Kazimierz Dabrowski’s psychological theory of positive disintegration is a lesser known theory of personality development that offers an alternative critical perspective of literature. It provides a framework for the characterization of postmodern protagonists who move beyond heroic indoctrination to construct their own self-organized, autonomous identities. Ezra Pound’s The Cantos captures the speaker-poet’s extensive process of inner conflict, providing a unique opportunity to track the progress of the hero’s transformation into a personality, or a man. American Gods is a more fully realized portrayal of a character who undergoes the complete paradigmatic collapse of positive disintegration and deliberate self-derived self-revision in a more distilled linear fashion. Importantly, using a Dabrowskian lens to re-examine contemporary literature that has evolved to portray how the experience of psychopathology leads to metaphorical death—which may have any combination of negative or positive outcomes—has not only socio-cultural significance but important personal implications as well.

THROUGH THE FIGURE OF FICTIONAL CHARACTER KATNISS EVERDEEN, THIS DISSERTATION STUDIES HOW THE FILM INDUSTRY SIMULTANEOUSLY ENTRENCHES AND DISRUPTS GENDER, SEXUAL, AND RACIAL NORMATIVITIES. THE PROJECT USES TEXTUAL ANALYSIS AND PARTICIPANT RESEARCH TO ANALYZE HOW THE FILMS AND NOVELS OF THE HUNGER GAMES SAGA ENCAPSULATE BOTH DOMINANT AND ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTIONS RELATED TO FEMININITY, MASCULINITY, WOMANHOOD, AND MOTHERHOOD. IT ALSO EXPLORES IF AND HOW THE FEMALE HEROINE CAN BE READ AS FEMINIST AND PRODUCES A SENSE OF EMPOWERMENT. I CONCLUDE THAT ALTHOUGH THE INDUSTRY IS PRODUCING NEW MODELS OF WOMANHOOD THAT CHALLENGE TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES, IT STILL PERPETUATES ROMANTIC IDEALS AND IDEALIZES THE HETEROSEXUAL NUCLEAR FAMILY AS THE ULTIMATE PATH TO FULFILLMENT FOR WOMEN. THE RESULTS OF THE PARTICIPANT RESEARCH SHOW THAT WHILE YOUNG WOMEN ARE CRITICAL OF CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE SAGA, OVERALL THEY VALUE HAVING STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS IN FICTION TO WHOM THEY CAN RELATE.

En este estudio comparamos dos novelas españolas del género fantástico – Aranmanoth de Ana María Matute y La Emperatriz de los etéreos de Laura Gallego García. Ambas obras tienen tramas parecidas pero están dirigidas a dos grupos diferentes de lectores – jóvenes y adultos. Aplicamos el método comparativo, es decir, identificamos y analizamos las similitudes y las diferencias en cuanto a los elementos fantásticos presentes en ambas novelas con el propósito de analizar las consecuencias en la literatura para estos dos grupos de lectores. Asimismo nos interesan las razones de las similitudes y las diferencias, las cuales buscamos sobre todo, en los antecedentes de las autoras, los diferentes grupos de lectores y la gran influencia de los cuentos de hadas en este género fantástico.   Los elementos fantásticos que analizamos se encuentran en las categorías del motivo, el entorno y los personajes. Algunos de los ejemplos más conocidos de estas categorías son el viaje de aventura, la presencia de la magia y el mundo de imaginación pero asimismo se presentan elementos menos esperados como la importancia de los cuentos y las apariencias de los personajes. Dado que el lenguaje es un elemento diferenciador muy evidente cuando se compara la literatura juvenil con la de adultos, lo excluimos de la investigación.   Concluimos que existe una concordancia clara entre muchos elementos fantásticos en las dos novelas. A pesar de esto, las historias no dan la impresión de ser iguales. En la novela para adultos, por ejemplo, el elemento mágico es más complejo debido en parte a la gran cantidad de símbolos utilizados lo cual hace más difícil su comprensión. Además las autoras tienen objetivos diferentes con respecto a lo fantástico y este hecho afecta en gran medida la narración de las historias. Por consiguiente, los jóvenes posiblemente no entiendan toda la magnitud del elemento mágico intrincado en el libro para adultos y los adultos por su parte encuentren los elementos mágicos un poco simples en el libro juvenil. Sin embargo, es probable que los dos grupos distintos de lectores, puedan disfrutar la lectura de ambas novelas siempre y cuando tengan interés por el género.

Alors que la critique soutient souvent que le didactisme dans la littérature québécoise pour la jeunesse est chose du passé, l’analyse sociocritique, dans le présent mémoire, de plusieurs romans pour adolescents publiés après 1980 montre plutôt qu’il y subsiste et que les thèmes (conflits entre parents et adolescents, famille, sexualité) et les formes (narration ou focalisation à partir du point de vue de personnages adolescents) souvent invoqués par la critique pour prouver sa disparition constituent précisément les dimensions d’un didactisme d’un nouveau genre. Les personnages adolescents des romans analysés proposent des portraits de parents, des jugements sur des modèles familiaux et des citations de conseils sur la sexualité qui peuvent tous être considérés comme des stratégies didactiques. En plus de mettre de l’avant certaines valeurs, ces discours tenus par les adolescents constituent un métadidactisme qui réinscrit dans les œuvres elles-mêmes la relation, qui est au cœur même de la définition de la littérature jeunesse, entre un adulte détenteur de savoir et un jeune considéré comme un être en formation. / While critics often argue that didacticism in Quebec youth literature is obsolescent, a sociocritical analysis of some novels written for teenagers since 1980 shows that themes (parent-teenager conflicts, family, sexuality) and forms (narration and focalisation from the perspective of teen characters) frequently used to prove didacticism’s disappearance are, in reality, the manifestations of a new kind of didacticism. Their portraits of parents, judgments of family models and advice on sexuality, always shared by teenage characters, can in fact be considered didactic strategies. In addition to promoting specific values, those discourses build a metadidacticism which reiterates, in the novels themselves, the relationship that defines youth literature : a relationship between a knowledgeable adult and a young human being in training.

A collection of short stories based on Korean folk and fairy tales.

This diploma thesis deals with the current position of young adult literature it the Czech book market. Young adult literature is primarily intended for teenage readers and captures topics that are close to this age group. The aim of the thesis is to find out, how is this kind of literature published in Czech media system. This text also acquaint closer with the term the young adult literature. For this reason, the first part of the work deals with the definition of young adult literature and the presentation of common genres, as well as the brief history and its influence on adolescents. Through interviews with the representatives from the three selected publishers that publish the young adult titles, we have found out which place this literary sector occupies in the Czech book market. The main achievement we have learned is the fact that although the young adult is a relatively new term for the Czech environment, even in the few years that we have encountered, it has become a relatively well-established concept. Young people choose titles with lighter motives, but books that solve more demanding themes are often searched by readers in the long term for several years after their release. Even though the number of Czech young adult titles is still increasing, it is often translated literature....

Published research suggests that literature should transmit ethnic and societal values as well as reassure one's own confidence and self-respect. This study provides a model for examining Asian-American children's and adolescent literature critically from the perspective of identity issues. It examines fifteen award-winning Asian-American children's and adolescent titles written by writers of that culture and published in the United States from 1999 to 2007, with a focus on Chinese (Taiwanese) American, Korean American, and Japanese American books. As published studies indicate, self, social, and ethnic identities are significantly intertwined. Hence, a content analysis was conducted based on these three major groups of categories. The findings of the study demonstrate that even though the selected books cover all three aspects of the identity issues to a certain degree, a considerably greater number of depictions of ethnic identities are made over those of internal identities and social identities. Moreover, less than half of the main characters assume an active role in improving the difficult situation. Two major voids regarding the presentation of social identities are successful social integration and positive social interactions. Recommendations for teaching, writing, illustrating, publishing, and future research are suggested, including publishing more Asian-American books which present an optimistic outlook on life, active conflict-resolving behaviors, and a balance of gender among individuals with whom the main character interacts.

Autism Spectrum Disorder is an increasingly common developmental disability. Students diagnosed with ASD can be challenging to incorporate into mainstream classrooms due to a lack of understanding and negative attitudes of neurotypical peers towards those students. This thesis aims to address the problem in a unit plan centered on the use of young adult literature with a main protagonist on the Spectrum in the English Language Arts classroom. Specifically, it argues the use of such texts in conjunction with a literature circles unit in providing better understanding and greater acceptance of students with ASD. The unit and lesson plans were written to reflect how Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, Bishop’s windows, doors, and mirrors , and the texts students read can influence their thinking and behavior. Using goodreads and local ELA book lists, I selected four YAL texts which portrayed the main character with ASD as they go about their daily lives. These texts were then incorporated into the twenty-lesson unit plan which aims at supporting positive attitudes and acceptance of neurotypical students towards their peers with ASD.

Both young adult literature and transnational literature occupy transitional spaces and defy simple classifications. Their commonalities naturally suit the two sets of literature for concurrent study. However, the field is underdeveloped, particularly in the United States. With a concentration on the exchanges taking place between the U.S. and Germany, this thesis addresses the need to assemble primary materials and pertinent critical commentary into a single place available to educators, scholars, and researchers to acquire background on transnational YAL themes. The thesis delineates methods used in conducting and compiling research on U.S.-German YAL exchange and highlights the translation and publication concerns associated with this process. It examines how prizes for translations are granted in each nation, identifying organizations that facilitate the process of exchange and describing transnational trends rising out of these circumstances. The concluding chapter visits concerns and complications raised during the investigation, posing questions for further study of the U.S.-German young adult literature relationship and advocating the pursuit of similar research in other world regions. The appendices provide sites for continued examination. They include lists of award-winning translations available in the U.S., novels by American authors that have been translated and published in Germany, and novels by German-language authors that have been translated and published in the U.S.

The Young Adult novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe portrays the coming out stories of two queer Mexican American boys who struggle with their ethnicity and sexuality, which leads to internal conflicts. The focus of the analysis in the essay is to investigate how the novel can be taught in Upper Secondary classrooms through queer pedagogy and anti-oppressive approaches focusing on silenced discourse. When teachers allow their students to work with the coming out story in the novel within this framework, teachers can engage their students in exploring and finding meaning in the silences that the protagonists Aristotle and Dante speak through. The anti-oppressive practice of reading for silences allows students to look beyond what is being represented in the novel in regard to Aristotle’s and Dante’s sexuality and ethnicity and thereby find meaning in what is unsaid.