes as the use made by C S Lewis, in The Horse and his Boy, of Apuleius' The Golden Ass; how Ovidian myth frames the Narnia stories; classical 'nonsense' in Edward Lear; Pan as a powerful symbol of change in children's literature, for instance in The Wind in the Willows; the transformative power of the Orpheus myth; and how works for children have handled the teaching of the classics.

The Early Reader in Children's Literature and Culture

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317394763
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis The Early Reader in Children's Literature and Culture by : Jennifer Miskec

Download or read book The Early Reader in Children's Literature and Culture written by Jennifer Miskec and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first volume to consider the popular literary category of Early Readers – books written and designed for children who are just beginning to read independently. It argues that Early Readers deserve more scholarly attention and careful thought because they are, for many younger readers, their first opportunity to engage with a work of literature on their own, to feel a sense of mastery over a text, and to experience pleasure from the act of reading independently. Using interdisciplinary approaches that draw upon and synthesize research being done in education, child psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and children’s literature, the volume visits Early Readers from a variety of angles: as teaching tools; as cultural artifacts that shape cultural and individual subjectivity; as mass produced products sold to a niche market of parents, educators, and young children; and as aesthetic objects, works of literature and art with specific conventions. Examining the reasons such books are so popular with young readers, as well as the reasons that some adults challenge and censor them, the volume considers the ways Early Readers contribute to the construction of younger children as readers, thinkers, consumers, and as gendered, raced, classed subjects. It also addresses children’s texts that have been translated and sold around the globe, examining them as part of an increasingly transnational children’s media culture that may add to or supplant regional, ethnic, and national children’s literatures and cultures. While this collection focuses mostly on books written in English and often aimed at children living in the US, it is important to acknowledge that these Early Readers are a major US cultural export, influencing the reading habits and development of children across the globe.

The Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature

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Author :
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 9780826417787
Total Pages : 930 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (177 download)

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Book Synopsis The Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature by : Bernice E. Cullinan

Download or read book The Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature written by Bernice E. Cullinan and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 930 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides articles covering children's literature from around the world as well as biographical and critical reviews of authors including Avi, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, and Anno Mitsumasa.

Children's Literature and the Posthuman

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136674918
Total Pages : 283 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (366 download)

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Book Synopsis Children's Literature and the Posthuman by : Zoe Jaques

Download or read book Children's Literature and the Posthuman written by Zoe Jaques and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-11 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation of identity formation in children's literature, this book brings together children’s literature and recent critical concerns with posthuman identity to argue that children’s fiction offers sophisticated interventions into debates about what it means to be human, and in particular about humanity’s relationship to animals and the natural world. In complicating questions of human identity, ecology, gender, and technology, Jaques engages with a multifaceted posthumanism to understand how philosophy can emerge from children's fantasy, disclosing how such fantasy can build upon earlier traditions to represent complex issues of humanness to younger audiences. Interrogating the place of the human through the non-human (whether animal or mechanical) leads this book to have interpretations that radically depart from the critical tradition, which, in its concerns with the socialization and representation of the child, has ignored larger epistemologies of humanness. The book considers canonical texts of children's literature alongside recent bestsellers and films, locating texts such as Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Pinocchio (1883) and the Alice books (1865, 1871) as important works in the evolution of posthuman ideas. This study provides radical new readings of children’s literature and demonstrates that the genre offers sophisticated interventions into the nature, boundaries and dominion of humanity.

Four British Fantasists

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 081085242X
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis Four British Fantasists by : Catherine Butler

Download or read book Four British Fantasists written by Catherine Butler and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the work of four of the successful of the generation of fantasy writers who rose to prominence in the second Golden Age of children's literature in Britain.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature

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Author :
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119652642
Total Pages : 912 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (196 download)

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Book Synopsis The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature by : Richard Bradford

Download or read book The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature written by Richard Bradford and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 912 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE WILEY BLACKWELL COMPANION TO CONTEMPORARY BRITISH AND IRISH LITERATURE An insightful guide to the exploration of modern British and Irish literature The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature is a must-have guide for anyone hoping to navigate the world of new British and Irish writing. Including modern authors and poets from the 1960s through to the 21st century, the Companion provides a thorough overview of contemporary poetry, fiction, and drama by some of the most prominent and noteworthy writers. Seventy-three comprehensive chapters focus on individual authors as well as such topics as Englishness and identity, contemporary Science Fiction, Black writing in Britain, crime fiction, and the influence of globalization on British and Irish Literature. Written in four parts, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature includes comprehensive examinations of individual authors, as well as a variety of themes that have come to define the contemporary period: ethnicity, gender, nationality, and more. A thorough guide to the main figures and concepts in contemporary literature from Britain and Ireland, this two-volume set: Includes studies of notable figures such as Seamus Heaney and Angela Carter, as well as more recently influential writers such as Zadie Smith and Sarah Waters. Covers topics such as LGBT fiction, androgyny in contemporary British Literature, and post-Troubles Northern Irish Fiction Features a broad range of writers and topics covered by distinguished academics Includes an analysis of the interplay between individual authors and the major themes of the day, and whether an examination of the latter enables us to appreciate the former. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature provides essential reading for students as well as academics seeking to learn more about the history and future direction of contemporary British and Irish Literature.

The Big Smallness

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 131736242X
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis The Big Smallness by : Michelle Ann Abate

Download or read book The Big Smallness written by Michelle Ann Abate and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first full-length critical study to explore the rapidly growing cadre of amateur-authored, independently-published, and niche-market picture books that have been released during the opening decades of the twenty-first century. Emerging from a powerful combination of the ease and affordability of desktop publishing software; the promotional, marketing, and distribution possibilities allowed by the Internet; and the tremendous national divisiveness over contentious socio-political issues, these texts embody a shift in how narratives for young people are being creatively conceived, materially constructed, and socially consumed in the United States. Abate explores how titles such as My Parents Open Carry (about gun laws), It’s Just a Plant (about marijuana policy), and My Beautiful Mommy (about the plastic surgery industry) occupy important battle stations in ongoing partisan conflicts, while they are simultaneously changing the landscape of American children’s literature. The book demonstrates how texts like Little Zizi and Me Tarzan, You Jane mark the advent of not simply a new commercial strategy in texts for young readers; they embody a paradigm shift in the way that narratives are being conceived, constructed, and consumed. Niche market picture books can be seen as a telling barometer about public perceptions concerning children and the social construction of childhood, as well as the function of narratives for young readers in the twenty-first century. At the same time, these texts reveal compelling new insights about the complex interaction among American print culture, children’s reading practices, and consumer capitalism. Amateur-authored, self-published, and specialty-subject titles reveal the way in which children, childhood, and children’s literature are both highly political and heavily politicized in the United States. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of American Studies, children’s literature, childhood studies, popular culture, political science, microeconomics, psychology, advertising, book history, education, and gender studies.

Terry Pratchett's Narrative Worlds

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319672983
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (196 download)

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Book Synopsis Terry Pratchett's Narrative Worlds by : Marion Rana

Download or read book Terry Pratchett's Narrative Worlds written by Marion Rana and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-02-12 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book highlights the multi-dimensionality of the work of British fantasy writer and Discworld creator Terry Pratchett. Taking into account content, political commentary, and literary technique, it explores the impact of Pratchett's work on fantasy writing and genre conventions.With chapters on gender, multiculturalism, secularism, education, and relativism, Section One focuses on different characters’ situatedness within Pratchett’s novels and what this may tell us about the direction of his social, religious and political criticism. Section Two discusses the aesthetic form that this criticism takes, and analyses the post- and meta-modern aspects of Pratchett’s writing, his use of humour, and genre adaptations and deconstructions. This is the ideal collection for any literary and cultural studies scholar, researcher or student interested in fantasy and popular culture in general, and in Terry Pratchett in particular.

Justice in Young Adult Speculative Fiction

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317610822
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (176 download)

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Book Synopsis Justice in Young Adult Speculative Fiction by : Marek C. Oziewicz

Download or read book Justice in Young Adult Speculative Fiction written by Marek C. Oziewicz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-04-17 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first to offer a justice-focused cognitive reading of modern YA speculative fiction in its narrative and filmic forms. It links the expansion of YA speculative fiction in the 20th century with the emergence of human and civil rights movements, with the communitarian revolution in conceptualizations of justice, and with spectacular advances in cognitive sciences as applied to the examination of narrative fiction. Oziewicz argues that complex ideas such as justice are processed by the human mind as cognitive scripts; that scripts, when narrated, take the form of multiply indexable stories; and that YA speculative fiction is currently the largest conceptual testing ground in the forging of justice consciousness for the 21st century world. Drawing on recent research in the cognitive and evolutionary sciences, Oziewicz explains how poetic, retributive, restorative, environmental, social, and global types of justice have been represented in narrative fiction, from 19th century folk and fairy tales through 21st century fantasy, dystopia, and science fiction. Suggesting that the appeal of these and other nonmimetic genres is largely predicated on the dream of justice, Oziewicz theorizes new justice scripts as conceptual tools essential to help humanity survive the qualitative leap toward an environmentally conscious, culturally diversified global world. This book is an important contribution to studies of children’s and YA speculative fiction, adding a new perspective to discussions about the educational as well as social potential of nonmimetic genres. It demonstrates that the justice imperative is very much alive in YA speculative fiction, creating new visions of justice relevant to contemporary challenges.

Embodying Gender and Age in Speculative Fiction

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 131755194X
Total Pages : 162 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

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Book Synopsis Embodying Gender and Age in Speculative Fiction by : Derek J. Thiess

Download or read book Embodying Gender and Age in Speculative Fiction written by Derek J. Thiess and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-14 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following scholarship on gender in science fiction, this book explores the limits of considering age as a social construction, positing that an acknowledgement of aged bodies necessarily changes the way we read both age and science fiction. The volume employs contemporary clinical psychology, the biopsychosocial model, to demonstrate that age is an important and neglected topic relevant to the study of speculative fiction. While gender offers a vocabulary, the biopsychosocial approach provides a method to consider age (and gender) as an embodied synthesis of physicality, psychology, and social environment. This respected model of clinical psychology allows a unique and innovative lens through which to read age and the body in literature. Thiess offers readings of established sf classics including Octavia Butler’s Parable series; Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game; and cyberpunk authors such as Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, and Neal Stephenson, also exploring more mainstream speculative works including Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series and Joss Whedon’s Firefly/Serenity. Visiting topics such as care work, sexuality, sport, and the military in these works, the book demonstrates that acknowledging a more fully embodied age is not only necessary for the individual subject, but will also enrich our understanding of other social categories, including gender and race. Taking a constructive—rather than adversarial—stance, this book does not merely question how much one can ethically and responsibly "bend" age, but suggests there is a great deal to learn when one explores those limits.