scholarly journals Millennial Readers: An Analysis of Young Adult Escapism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Demetriou
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Generation Y ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
First Century ◽  
Student Debt ◽  
The Social ◽  
Generational Identity ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
American Society ◽  
Social And Cultural Factors

[Introduction] Millennial Readers: An Analysis of Young Adult Escapism The emphasis on the generational identity of American millennials and their portrayal in the current cultural landscape of the twenty-first century furthers the idea that millennials are exhibiting escapist tendencies by engaging themselves as a majority (fifty-five percent) of young adult readership (“New Study”). Born within 1981 and 1996, millennials (also known as Generation Y) are defined, as those that are—for reasons such as student debt, cost of living, and the financial crisis—delaying typical milestones of adulthood like obtaining a degree, securing a career, purchasing a house, and starting a family. This examination of the social and cultural factors that have affected twenty-first century American society exposes how authors have navigated a world increasingly defined by evolving identity, displacement, discrimination, and a generational lack of agency for the age-diverse young adult market. These themes—including Black Lives Matter, socio-economic hardships, and totalitarian power—have been written with younger audiences in mind, as authors attempt to mimic societal pitfalls within literature in an approachable narrative. The regression of adulthood and millennial priorities have evolved the young adult genre over the last twenty years (since the first millennials became adults), and as a result, they have generationally transitioned into a redefined version of adulthood that requires an escapist outlet.

scholarly journals Millennial Readers: An Analysis of Young Adult Escapism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Demetriou
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Generation Y ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
First Century ◽  
Student Debt ◽  
The Social ◽  
Generational Identity ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
American Society ◽  
Social And Cultural Factors

[Introduction] Millennial Readers: An Analysis of Young Adult Escapism The emphasis on the generational identity of American millennials and their portrayal in the current cultural landscape of the twenty-first century furthers the idea that millennials are exhibiting escapist tendencies by engaging themselves as a majority (fifty-five percent) of young adult readership (“New Study”). Born within 1981 and 1996, millennials (also known as Generation Y) are defined, as those that are—for reasons such as student debt, cost of living, and the financial crisis—delaying typical milestones of adulthood like obtaining a degree, securing a career, purchasing a house, and starting a family. This examination of the social and cultural factors that have affected twenty-first century American society exposes how authors have navigated a world increasingly defined by evolving identity, displacement, discrimination, and a generational lack of agency for the age-diverse young adult market. These themes—including Black Lives Matter, socio-economic hardships, and totalitarian power—have been written with younger audiences in mind, as authors attempt to mimic societal pitfalls within literature in an approachable narrative. The regression of adulthood and millennial priorities have evolved the young adult genre over the last twenty years (since the first millennials became adults), and as a result, they have generationally transitioned into a redefined version of adulthood that requires an escapist outlet.

Paranoia

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Freeman ◽  
Jason Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Research ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Dangerous Place ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Social And Cultural Factors ◽  
The Way

Terrorists, child abductors, muggers, delinquent teenagers, malicious colleagues . . . Who wouldnt be worried? The world can be a dangerous place, for sure. But have we lost the knack of judging risk? Are we letting paranoia get the better of us? In this entertaining and thought-provoking book, based on the most up-to-date scientific research, Daniel and Jason Freeman highlight just how prominent paranoia is today. One in four of us have regular paranoid thoughts. The authors analyse the causes of paranoia, identifying the social and cultural factors that seem to be skewing the way we think and feel about the world around us. And they explain why paranoia may be on the rise and, crucially, what we can do to tackle it. Witty, clear, and compelling, Paranoia takes us beyond the tabloid headlines to pinpoint the real menace at the heart of twenty-first century culture.

Contemporary Zombies

2019 ◽  
pp. 89-101
Author(s):  
Xavier Aldana Reyes
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
First Century ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
World War ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
The Social ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Film And Literature ◽  
Walking Dead

Although traditionally only on the fringes of the Gothic, zombies have dominated the cultural landscape of the twenty-first century thanks to their metaphorical richness. This chapter identifies two main types of zombie narratives that have predominated in film and literature since 2002: viral zombie narratives and sympathetic zombie ones. Analysing the former in texts like World War Z (2006), The Girl with All the Gifts (2014), Z Nation (2014–18), Fear the Walking Dead (2015–) and Feed (2010) allows me to show how the aggressive virulence of new zombies is connected to an inherently pessimistic view of present power structures. I then consider the conscious and humanised zombies in texts like Wasting Away (2007), Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament (2009), Warm Bodies (2013), In the Flesh (2013–14) and Generation Dead (2008) in order to explore how this monster stands in for the social repression of the gendered, sexual or disabled Other.

The Younghusband-Waddell Collection and Its People: the Social Life of Tibetan Books Gathered in a Late-colonial Enterprise

Inner Asia ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-171
Author(s):  
Hildegard Diemberger
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Social Life ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Academic Institutions ◽  
Cultural Biography ◽  
The Social ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractIn this paper I follow the social life of the Tibetan books belonging to the Younghusband-Waddell collection. I show how books as literary artefacts can transform from ritual objects into loot, into commodities and into academic treasures and how books can have agency over people, creating networks and shaping identities. Exploring connections between books and people, I look at colonial collecting, Orientalist scholarship and imperial visions from an unusual perspective in which the social life and cultural biography of people and things intertwine and mutually define each other. By following the trajectory of these literary artefacts, I show how their traces left in letters, minutes and acquisition documents give insight into the functioning of academic institutions and their relationship to imperial governing structures and individual aspirations. In particular, I outline the lives of a group of scholars who were involved with this collection in different capacities and whose deeds are unevenly known. This adds a new perspective to the study of this period, which has so far been largely focused on the deeds of key individuals and the political and military setting in which they operated. Finally, I show how the books of this collection have continued to exercise their attraction and moral pressure on twenty-first-century scholars, both Tibetan and international, linking them through digital technology and cyberspace.

Social Policy Review 18

2006 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
First Century ◽  
British Society ◽  
Policy Review ◽  
The Social ◽  
Twenty First Century

A hundred years after its philanthropist founder identified the social evils of his time, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation initiated a major consultation among leading thinkers, activists and commentators, as well as the wider public. This book examines the underlying problems that pose the greatest threat to British society in the twenty-first century.

Revisioning French Culture

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kylie Sago
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
War Trauma ◽  
First Century ◽  
Francophone Studies ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
French Culture ◽  
French And Francophone

Revisioning French Culture brings together a striking group of leading intellectuals and scholars to explore new avenues of research in French and Francophone Studies. Covering the medieval period through the twenty-first century, this volume presents investigations into a vast array of subjects. Revisioning French Culture grapples with topics vital to the contemporary cultural landscape, including universalism, globalization, the idea of Francophonie, and religious and secular identity. This essay collection furthermore transcends and illuminates the contemporary by exploring matters that have long resonated in the humanities and letters, such as death, war, trauma, power and politics, notions of the truth, conceptions of the self, and modes of reading and writing. With contributions by a number of figures known across the humanities and the social sciences, Revisioning French Culture explores the foundations of the French and Francophone world, providing cultural, political, and historical context for the crisis facing democracy and liberalism around the world today.

From Linear History to Discursive Constellation

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-128
Author(s):  
Paul Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Martial Arts ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Children's Television ◽  
First Century ◽  
Combat Sports ◽  
Ultimate Fighting Championship ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter argues that any attempt to construct a linear history of martial arts in media and popular culture as it exploded after the 1970s cannot but fail. The sheer proliferation of martial arts images, themes, texts, and practices precludes easy linear narrativization. Accordingly, Chapter 5 argues for the need to move ‘From Linear History to Discursive Constellation’ in our approach to martial arts in media and popular culture. The chapter attempts to establish the main discursive contours that appeared and developed through the 1980s—a decade in which ninjas and Shaolin monks explode onto the cultural landscape. This is followed by attention to the 1990s, in which three major events took place in the same year: the first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the Wu-Tang Clan’s release of their enormously popular album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), and the appearance on children’s television screens around the world of ‘The Power Rangers’—all of which took place in 1993. The chapter then attempts to track the major discursive tendencies and contours of martial arts aesthetics through the first decade of the twenty-first century, up to the mainstreaming of combat sports in more recent years.

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