Posthumanist Readings in Dystopian Young Adult Fiction

Negotiating the Nature/Culture Divide

Jennifer Harrison

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.

Lexington Books

Pages: 146 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-4985-7335-1 • Hardback • April 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-7337-5 • Paperback • March 2022 • $41.99 • (£35.00)

978-1-4985-7336-8 • eBook • April 2019 • $39.50 • (£30.00)

Series: Children and Youth in Popular Culture

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Children's & Young Adult Literature, Literary Criticism / Modern / General, Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / Nature, Literary Criticism / Popular Literature, Young Adult Fiction / Dystopian

Posthumanist Readings in Dystopian Young Adult Fiction

Negotiating the Nature/Culture Divide

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

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.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 146 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-4985-7335-1 • Hardback • April 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-7337-5 • Paperback • March 2022 • $41.99 • (£35.00)

978-1-4985-7336-8 • eBook • April 2019 • $39.50 • (£30.00)

Series: Children and Youth in Popular Culture

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Children's & Young Adult Literature, Literary Criticism / Modern / General, Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / Nature, Literary Criticism / Popular Literature, Young Adult Fiction / Dystopian

Author

Jennifer Harrison is instructor of English at East Stroudsburg University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Young Adult Dystopia and the Posthuman Perspective

Chapter 1: Carrie Ryan’s Forest of Hands and Teeth: Sex, Infection and Hopelessness

Chapter 2: Lois Lowry’s The Giver: Biotechnology, Wilderness, and Government

Chapter 3: Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking Trilogy: Language and the Non-Human Other

Chapter 4: Neal Shusterman’s Unwind: Posthuman Recycling and the Death of the Hero

Chapter 5: Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines Series: Posthumanism, Evolution, Apocalypse, and Time

Chapter 6: Adam Rapp’s Decelerate Blue: Solarpunk, Consumerism, and the Posthumanist Future

Conclusion: Young Adult Dystopia and the Posthuman Perspective

Reviews

Because it entails the erasure of borders between the individual, the collective, and the environment, the posthuman state, Harrison argues, is inimical to the bildungsroman narrative that has typically underpinned YA dystopias. Harrison's contribution to scholarship on posthumanism in YA literature is significant, and it lies in providing a framework for understanding the dystopian genre as a tool of posthuman inquiry, albeit one that is still struggling to liberate itself from the conventions of the bildungsroman.

— Children's Literature Association Quarterly

Harrison offers an original and critical contribution to the study of dystopian young adult literature by focusing on pressing ethical concerns around the limits of humanism, environmental degradation, and the category of the human. This book will be a useful resource to scholars and general readers interested in YA literature, dystopia, ecocriticism, and critical posthumanism.
— Libe García Zarranz, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Harrison proposes a way of reading a broad range of dystopian fiction consistent with the present dilemmas and succeeds in demonstrating that the contemporary crisis of humanity has multifaceted portrayals in literature for young readers.
— International Research in Children’s Literature