Dystopia and Rebellion: shaping the political imagination of teenagers

Author(s)

  • Emmanuelle Lescouet Université de Montréal
  • Amélie Vallières Université du Québec à Montréal

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51777/relief17561

Keywords:

science fiction literature, teen literature, young adult literature, literary network, political awareness, political education

Abstract

Science-fiction literature raises the question of political systems, placing them at the heart of its plots. Popular young adult dystopian works and series make this the central theme of their narratives. This widespread reception makes them cultural artifacts for an entire generation, helping more or less consciously to construct its political imaginary. Does this habit of young protagonists of confronting political and societal systems of power, questioning them and approaching them from a perspective of possible change make it possible to introduce political education to young readers? In this article, we use a network of literary works to explore the links between political awareness and representations of power in a science fiction corpus. Our study focuses on four adolescent series: Divergente by Veronica Roth, La Passe-Miroir by Christelle Dabos, La Faucheuse by Neal Shusterman and Cogito by Victor Dixen. This enables us to establish avenues for approaching young adult literature with the aim of helping teenagers develop critical thinking about various political and social issues present in their daily lives.

Author Biographies

  • Emmanuelle Lescouet, Université de Montréal

    Emmanuelle Lescouet is a PhD candidate in literature at the Université de Montréal. Her project focuses on reading gestures in the digital environment, on reading for entertainment and immersion. She coordinates the Répertoire des Écritures Numériques. She is a lecturer in the Department of French Literature and a member of several laboratories: CRCEN, LQM-Littérature Québécoise Mobile, LAB-yrinthe, Laboratoire des cultures de l'imaginaire.

  • Amélie Vallières, Université du Québec à Montréal

    Amélie Vallières is a doctoral student in education at Université du Québec à Montréal. She is writing a thesis entitled Joueur.euse.s adolescent.et jeux vidéo littéraires : études à visée éducative de corpus et de cas multiples (Adolescent gamers and literary video games: educational studies of multiple corpora and cases) under the direction of Nathalie Lacelle, as well as being a lecturer. She is a member of the editorial team of Lab-yrinthe.ca, the Quebec Virtual Laboratory for Digital Publishing and Education. Her research focuses on digital literacy and literature, video games and digital culture of young people and their empowerment.

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Published

2023-09-15

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 1 (2023): Science fiction and the teaching of politics

Section

Thematic Dossier

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Amélie Vallières, Emmanuelle Lescouet

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

All articles published in RELIEF appear in Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). Under this licence, authors retain ownership of the copyright of their article, but they allow its unrestricted use, provided it is properly cited.

How to Cite

“Dystopia and Rebellion: shaping the political imagination of teenagers” (2023) RELIEF - REVUE ÉLECTRONIQUE DE LITTÉRATURE FRANÇAISE, 17(1), pp. 82–100. doi:10.51777/relief17561.