Edited Collection: Cancer in Young Adult Literature
Due Date: 12-31-2022
Deadline: 31 December 2022
This edited collection investigates the use and portrayal of cancer in young adult (YA) novels. “Sick lit,” by which it is often somewhat pejoratively referred, has been around for decades—in varying degrees of complexity or notoriety. This collection will specifically and solely consider essays focusing on YA texts in which cancer plays a prominent role.
Considerations in this field undoubtedly bring to mind commercially successful texts for young adults, including John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, Nicholas Sparks’s A Walk to Remember, and their film adaptations. There are, of course, hundreds of other texts that could be brought into the conversation.
Although some essays have been accepted in the following topics, additional essays in these topics are still welcome:
- The effects cancer has on the family unit; on the relationship between parents and young adults; what difference it makes if a parent or a child has cancer
- A focus on specific cancers across various texts (i.e., lung cancer, leukemia, sarcoma)
- The use of cancer-themed novels in educational contexts
- Secondary or tertiary characters with cancer
For other potential topics and more details, see https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2022/02/16/edited-collection-cancer-in-young-adult-literature.