ENG 1013 - The Book Was Better: Contemporary Young Adult Literature

Credits: 4

Young adult literature has been around for at least a hundred years, but the turn of the 21st century welcomed a tidal wave of highly impactful, expertly-written novels designed for children and adults alike and published and circulated by popular presses. In this class, we will read and study a selection of now canonical young adult literary texts centered around three themes: magical realism, dystopia, and historical revision. In each novel, we will encounter characters and storylines that are worthy of scholarly study both because of their widespread absorption into popular culture and because they analogize the trials and tribulations of our very real 21st century experiences. In this class you will have a chance to read (or re-read) with a critical, scholarly eye some of the stories that have incited the youthful imaginations and created today’s college-age readers.