Angry Girls on a Fiery Planet?: Girlhood and Environmental Crisis in Recent YA (Eco)Dystopias

Please join us for a special presentation from Visiting Scholar, Yıldız Aşar (University of Bamberg, Germany).

Angry Girls on a Fiery Planet?: Girlhood and Environmental Crisis in Recent YA (Eco)Dystopias

Friday, April 10, from 1:30-3:30
UMA Bangor Campus, Lewiston Hall 119
Email sarah.hentges@maine.edu for the Zoom link

In June 2025, President Trump commented on the detention of 22-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg during her humanitarian mission to Gaza, referring to her as “a strange […] young angry person” (Rasdien). In response, Greta asserted, “I think the world needs many more young angry women […].That’s the thing we need the most of” (Giordano). Later, in an interview in September 2025, Greta explained her commitment to deliver aid to Gaza, stating, “we cannot pretend to care about the climate crisis while we ignore the suffering and oppression of people today. […] If we only care about our white children’s future, […] that is not caring about justice” (Andrieu). By drawing connections between ongoing global conflicts and the climate crisis, Greta highlights a nuanced ecofeminist perspective on the interconnectedness of social, political, and environmental issues and injustices while advocating for the transformative agency of “young angry women” in challenging these.

Similarly, this talk will explore the fictional representations of young angry ‘girls’ in contemporary American speculative novels. Following the publication of Octavia Butler’s Parable series (1993-1999) and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy (2008-2010), an ever-growing body of novels – often manifesting as YA (eco)dystopias – demonstrates a strong narrative preoccupation with young adult girl protagonists. Furthermore, these narratives intertwine girlhood coming-of-age with large-scale ecological disruption, imagining vulnerable yet empowered protagonists who must navigate survival while growing up amid environmental crises of apocalyptic proportions. I argue that these novels tap into traditional understandings of American girlhoods and nature, and envision a new ecofeminist heroine for the twenty-first century: a multiply marginalized girl who embodies both collective anxieties and hopes around survival, resistance, healing, and the possibility of a better future in a devastated nonhuman environment.

Focusing on Rebecca Roanhorse’s Indigenous futuristic Sixth World series (2017-2019), my discussion will bring together contemporary ecocritical, ecofeminist, and girlhood studies perspectives to make visible the emerging cultural connections between girlhood and the nonhuman environment in contexts of ecological risk, crisis, and resilience as shaped by recent YA (eco)dystopias.