Child and Youth Agency in Science Fiction

Ingrid E. Castro, Jessica Clark, Muireann B. Crowley, Joseph Giunta, Erin Kenny

"Child and Youth Agency in Science Fiction: Travel, Technology, Time intersects considerations about children's and youth's agency with the popular culture genre of science fiction. As scholars in childhood studies and beyond seek to expand understandings of agency in children's lives, this collection places science fiction at the heart of this endeavor. Retellings of the past, narratives of the present, and new landscapes of the future, each explored in science fiction, allow for creative reimaginings of the capabilities, movements, and agency of youth. Core themes of generation, embodiment, family, identity, belonging, gender, and friendship traverse across the chapters and inform the contributors' readings of various film, literature, television, and virtual media sources. Here, children and youth are heterogeneous, and agency as a central analytical concept is interrogated through...