ENG 2310: Speculative Literature: “YA SF”

WHY IS YOUNG ADULT (YA) LITERATURE IMPORTANT?. Why is speculative literature (SF) important? How might we take YA and SF seriously? What worlds does YA and SF imagine? Who is included in YA and SF literature, and who is not? One the one hand, children's and YA publishing is an 11.3 billion-dollar industry, especially in SF markets, not to mention the ever-expanding YA television, film, music, games, and other media markets. On the other hand, children's and YA books and media have become one of the key cultural and political battlegrounds in the United States. According to the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, there were 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, which is nearly double the number of challenges in 2021. And of the 2,571 unique titles targeted, up 38% from the previous year, most were written by or about BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+ people, and of the thirteen most challenged books of 2022, the majority were young adult novels. This course takes up these questions and tensions to interrogate the problems and possibilities dramatized by young adult novels—in our case, primarily in the supernatural, fantasy, and speculative subgenres. We will compare and contrast YA SF novels, starting from the present and working back in time, to explore genre, form, identity, representation, and technology; we will analyze and critique YA SF's engagement with race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, nation, and other tropes and norms. To that end, we will look at a range of YA texts including Nisi Shawl, Angelie Boulley, Xiran Jay Zhao, Aiden Thomas, Nnedi Okorafor, Ernest Cline, Suzanne Collins, Octavia Butler, Orson Scott Card, and Francesca Lia Block.