Dark Teens and Born-again Martyrs: Captivity Narratives after Columbine

摘要

In Columbine and its legacy, two streams of American discourse aboutnthreatening young people and captivity by evil forces converged:nProtestant evangelical captivity narratives dating from the colonialnperiod and discourse about troubled youth that has its origins in thenmid-nineteenth century. Tales about threatening youth convey thenextent to which young people do important work for their cultures,nespecially when they are used to shore up the bounds of normalitynagainst the threat of deviance. Captivity narratives provided powerfulnimpetus for change after Columbine, just as they did for Protestants innseventeenth-century New England and for nineteenth-century nativistnmovements. After Columbine, tales of adolescents captured by dark-nness contributed to a growing evangelical youth movement, effectednlegislation concerning the separation of church and state, impactednpublic school dress codes and behavior policies, and in general shapednAmericans’ thinking about teenage deviance and normality.