Literature and the Fantastic

Through a study of young adult fantasy novels featuring female protagonists, this course builds on students’ close-reading and critical analysis skills and also aims to introduce them to the possibilities, politics, and pleasures of genre fiction. 

Both Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (2005) and Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015) are cultural giants in the landscape of popular fiction. Their persistant relevance and popularity exposes a general interest in investigating the questions posed by young adult fantasy that centers female characters. These questions, which this course will contend with, include: How are YA authors addressing young women’s fears, desires, and challenges through fantasy fiction writing? How does “women’s” or “girls’” fantasy notably differ from fantasy texts marketed towards male readers? What potential is created when authors enmesh the categories of young adult fiction and fantasy fiction? And finally, what makes this subgenre so culturally dominant? This course puts popular texts like Twilight and ACOTAR in conversation with more diverse examples of YA fantasy texts, such as Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s Squad (2021) and Akwaeke Emezi’s Pet (2019), in order to explore how the identity of the protagonist herself impacts how readers can approach and answer the posed questions.