Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Sarah Elisabeth Coduto Humanities and Social Science

Think of the Children!: An Analysis of Queer Childhood

My research project is an analysis of queer childhoods. Taking as a starting-point Lee Edelmans notion of reproductive futurism, a term coined to refer to a cultural, political, and psychic investment in the figure of the Child who “remains the perpetual horizon of every acknowledged politics as the emblem of futuritys unquestioned value (No Future 3-4), I would like to consider representations of children who refuse the future we invest in them. Broadly, I am preoccupied with violent children those who spit in the face of the exhortation, Think of the children”; who use their nascent sexuality as a weapon; who fight to exist outside of capitalism, but cannot entirely cast off its chains; who beat and shoot and rape each other. Through synthesizing psychoanalysis, critical theory, and close readings of literary texts from various historical moments, I hope to better understand when the category of the child as someone or something needing protection emerged, in so doing interrogating the fixity of the innocent child in modern political, psychological, and literary discourse.

Message To Sponsor

Dear Anselm Fund, SURF was the highlight of my college career. In a large research university whose claims to fame mostly revolve around the sciences, it feels incredibly meaningful to be given the opportunity to conduct sustained research on a Humanities project. I am proud of the work I have done so far, and incredibly excited to see what comes next both in terms of my thesis, upon which I will work in the coming months, and in terms of my career. I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generosity. Best, Sarah Coduto