* Scholars explore deeper meaning of best-selling book series* Katniss Everdeen is “the anti-Bella Swan,” philosopher says
Newswise — The March 23 theatrical release of The Hunger Games, based on a best-selling teen fiction series, is expected to launch another blockbuster film franchise on the order of Twilight and Harry Potter, catapulting its young cast to Hollywood stardom.
Those not familiar with author Suzanne Collins’ acclaimed trilogy might question the hype, but a philosophy instructor at the University of Indianapolis says these books offer much more than action and romance in fantastical circumstances.
“They're well-written and real page-turners,” George Dunn says, “but they also invite the reader to wrestle with some heavy-duty philosophical questions concerning morality, gender, politics, personal identity, the place of entertainment in society and, of course, war.”
Dunn and fellow philosopher Nicolas Michaud are co-editors of The Hunger Games and Philosophy: A Critique of Pure Treason, a new book in publisher Wiley-Blackwell's Philosophy and Pop Culture Series. The 320-page collection of essays examines the Collins books through a serious academic lens, with references to Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, Darwin and other greater thinkers of history.
For the uninitiated, the Hunger Games trilogy takes place in a future dystopia called Panem, where a pampered elite keeps the downtrodden populace entertained and intimidated with an annual televised battle to the death among teens selected from the outlying industrial areas. The heroine, a poor coal-country girl and skilled archer named Katniss Everdeen, pulls off an unlikely victory and becomes a reluctant media superstar and government propaganda tool. As the storyline continues, she finds herself leading a bloody rebellion that proves more politically and morally complex than she anticipated.
“She’s a strong and very complex female character – the anti-Bella Swan,” Dunn says, drawing a contrast with the lovelorn protagonist of Twilight. “Katniss constantly finds herself in situations where she has to make tough moral choices that have massive repercussions for her life and the lives of those she loves. One of the reasons these books matter is because all of us, in one way or another, face the same sorts of questions in our lives.”
INTERVIEWS: Author and University of Indianapolis philosophy instructor George Dunn is available for interview on this and related topics. He can be reached at (317) 442-9967. For further assistance, contact Scott Hall, UIndy media relations, at (317) 371-5240.
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