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SUMMARY:Faction and Blood: Silencing the 'Inner' City in Veronica Roth's D
 ivergent - Susan Tan
DTSTART:20140528T160000Z
DTEND:20140528T180000Z
UID:TALK50955@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lucian Stephenson
DESCRIPTION:Veronica Roth's _Divergent_ seems to suggest a post-racial wor
 ld\, where communal values and individual choices dictate social divides. 
  Through this lens\, _Divergent_ – with its wide popular appeal and rece
 nt film adaptation – could be seen to signal a progressive shift in port
 rayals of race and class in contemporary YA literature.\n\nAnd yet\, as th
 e ruins of Chicago underlie _Divergent’s_ narrative\, the real history o
 f racial and class disparity which saturates Chicago’s urban past and pr
 esent suggests a very different reading.  In this seminar\, I will explore
  these elisions of racial and socioeconomic violence in _Divergent_.  Draw
 ing on discourse of childhood and racialized innocence\, I will demonstrat
 e that the violence of the contemporary city is imagined as apocalyptic on
 ly when dominant\, ‘suburban’ culture is threatened by systematic soci
 al violence.  \n\nAs _Divergent_ conforms to the silences which surround t
 he contemporary ‘inner’ city\, I will demonstrate profoundly conservat
 ive strains both within Roth’s city\, and in Roth’s representation of 
 the adolescents navigating ‘difference’ within it.\n\n\n*Bio*\n\nSusan
  Tan’s research focuses on violence as socio-historic initiation in YA d
 ystopian literature.  She received her M.Phil from the University of Cambr
 idge\, and her B.A. from Williams College.  Tan has published an article i
 n The Lion and the Unicorn\, and has several forthcoming book chapters on 
 YA dystopian literature. \n
LOCATION:Faculty of Education\, 184 Hills Road\, Cambridge\, CB2 8PQ\, DMB
 \, Room GS5
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