Using a variety of representative texts and media, this course will consider YA (Young Adult) as a literary genre, including the narrative, affective, and aesthetic elements commonly implemented in youth narratives; as a marketing category; and as an evolving archive of the adult ideologies informing constructions of youth culture and the adolescent experience. Similarly, we’ll consider the power dynamics inherent in the construction, consumption and distribution of stories for and about young people; the empowering possibilities of teen narratives that interrogate binaries of race, gender, and sexuality; and, finally, the appeal of dystopian YA fiction.
- Teacher: Barbara Tannert-Smith