It Gets Worse
: Assimilation, Futurity, and Radical Queer Politics in US Young Adult Fiction (2010–21)

Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis

Abstract

In this thesis, I explore the queer discourses that circulate in prize-winning US young adult literature (YA) published between 2010 and 2021. I posit that queer YA can be considered a paraliterary genre, whose implicit function is to provide reassurance and hope for a brighter future to an imagined isolated young queer reader. As a result of this emphasis on optimism and happiness, the genre is dominated by the assimilatory politics of the mainstream gay rights movement and prioritises advocating for the recognition of queer youth as worthy of the state’s protection without fundamentally challenging the structural inequalities that exclude queer and other marginalised populations in the first place. Over the course of four primary analysis chapters organised around some of the dominant concepts and themes in contemporary queer YA – coming out, ‘just happens to be’ narratives of incidental queerness, diversity, and sequels – I draw on radical queer, trans, and critical race theory to argue that such a conciliatory politics is insufficient to dismantle cis white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy. In order for queer YA to truly function as a source of hope for queer youth, I contend that the genre needs to embrace a revolutionary queer politics premised on the fundamental tenets of class-conscious, anti-imperialist, anti-racist solidarity, and I draw attention to narratives that centre such radical discourses. Uniquely situated at the confluence of anti-assimilationist queer theory, YA studies, and genre theory, this thesis offers a fresh perspective on the landscape of contemporary YA publishing and scholarship.
Date of Award28 May 2024
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • University of Roehampton
SponsorsJacqueline Wilson Scholarship
SupervisorJane Kingsley-Smith (Director of Studies) & Alison Waller (Co-Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Queer
  • trans studies
  • young adult
  • assimilation
  • fiction
  • radical politics
  • queer theory
  • futurity
  • paraliterature

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