Personal Pleasure(s): Exploring Individual Gratification and Satisfaction in
Young Adult Literature

 Pleasure plays an important part in the development of Young Adult Literature
(YAL)though it is not often explored. Many personal pleasures, such as those
with food, sexuality, shopping, and freedom, are often indicative of both
problems explored in YAL and resolutions reached in regards to issues raised in
YAL. Such pleasures are not always problematic or obsessive in nature but may
rather offer positive solutions for solving and/or exploring development of
individual identity. In this session, we will investigate issues of gender,
identity development, dominance, class, and instruction and their relation to
personal pleasure(s).

Papers might explore:
 * Ways in which pleasure is defined and illustrated in YAL
 * How pleasure is sought out and explored in YAL
 * The role pleasure plays in YAL texts
 * The social and cultural consequences in seeking out or denying oneself
personal pleasure(s)
 * The way pleasure is created and/or limited due to gender
 * How is pleasure treated differently in texts dealing with fantasy vs.
realistic worlds
 * Restrictions/Freedoms on pleasure due to religious ideologies
 * Morality and pleasure in YAL
 * Pleasure and Class limitations and/or freedoms in YAL

Please address questions or abstracts to Amberyl Malkovich at ammalko_at_ilstu.edu
or Illinois State University, Department of English, Campus Box 4240, Normal,
IL 61790-4240. Abstracts should be no more than 500 words and must be submitted
by May 1, 2007.

-- "Knowledge, as all followers of it must know, has a very limited power indeed when it informs the head alone; but when it informs the head and heart too, it has a power over life and death, the body and the soul, and dominates the universe." ~Charles Dickens, 1858 ========================================================== From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List CFP_at_english.upenn.edu Full Information at http://cfp.english.upenn.edu or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu ==========================================================Received on Sat Feb 24 2007 - 13:14:23 EST