Girlhood in the Contemporary American Novel: Coming-of-Age 1990-2020

What experiences constitute ‘girlhood’? What personal and social pathways are available to girls in contemporary American fiction? These questions lie at the heart of this book, which argues that emancipatory new representations of girlhood have emerged in novels published between 1990-2020, in response to the social and cultural transformations that have been catalysed by the girl-centric agendas of contemporary feminism. Through analysing how twelve contemporary novelists depict girlhood as an expansive period during which girls can fulfil a range of personal and socio-political agendas – from pursuing intellectual ambitions at university, to achieving self-realisation through solo travel – this book investigates how contemporary fiction asks readers to view girlhood anew, by reimagining the personal, narrative, and social possibilities of American girlhood.

Dr Angelica De Vido is the Robert David Lion Gardiner Fellow at New York Historical Society, where she is a scholar of American literature and feminist studies. She has previously held fellowships at the University of Oxford and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Her research has been published in journals including ‘Contemporary Literature, Contemporary Women’s Writing’, and ‘Journal of Feminist Studies’, and her essays have appeared in collections including ‘Routledge Companion to American Masculinity’, ‘Oxford Handbook of American Street Literature’, and ‘Women Wandering Purposefully: The Flâneuse in Modern Literature and Culture’.