Anticipatory Illuminations and Queer Speculations: Examining How Undergraduate Readers Respond to LGBTQ+-Themed Speculative Fiction

• In Event: Literacy Landscapes of Identity: Speculation, Queerness, and the Deconstruction of Social Norms

Abstract

Re-entering data from two semester-long undergraduate courses wherein participants read and discussed a series of LGBTQ+-themed young adult novels, this paper examines how LGBQ+-identifying students enrolled in the course named and discuss notions of queer futurity. Charting new directions in speculative literacies research, the authors explore how student responses to future-facing texts offered “anticipatory illuminations” that both queered the present and projected visions of queered futures.

Authors

• Jon Michael Wargo, University of Michigan

• Kyle Patrick Smith, University of Michigan