Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Hungering for Middle Ground

Binaries of Self in Young Adult Dystopia

  • Chapter
The Politics of Panem

Part of the book series: Critical Literacy Teaching Series ((LITE))

  • 1581 Accesses

Abstract

As this collection demonstrates, Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy offers a distinctive example of young adult dystopia for many reasons, including its engagement with a wide range of critical perspectives. Among these, the series is unique in the way it portrays social anxieties relating to the tension between a constructed or embodied self, a tension that seems a crucial element to many popular contemporary texts of this genre.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 49.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Anderson, M.T. (2002). Feed. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bradford, C., & Baccolini, R. (2011). Journeying subjects: Spatiality and identity in children’s texts. In K. Mallan & C. Bradford (Eds.), Contemporary children’s literature and film: Engaging with theory (pp. 36-53). Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bradford, C., Mallan, K., Stephens, J., & McCallum, R. (2008). New world orders in contemporary children’s literature: Utopian transformations. New York: Palgrave.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of “sex.” New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. (1997). The psychic life of power: Theories in subjection. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, S. (2008). The hunger games. New York: Scholastic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, S. (2009). Catching fire. New York: Scholastic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, S. (2010). Mockingjay. New York: Scholastic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Condie, A. (2010). Matched. New York: Dutton Book.

    Google Scholar 

  • Easterlin, N. (1999). Making knowledge: Bioepistemology and the foundations of literary theory. Mosaic, 32, 131-147.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gergen, K. (1991). The saturated self: Dilemmas of identity in contemporary life. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibbs, R. (2006). Embodiment and cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gross, P., & Levitt, N. (1994). Higher superstition: The academic left and its quarrels with science. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grosz, E. (1994). Volatile bodies: Toward a corporeal feminism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart, F. E. (2001). The epistemology of cognitive literary studies. Philosophy and Literature, 25(2), 314-334.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayles, N. K. (1993). Constrained constructivism: Locating scientific inquiry in the theater of representation. In G. Levine (Ed.), Realism and representation: Essays on the problem of realism in relation to science, literature, and culture (pp. 27-43). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hintz, C. (2002). Monica Hughes, Lois Lowry, and young adult dystopias. The Lion and the Unicorn, 26(2), 254-264.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Latham, D. (2004). Discipline and its discontents: A Foucauldian reading of The Giver. Children’s Literature, 32, 134-151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCallum, R. (1999). Ideologies of identity in adolescent fiction: The dialogic construction of subjectivity. New York: Garland.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNay, L. (1999). Subject, psyche and agency: The work of Judith Butler. Theory, Culture and Society, 16(2), 175-193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ness, P. (2009). The knife of never letting go. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roth, V. (2012). Divergent. New York: Katherine Tegen Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sambell, K. (2004). Carnivalizing the future: A new approach to theorizing childhood and adulthood in science fiction for young readers. The Lion and the Unicorn, 28(2), 247-267.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trites, R.S. (2000). Disturbing the universe: Power and repression in adolescent literature. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ventura, A. (2011). Predicting a better situation? Three young adult speculative fiction texts and the possibilities for social change. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 36(1), 89-103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vitz, P.C. (2006). The embodied self: Evidence from cognitive psychology and neuropsycholgoy. In P. C. Vitz & S. M. Felch (Eds.), The self: Beyond the postmodern crisis (pp. 113-128). Wilmington, DE: ISI Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westerfeld, S. (2005). Uglies. New York: Simon Pulse.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Meghann Meeusen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, USA

    Sean P. Connors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Sense Publishers

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Meeusen, M. (2014). Hungering for Middle Ground. In: Connors, S.P. (eds) The Politics of Panem. Critical Literacy Teaching Series. SensePublishers, Rotterdam. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-806-0_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation