Fictions of Adolescent Carnality
Sexy sinners and delinquent deviants
Fictions of Adolescent Carnality considers one of the most controversial topics related to adolescents: their experience of desire. In fiction for adolescents, carnal desire is variously presented as a source of angst, an overwhelming experience over which one has no control, bestial, disgusting and, just occasionally, a source of pleasure. The on-set of desire, within the Anglophone tradition, has been closely associated with the loss of innocence and the end of childhood. Drawing on a corpus of 200 narratives of adolescent desire, Kokkola examines the connections between sociological accounts of teenagers’ sexual behaviour, adult fears for and about their off-spring and fictional representations of adolescents exploring their sexuality. Taking up topics such as adolescent pregnancy and parenthood, queer sexualities, animal-human connections and sexual abuse, Kokkola provides wide-ranging insights into how Anglophone literature responds to adolescents’ carnal desires, and contributes to on-going debates on the construction of adolescence and the ideology of innocence.
[Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition, 1] 2013. x, 236 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 6 May 2013
Published online on 6 May 2013
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Introduction | pp. 1–20
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Adolescence, innocence and power: Sexuality as power | pp. 21–50
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The calamitous consequences of carnality: Loss and loneliness, pregnancy and parenthood, disease and death | pp. 51–94
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Queer carnalities: Adolescent sexuality as queer sexuality | pp. 95–136
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The beastly bestiality of adolescent desire | pp. 137–170
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The abjection of abused adolescents | pp. 171–206
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The end of innocence and the on-set of knowledge? | pp. 207–214
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Corpus of novels and short stories for teenagers | pp. 215–220
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Other works of fiction | pp. 221–222
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Secondary sources | pp. 223–232
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Index | pp. 233–236
“Congratulations to Lydia Kokkola on this interesting book, which provides thoughtful and important analyses and is written in a lively, engaging style. Each chapter is valuable in its own right, and combines aptly chosen theory with equally well selected examples. Most importantly, it provides a framework and gives food for thought for analysing other works from literature and other media.”
Vanessa Joosen, University of Antwerp
“This volume is a major contribution to the field of children’s literature. No critic has so thoroughly and intelligently analyzed the ideological pressures on the concept of innocence as it has influenced the depiction of sexuality in adolescent literature. The author persuasively deconstructs Anglophone notions of innocence to demonstrate how authors writing for teenagers imbue the genre with depictions of sexuality that undermine and diminish the legitimacy of carnal desire. This volume is a unique and rigorous contribution to an under-studied issue in adolescent literature.”
Roberta Trites, Illinois State University
“
Fictions of Adolescent Carnality should be commended as an excellent and probing study into Western cultural constructions of adolescence.”
Victoria Flanagan, Macquarie University, on the website of the International Research Society for Children's Literature, 2013
Cited by (35)
Cited by 35 other publications
Maier, Sarah E.
Malilang, Chrysogonus Siddha
Dennison, Robyn
2023. Sad girls. In Emotion in Texts for Children and Young Adults [Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition, 13], ► pp. 130 ff. 
Hale, Elizabeth & Miriam Riverlea
Kokkola, Lydia
Duckels, Gabriel
Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska, Agnieszka
Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska, Agnieszka
Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska, Agnieszka
Browne , Katelyn R.
López-Ropero, Lourdes
Coleman, James Joshua
Joosen, Vanessa
Smith, Louisa-Jane
Daley-Carey, Ebony
Eecke, Christophe Van & Elisabeth Wesseling
Kokkola, Lydia & Elina Valovirta
Petrone, Robert & Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides
Spiering, Jenna
Altrows, Aiyana
Keeler, Amanda Renee
Deszcz-Tryhubczak, Justyna & Mateusz Marecki
Kneen, Bonnie
Kneen, Bonnie
Nikolajeva, Maria
Petrone, Robert, Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides & Mark A. Lewis
Potter, Troy
Sainsbury, Lisa
Sarigianides, Sophia Tatiana
Sarigianides, Sophia Tatiana
Tatiana Sarigianides, Sophia
[no author supplied]
2014. Bibliography. In Reading for Learning [Children's Literature, Culture, and Cognition, 3], ► pp. 229 ff. 
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
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Subjects
Literature & Literary Studies
Main BIC Subject
DSY: Children's literature studies: general
Main BISAC Subject
LIT009000: LITERARY CRITICISM / Children's & Young Adult Literature