Fictions of adolescent carnality : sexy sinners and delinquent deviants / Lydia Kokkola.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kokkola, Lydia, 1967-

Series:

Children's Literature, Culture, and Cognition

Children's literature, culture, and cognition, 2212-9006 ; v. 1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Young adult literature, American--History and criticism.

Young adult literature, American.

Sex role in literature.

Sex in literature.

Teenagers--Books and reading.

Teenagers.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (246 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : John Benjamins Pub. Co., 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Fictions of Adolescent Carnality considers one of the most controversial topics related to adolescents: their experience of desire. In fiction for adolescents, carnal desire is variously presented as a source of angst, an overwhelming experience over which one has no control, bestial, disgusting and, just occasionally, a source of pleasure. The on-set of desire, within the Anglophone tradition, has been closely associated with the loss of innocence and the end of childhood. Drawing on a corpus of 200 narratives of adolescent desire, Kokkola examines the connections between sociological accounts of teenagers' sexual behaviour, adult fears for and about their off-spring and fictional representations of adolescents exploring their sexuality. Taking up topics such as adolescent pregnancy and parenthood, queer sexualities, animal-human connections and sexual abuse, Kokkola provides wide-ranging insights into how Anglophone literature responds to adolescents' carnal desires, and contributes to on-going debates on the construction of adolescence and the ideology of innocence."--Publisher's website.

Contents:

Fictions of Adolescent Carnality; Editorial page; Title page; LCC data; Dedication page; Table of contents; Introduction; Ideologies of adolescent carnality: An outline of the study; Adolescence, innocence and power; From innocence and experience to the sexual innocent; The emergence of innocence and the romanticisation of the child; The emergence of adolescence; Sexual innocence and the fear of the knowing child; Imposing the imperative of sexual innocence on adolescents; The end of innocence: Literary losses of virginity; The calamitous consequences of carnality

Education and protection: Birth controlPregnancy and teenage parenthood: "Great ghastly mistake[s] with ructions all round" (Pennington's Heir, p. 32); The monstrous mother: "No one say nuffin' to me now my belly big" (Push, p. 23); Adoption: "it's always seemed like somebody else's baby, Mum's grandchild, Dad's disgrace, Auntie Olive's good work" (Someone Else's Baby, p. 22); Abortion: "There [is] no perfect way, no easy way, no way without pain" (Growing Up in a Hurry, p. 168); Illegal contemplations and complexities "Oh, Pat! You might have killed the baby!" (Young Mother, p. 20)

Changing minds: "I know this is the right thing for a lot of girls, but I just realized that it's not right for me" (Dancing Naked, p. 45)Going ahead: "I never understood in what way it was like murder" (It's OK, p. 174); Teenage marriages: "I'm not [ill] ... I'm married" (Bo Jo Jones, p. 44); Empowered parents: Fantastic fathers and marvellous mothers; Murdering mothers: An alternative to parenthood?; Disease and death: "Sex can kill you" (The Hanged Man, p. 14); Queer carnalities; Adolescent desires = Queer desires?; Coming out, becoming visible; Stereotypes of coming out

Stereotypes of queer aestheticsCrossing the great divide: Cross-generational carnal capers; Unseen desires: Ghosted girls in straight plots; Queer readings and reading queerly; The beastly bestiality of adolescent desire; The 'natural' affinity of adolescents and animals; Canine carnalities: Queer boys and their dogs; Horsing around: The queer carnalities of the stable; Metamorphosis: Disguising deviant desires; Shuddering with pleasure: Embracing the power of the stag; Unleashing the power of the tiger; Seasonal desires and the desire of being in season; In the heat of dog days

The femme fatale or vagina dentataShrinking from the awful form: Sex and the Serpent; The abjection of abused adolescents; Articulate absences and speaking silences: Off-stage depictions of abuse; Forced recoveries: Extending trauma?; The borderlands of abuse: Willing victims?; Unheimlich homes: On-stage rape in the home; Escaping trauma: Refusing recovery?; Narratives of hope and despair; Victims of vice: Prostitution and the loss of innocence; Racially marked bodies: Seeing the invisible; Encountering the abused adolescent body; The end of innocence and the on-set of knowledge?

Corpus of novels and short stories for teenagers

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9789027272041

9027272042

OCLC:

844361701