Queer Genealogies across the Color Line and into Children’s Literature: Autobiographical Picture Books, Interraciality, and Gay Family Formation
Life writing scholar Julia Watson critiques the practice of genealogy as “in every sense conservative” (300) because it traditionally charts and enshrines a family’s collective biography through biologistic, heteronormative, and segregated routes. My Americanist contrib...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2018-10-01
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| Series: | Genealogy |
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| Online Access: | http://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/2/4/43 |
| _version_ | 1811227715457515520 |
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| author | Cedric Essi |
| author_facet | Cedric Essi |
| author_sort | Cedric Essi |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Life writing scholar Julia Watson critiques the practice of genealogy as “in every sense conservative” (300) because it traditionally charts and enshrines a family’s collective biography through biologistic, heteronormative, and segregated routes. My Americanist contribution, however, zooms in on a recent development of autobiographical works that establish narratives of origin beyond normative boundaries of race and heterosexual reproduction. A number of predominantly white queer parents of black adoptees have turned their family history into children’s read-along books as a medium for pedagogical empowerment that employs first-person narration in the presumable voice of the adoptee. In Arwen and Her Daddies (2009), for instance, Arwen invites the reader into a story of family formation with the following opening words: “Do you know how I and my Dads became a family?” My analysis understands these objects as verbal-visual origin stories which render intelligible a conversion from differently radicalized strangers into kin. I frame this mode of narration as ‘adoptee ventriloquism’ that might tell us more about adult desires of queers for familial recognition than about the needs of their adopted children. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T09:46:23Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-2d727921386c4d7eaddd68d836614187 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2313-5778 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T09:46:23Z |
| publishDate | 2018-10-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Genealogy |
| spelling | doaj.art-2d727921386c4d7eaddd68d8366141872022-12-22T03:37:56ZengMDPI AGGenealogy2313-57782018-10-01244310.3390/genealogy2040043genealogy2040043Queer Genealogies across the Color Line and into Children’s Literature: Autobiographical Picture Books, Interraciality, and Gay Family FormationCedric Essi0Department of English-Speaking Cultures, University of Bremen, 28359 Bremen, GermanyLife writing scholar Julia Watson critiques the practice of genealogy as “in every sense conservative” (300) because it traditionally charts and enshrines a family’s collective biography through biologistic, heteronormative, and segregated routes. My Americanist contribution, however, zooms in on a recent development of autobiographical works that establish narratives of origin beyond normative boundaries of race and heterosexual reproduction. A number of predominantly white queer parents of black adoptees have turned their family history into children’s read-along books as a medium for pedagogical empowerment that employs first-person narration in the presumable voice of the adoptee. In Arwen and Her Daddies (2009), for instance, Arwen invites the reader into a story of family formation with the following opening words: “Do you know how I and my Dads became a family?” My analysis understands these objects as verbal-visual origin stories which render intelligible a conversion from differently radicalized strangers into kin. I frame this mode of narration as ‘adoptee ventriloquism’ that might tell us more about adult desires of queers for familial recognition than about the needs of their adopted children.http://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/2/4/43Queer kinshipgenealogycritical mixed race studiesqueer familychildren’s literaturegay fatherhoodqueer interracial kinshipinterracial familylife writing |
| spellingShingle | Cedric Essi Queer Genealogies across the Color Line and into Children’s Literature: Autobiographical Picture Books, Interraciality, and Gay Family Formation Genealogy Queer kinship genealogy critical mixed race studies queer family children’s literature gay fatherhood queer interracial kinship interracial family life writing |
| title | Queer Genealogies across the Color Line and into Children’s Literature: Autobiographical Picture Books, Interraciality, and Gay Family Formation |
| title_full | Queer Genealogies across the Color Line and into Children’s Literature: Autobiographical Picture Books, Interraciality, and Gay Family Formation |
| title_fullStr | Queer Genealogies across the Color Line and into Children’s Literature: Autobiographical Picture Books, Interraciality, and Gay Family Formation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Queer Genealogies across the Color Line and into Children’s Literature: Autobiographical Picture Books, Interraciality, and Gay Family Formation |
| title_short | Queer Genealogies across the Color Line and into Children’s Literature: Autobiographical Picture Books, Interraciality, and Gay Family Formation |
| title_sort | queer genealogies across the color line and into children s literature autobiographical picture books interraciality and gay family formation |
| topic | Queer kinship genealogy critical mixed race studies queer family children’s literature gay fatherhood queer interracial kinship interracial family life writing |
| url | http://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/2/4/43 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT cedricessi queergenealogiesacrossthecolorlineandintochildrensliteratureautobiographicalpicturebooksinterracialityandgayfamilyformation |