Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 Stolen Landscapes : Trauma, Agency and Environmental Ideology in Lucy Christopher’s Stolen
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This research is part of a larger investigation examining female protagonists’ interactions with the ‘landscape’ in young adult fiction. It will argue that a close study of Lucy Christopher’s novel, Stolen (2009), demonstrates her use of the ‘landscape’ as a vehicle to both create and mitigate trauma for the protagonist, Gemma. This can be depicted by reading the novel in relation to two notions of environmental writing described by John Stephens (2006). The first ideological perspective Stephens describes in fiction is a human –‘landscape’ relationship where characters appear to be positioned embodying a higher status. This assumes control over the environment, creating trauma when characters face harsh ‘landscapes’. The second perspective models feelings of belonging within the ‘landscape’, prompting the protagonist to care for it. This enables characters to overcome their trauma and in doing so achieve a new sense of agency. The paper will draw on Clare Bradford’s (2008) definition of agency in young adult dystopian fiction. Bradford’s book focuses on social, institutional and cultural arrangements that produce conflict in utopian and dystopian fiction. Her ideas on agency will be applied to this research but rather than examining human-made structures that engineer conflict, this paper will consider non-human conflict represented in the novel. Then drawing from Christopher’s (2011) auto-ethnographic paper on Stolen, this research will analyse the ways that Gemma's relationship with the ‘landscape’ is the vehicle used by Christopher to reshape her character’s agency when viewed through the lens of Stephens’ (2006).'

Source: Abstract.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Authorised Theft Papers : Writing, Scholarship, Collaboration The Authorised Theft Papers : Writing, Scholarship, Collaboration : Papers – The Refereed Proceedings Of The 21st Conference Of The Australasian Association Of Writing Programs, 2016 Niloofar Fanaiyan (editor), Rachel Franks (editor), Jessica Seymour (editor), Canberra : The Australasian Association of Writing Programs , 2017 20512298 2017 anthology criticism

    'The 21st annual conference of the AAWP invited writers and academics to respond to the idea that, as writers, we are engaging in a type of ‘authorised theft’. Over 100 delegates responded enthusiastically by presenting papers that straddled genres, disciplines, modes of expression, as well as languages and cultures. Panel topics included sociologies of writing, poetry and song, narrative and narrative modes, responses to pain and trauma, digital literature and the online space, memoir/biography and travel writing, identity and voice, oral storytelling and ways of knowing, as well as translation and cross-cultural encounters.'

    Source: Introduction.

    Canberra : The Australasian Association of Writing Programs , 2017
Last amended 16 Oct 2020 09:45:25
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