Can I see me in YA? Can I see you?
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Young adult fiction (YA) is a vital resource for identity formation, especially during adolescence. However, there is a lack of YA reflecting the increasingly plural and intersectional makeup of contemporary society. Indeed, YA overwhelmingly features white, able-bodied, cisgender, and heterosexual teenagers — implicitly refusing to acknowledge difference through the sheer weight of omission.
Adolescent Identities asks |
Hashtags worth watching:/ #ReflectingRealities |
What impact does this lack of diversity have on adolescents who do not align with those norms?
On adolescents who do, as they exist with those who do not?
On adolescents who do, as they exist with those who do not?
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Run by Dr Melanie Ramdarshan-Bold and Dr Leah Phillips, Adolescent Identities is a University College London (UCL) Grand Challenges funded pilot study exploring YA's role and place within contemporary culture.
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Melanie is |
Leah is |
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a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Information Studies at UCL, where she teaches and researches on topics related to Publishing and Book Cultures. Melanie's main research interest centres around the changing nature of authorship with a focus on: digital developments in writing, publishing and reading; small presses and alternative publishing; and copyright, with a focus on children's and young adult publishing. She is currently working on a monograph that explores 'diversity' in young adult fiction, which will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2018.
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a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Warwick, where she completed her PhD in 2016. Leah is also the founder of YALMC, the Young Adult Literature, Media, & Culture Association. Her research interests include: adolescence; adolescent embodiment; speculative YA, especially fantasy; liminality; social media and popular culture. She is currently working on a monograph that explores how mythopoeic YA offers alternative to the narrow and limiting ways of being in contemporary Western culture. It will be published by IBT in 2019.
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