Anglo-amerikanische Studien / Anglo-American Studies

This book aims to provide a detailed study of young adult fiction concentrating on Mexican teenage (im)migrants to the United States and their search for identity. In its quest to define young adult (im)migration literature as a genre, the first chapter combines and questions classifications provided by literary scholars and educational scientists. The second chapter explores crucial factors which impact the protagonists’ transcultural identity construction. The third chapter engages in theory mixing: Louise Rosenblatt’s reader-response theory, the critical literacy approach of the New London Group, influences from the field of cultural studies and a model of literary competences are merged into an innovative theoretical framework that forms the basis of the teaching sequence presented.

This book uses some of Doris Lessing’s fictional texts as a springboard for making new contributions to the study of ageing, and more specifically, on the ageing of women. Lessing’s fiction invites a critical political, cultural and ethical reflection at the intersections between literature and culture in the final years of the twentieth century and the first few of the current one. Lessing’s narrative reflects on the complexity of older women’s lives, their acquiescence or disagreement with social norms, and how to negotiate the effects of the passage of time. The four chapters and conclusion discuss the various elements that serve as indicators of the well-being or ill-being of this diverse human group, including health, place of residence, neighbourliness, financial situation, public policies, and nature of relationships.