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The Desiring Girl and Young Adult Fiction
Thesis (DLitt (English))--University of Pretoria, 2019.
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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University of Pretoria
2022
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| _version_ | 1867613473466220544 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author2 | Brown, Molly |
| author_browse | Brown, Molly |
| author_facet | Brown, Molly |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | © 2021 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. |
| description | Thesis (DLitt (English))--University of Pretoria, 2019. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/84763 |
| institution | University of Pretoria (South Africa) |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:36:42.450Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publishDateRange | 2022 |
| publishDateSort | 2022 |
| publisher | University of Pretoria |
| publisherStr | University of Pretoria |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository |
| spelling | oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/84763 The Desiring Girl and Young Adult Fiction Brown, Molly bonniekneen@gmail.com Kneen, Bonnie UCTD young adult SA Partridge Lily Herne Elizabeth Acevedo Thesis (DLitt (English))--University of Pretoria, 2019. This thesis critiques the representations, and lacunas in representation, of teenage girls’ sexual desires in a selection of young adult (YA) novels written since the turn of the millenium, considering their contributions either to a necessary opening up of a cultural discourse of girls’ desire, or to the prevalent dangerous silencing of such a discourse. It takes as a point of departure the perspective that, to the extent that YA fiction engages with that which is sexy about sex, it is an ideal safe, private space for girls’ exploration of their sexual subjectivities. Through critical analysis informed by interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives, as well as by autoethnographic life writing, the research uncovers a marked tendency for YA fiction to construct girls’ desire as doubly wrong: girls are most commonly represented not only as the wrong gender for desire, but also as having individual particularities that are wrong for desire. Thus South African heroines are constructed as inhabiting the wrong country for desire, their desires inextricably linked to violence. Bisexual heroines are constructed as liking the wrong objects of desire, their desires desexualized, monosexualized, and submerged under essentialist stereotype. And conspicuous-breasted girls who experienced puberty early are constructed as possessing the wrong bodies for desire, representation of them among YA heroines largely an inhospitable absence. The research supports, however, the contention that spaces for the liberation of a genuine discourse of girls’ desire may be found in lesbian-focussed stories that hold themselves apart from the patriarchy of compulsory heterosexuality; and it finds that such spaces may also be carved out by heroines who interrogate their own desires in thoughtful, nuanced ways and, especially, by the exceptional few stories that engage with that which is sexy about sex, and thus open a discourse of desire through the direct evocation of desire itself. English DLitt (English) Unrestricted 2022-04-01T09:33:23Z 2022-04-01T09:33:23Z 2020 2019 Thesis * A2020 http://hdl.handle.net/2263/84763 en © 2021 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. application/pdf University of Pretoria |
| spellingShingle | UCTD young adult SA Partridge Lily Herne Elizabeth Acevedo The Desiring Girl and Young Adult Fiction |
| title | The Desiring Girl and Young Adult Fiction |
| title_full | The Desiring Girl and Young Adult Fiction |
| title_fullStr | The Desiring Girl and Young Adult Fiction |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Desiring Girl and Young Adult Fiction |
| title_short | The Desiring Girl and Young Adult Fiction |
| title_sort | desiring girl and young adult fiction |
| topic | UCTD young adult SA Partridge Lily Herne Elizabeth Acevedo |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/2263/84763 |