Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


MCM-Dissertation-Revisions.pdf (3.21 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Restorying Dystopia: Exploring the Hunger Games Series Through U.S. Cultural Geographies, Identities, and Fan Response

Miller, Mary Catherine
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492434124077694

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, EDU Teaching and Learning.
Developing from my own interest in the geographic and cultural defamiliarization found in the Hunger Games series, this dissertation explores the ways in which the Hunger Games novels and film adaptations reflect U.S. cultural geographies and identities and how fan response extends narratives of U.S. identity, particularly analyzing these fan responses through a lens of restorying (Thomas and Stornaiuolo, 2016). Cultural geographies of colonialism in the United States, Black history in the United States, Appalachian culture, and US military tactics are reflected in Panem, and the familiar is made strange to the reader. These parallels between the fictional world of Panem and the real world of the United States provide historical referents and cultural contexts that enrich the reading of both the series and the world in which we live. Following these assertions, I examine identities within the Hunger Games series as performances contextualized by the cultural geographies in which the characters interact. The major characters of the Hunger Games interact with narratives of inequality, marginalization, and racism, illuminating the ways in which they develop and perform identity over the course of the novels and films. I then explore fan response, via a framework of restorying, as a form of social activism, particularly as fans creatively contribute to conversations on the visibility of marginalized identities in young adult literature. Four modes of restorying (mode, perspective, identity, and time) relate to the ways in which fans extend the narratives of the Hunger Games in a variety of subversive and revolutionary ways, writing themselves into the text, finding avenues for increasing racial diversity in the series, and imagining narratives outside the texts of the films and novels. The fan response examined in this dissertation is both liberatory and culturally transformative, expanding the domain of the Hunger Games to be more detailed, more inclusive, and more equitable.
Mollie Blackburn (Advisor)
Michelle Abate (Committee Member)
Barbara Kiefer (Committee Member)
205 p.
Education; Literature
young adult literature; childrens literature; restorying; fan studies; popular culture

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Miller, M. C. (2017). Restorying Dystopia: Exploring the Hunger Games Series Through U.S. Cultural Geographies, Identities, and Fan Response [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492434124077694

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Miller, Mary. Restorying Dystopia: Exploring the Hunger Games Series Through U.S. Cultural Geographies, Identities, and Fan Response. 2017. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492434124077694.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Miller, Mary. "Restorying Dystopia: Exploring the Hunger Games Series Through U.S. Cultural Geographies, Identities, and Fan Response." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492434124077694

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1492434124077694
12,445
© 2017, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.