Teens and the new religious landscape : essays on contemporary young adult fiction

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Information & Library Science Library

Call Number
PN3443 .T44 2018
Status
Available

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Summary

How are teenagers' religious experiences shown in today's young adult literature? How do authors use religious texts and beliefs to add depth to characters, settings and plots? How does YA fiction place itself in the larger conversation regarding religion?

Modern YA fiction does not shy away from the dilemmas and anxieties teenagers face today. While many stories end with the protagonist in a state of flux if not despair, some authors choose redemption or reconciliation.

This collection of new essays explores these issues and more, with a focus on stories in which characters respond to a new (often shifting) religious landscape, in both realistic and fantastic worlds.

Contents

  • Acknowledgments p. v
  • Introduction: Young Adult Literature and the Postsecular Novel p. 1 Jacob Stratman
  • Postsecular Young Adult Literature: or, Harry Potter and the New Religious Landscape p. 9 Paul T. Corrigan
  • Fantasy as Realism: N.D. Wilson and the Influence of Mythology p. 25 Jeremy Larson
  • A Ninja, a Nun and a Knight: Christianity and Narrative Mischief in Brian Meehl's You Don't Know About Me, Suck It Up and Suck It Up and Die p. 45 Carrie Myers
  • The Book Worlds of Nikki Grimes: An Invitation to Dialogic Reading p. 65 Susan Leigh Brooks
  • Young Adult Fiction, Diaspora and the "Muslim" Question: A Study on Faith and Feminism in Randa Abdel-Fattah's Novels p. 80 Fatema Johera Ahmed
  • The Customized Religion: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, American Teenagers and Pete Hautman's Godless p. 112 Jacob Stratman
  • Learning How to Be Jewish in The Truth About My Bat Mitzvah and Confessions of a Closet Catholic p. 122 Patricia F. D'Ascoli
  • "Stick up for these crazy stupid things": Emily Horner's Queer Quaker Road Trip Novel p. 135 Katelyn R. Browne
  • Performing God: Kiran and Krishna in Rakesh Satyal's Blue Boy p. 151 Rizia Begum Laskar
  • The Way of the Fantasist: Ethical Complexities in the Taoist Mythopoeic Fantasy of Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea p. 171 David S. Hogsette
  • The Language of Magic and Prayer: Intercession in the Works of Merrie Haskell p. 189 Erin Wyble Newcomb
  • Postsecular Cosplay, Fundamentalism and Martyrdom in Gene Luen Yang's Boxers & Saints p. 202 Carissa Turner Smith
  • Sight, Blindness and Identity in Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese and Boxers & Saints p. 218 Shih-Wen Sue Chen
  • About the Contributors p. 231
  • Index p. 233

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