Penobscot Valley Senior College (pvscmaine.org) 2026 Spring Hybrid Course

Burn It All Down without Burning Out: Lessons from YA Dystopia’s Transformational Heroines - Sarah Hentges

Fridays 1:30-3:30 pvscmaine.org

4 sessions: Fridays March 27, April 3, 10, 17

Young Adult Dystopian Literature; No Maximum

Location: UMA-Bangor Campus, Lewiston Hall Room 119 and on Zoom

Sessions are recorded and link is available for each session to view for two weeks.

This course is offered as hybrid, and sessions are recorded.

Please register for one of the two course registrations:

In-Person or Zoom.

If you are a member of another MSCN, call 207-659-1359 to get a code to reduce membership fee. Registration closes March 20, 2026.

Description

It’s hard not to notice that the world is on fire. But this is nothing new; it’s just closer to home. When we’re faced with the challenges of turbulent times, we often turn to the “classics” of dystopian literature Orwell, Bradbury, Atwood. But there is untold wisdom in places most often overlooked—the lives and dystopian stories of “Girls on Fire.” The Hunger Games series set the world on fire with a decade-long explosion of young adult dystopian literature featuring female protagonists that speaks to the angst of adolescence and the growing anxiety of a world that often seems hopeless and dangerous. And before The Hunger Games, Octavia Butler’s female protagonist from her Parables series, Lauren Olamina, set the stage for the knowledge and wisdom that girls and young women bring to stories about the horrors of the world we live in and the

promises of the world we want to build.

Drawing from the book, Girls on Fire: Transformative Heroines in Young Adult Dystopian Literature, this 4-part course explores the past, present, and future through an interdisciplinary, intersectional feminist lens and the following session themes:

Utopian Visions for Dystopian Realities, Octavia Butler and Black Feminist Dystopian Roots, These Girls Are on Fire, and Radical Self-Care and The Arts of Social Change. Through presentation, discussion, and activities we will explore the empowering and hopeful terrain of social change, social justice, and radical transformation inspired by Girls on Fire.

Students will enjoy the course more if they purchase Sarah’s book: Girls on Fire: Transformative Heroines in Young Adult Dystopian Literature. Some pertinent parts of the book may be available as well. Topic overviews and suggested reading will be available before the course begins.

Other suggested novels are:

Octavia Butler: Parable of the Sower and/or Parable of the Talents.

Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games Trilogy, or at least the second book, Catching Fire

Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Summer Prince

Instructor – Sarah Hentges, PhD

Sarah is a professor of transdisciplinary cultural studies and an embodied movement facilitator. She is the author of several books including Demystifying American Yoga and Girls on Fire, and the founder and creative director of Spiral Studio in downtown Bangor. More information about her work can be found at www.thespiralgoddesscollective.com