Posthumanist Readings in Dystopian Young Adult Fiction: Negotiating the Nature/Culture Divide

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Description

If there is one trend in childrens 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.

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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 Garca Zarranz, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Author Bio

Jen Harrison is instructor of English at East Stroudsburg University.