Fanny Burney’s “Evelina” is still very relevant to the lives of young people.
Tag Archives: adolescence
The Dark Knight and Adolescent Gloom
“Dark Knight Rises” confirms the younger generation’s pessimism.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged apocalypse, Dark Night Rises, Film, vigilante films Comments closed
Parents, Kids, Schools & Banned Books
Parents pressure schools to ban books because they want to protect their children. Their children want the books because they have a different set of needs.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Are You There God It's Me Margaret, Book banning, Catcher in the Rye, censorship, Education, Harry Potter, J. D. Salinger, J. K. Rowling, Judy Blume, Perks of Being a Wall Flower, Stephen Chbotsky Comments closed
When Werther-Fever Upended Europe
Goethe’s “Sorrows of Young Werther” created a sensation in 1774, with a young cult following and older attackers.
Kiki Ostrenga as Sister Carrie
Columnist David Brooks recently turned to Theodore Dreiser’s 1900 novel “Sister Carrie” in an attempt to make sense of the strange and disturbing case of 13-year-old internet celebrity Kiki Ostrenga.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Daniel Defoe, Internet, Kiki Ostrenga, Lolita, Moll Flanders, Sister Carrie, Theodor Dreiser, Vladimir Nabakov Comments closed
Schools Cowed by the Religious Right
Holly Blumner had a vision. A member of the St. Mary’s theater department, Holly wanted to stage Susan Zeder’s Mother Hicks, a adolescent girl’s identity quest, and then take it into area schools. This post is the story about how rightwing groups have so terrified our schools that the vision died.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged censorship, Huck Finn, Mark Twain, Mother Hicks, Song of Solomon, Susan Zeder, Toni Morrison Comments closed
Harry Potter, Teenage Hero’s Quest
During Christmas week we get to imagine being children again so I’ve decided to write about student responses to Harry Potter. Members of my British Fantasy Literature class could write essays on any work of fantasy as long as they applied the tools and perspectives we developed in the course. Michelle Steahl and Evan Rowe […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged fantasy, Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, Joseph Campbell Comments closed
Regency Teens, Same Issues as Today
Seldom have I enjoyed a course more than my current first year seminar on Jane Austen—specifically “Jane Austen and the Challenges of Being a Regency Teenager.” The title of the course isn’t historically accurate since young men and women in the early 19th century didn’t think of themselves as teenagers. Adolescence wasn’t as prolonged as […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, teaching Comments closed
The Titanic and Adolescence, 2 Disasters
Film Friday I have been recently writing about how Jane Austen’s 17-year-old heroine in Northanger Abbey uses gothic novels to negotiate the challenges of early 19th century life. Today I talk about how the greatest box office success in Hollywood history did the same for middle school girls in 1997. In fact, a major reason […]
