Through an analysis of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy (2008, 2009, 2010), this text will consider the ways in which contemporary postfeminism can be read as a dystopic narrative. The protagonist of the novel (and the rest of the trilogy) is Katniss Everdeen, a young woman who through an ethics of care, disruption of the heteronormative script, and a critical posthuman embodiment offers an alternative to the dystopic present offered by postfeminism. In Katniss’ dystopian world, Collins constructs a narrative that highlights the continued need for a feminist politics of engagement and activism that works against claims for neo-liberal individualism.
AgambenG., 1998 [1995]. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Tr. D. Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
2.
AtwoodM., 2011. Dire cartographies: the roads to Ustopia. In AtwoodM., ed. In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination.New York: Doubleday, pp. 66–96.
3.
BerlantL., 2011. Cruel Optimism.Durham: University of North Carolina Press.
BraidottiR., 1994. Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory.New York: Columbia University Press.
7.
BraidottiR., 2013. The Posthuman.Cambridge: Polity Press.
8.
CollinsS., 2008. The Hunger Games.New York: Scholastic Inc.
9.
CollinsS., 2009. Catching Fire.New York: Scholastic Inc.
10.
CollinsS., 2010. Mockingjay.New York: Scholastic Inc.
11.
Douglas VavrusM., 2010. Unhitching from the “post” (of postfeminism). Journal of Communication Inquiry, 34(3), pp. 210–253.
12.
GambleS., 1998. Postfeminism. In GambleS., ed. The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism.New York: Routledge, pp. 36–45.
13.
GillR., 2007. Gender and the Media.Cambridge: Polity Press.
14.
GilliganC., 1993. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development.Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
15.
Green-BarteetM.A., 2014. ‘I'm beginning to know who I am’: the rebellious subjectivities of Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior. In DayS.K., Green-BarteetM.A., and MontzA.L., eds. Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction.Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 33–50.
16.
HollingerV., 1989. The vampire and the alien: variations on the outsider. Science Fiction Studies, 16(2), pp. 145–160.
17.
Issow AverillL., 2012. Sometimes the world is hungry for people who care: Katniss and the feminist care ethic. In DunnG.A., and MichaudN., eds. Hunger Games and Philosophy: A Critique of Pure Treason.Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 162–175.
Martín-LucasB., 2014. Dystopic urbanites civilian cyborgs in transCanadian speculative fictions. In Fraile-MarcosA.M., ed. Literature and the Glocal City: Reshaping the English Canadian Imaginary.London: Routledge, pp. 69–82.
20.
McDonaldB., 2012. ‘The final word on entertainment’: mimetic and monstrous art in the Hunger Games. In DunnG.A., and MichaudN., eds. Hunger Games and Philosophy: A Critique of Pure Treason.Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 8–25.
21.
McRobbieA., 2009. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change.London: Sage Publications Ltd.
22.
MillerJ., 2012. “She has no idea. The effect she can have”: Katniss and the politics of gender. In DunnG.A., and MichaudN., eds. Hunger Games and Philosophy: A Critique of Pure Treason.Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 145–161.
23.
MoylanT., 2000. Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia.Colorado: Westview Press.
24.
NeumanS., 2006. Just a backlash: Margaret Atwood, feminism, and The Handmaid's Tale. University of Toronto Quarterly, 75(3), pp. 857–868.
25.
PulliamJ., 2014. Real or not real—Katniss Everdeen loves Peeta Melark: the lingering effects of discipline in the Hunger Games trilogy. In DayS.K., Green-BarteetM., and MontzA.L., eds. Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction.Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 171–185.
26.
RiskoG.A., 2012. Katniss Everdeen's liminal choices and the foundations of revolutionary ethics. In PharrM.F., and ClarkL.A., eds. Of Bread, Blood and The Hunger Games: Critical Essays on the Suzanne Collins Trilogy.Jefferson: McFarland & Company, pp. 80–88.
27.
Sawyer FritzS., 2014. Girl power and girl activism in the fiction of Suzanne Collins, Scott Westerfield, and Moira Young. In DayS.K., Green-BarteetM.A., and MontzA.L., eds. Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction.Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 17–32.
28.
TanS.S.M., 2013. Burn with us: sacrificing childhood in The Hunger Games. The Lion and the Unicorn, 37(1), pp. 54–73.
29.
TaskerY., and NegraD., 2007. Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture.Durham: Duke University Press.
30.
The Hunger Games, 2012. Film. Directed by Gary Ross. USA: Liongate Films.
31.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, 2013. Film. Directed by Francis Lawrence. USA: Liongate Films.
32.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1, 2014. Film. Directed by Francis Lawrence. USA: Liongate Films.
33.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 2, 2015. Film. Directed by Francis Lawrence. USA: Liongate Films.
34.
Van DykeC., 2012. Discipline and the docile body: regulating hungers in the capitol. In DunnG.A., and MichaudN., eds. Hunger Games and Philosophy: A Critique of Pure Treason.Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 250–264.
35.
WiegmanR., 2000. Feminism's apocalyptic futures. New Literary History, 31(4), pp. 805–825.
