The future is kid stuff: queer theory, desidentification and the death drive

Authors

  • Lee Edelman

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.9771/peri.v2i14.44273

Abstract

Abstract: In this essay, Lee Edelman builds on Lacanian psychoanalysis and deconstruction to outline a radically
negative ethics for queer theory. His main target is the all-pervasive figure of the Child, which he reads as the linchpin
of our universal politics of “reproductive futurism.” Edelman argues that the Child, understood as innocence in need of
protection, represents the promise of a future against which the queer is positioned as the embodiment of a relentlessly
narcissistic, antisocial, and future negating drive. He boldly insists that the efficacy of queerness lies in its very
willingness to embrace this refusal of the social and political order, which is materialized through irony, jouissance,
and, ultimately, the death drive itself.
Keywords: Queer theory. Psychoanalysis. Childhood.

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Published

2021-04-10

How to Cite

Edelman, L. (2021). The future is kid stuff: queer theory, desidentification and the death drive. Revista Periódicus, 2(14), 248–275. https://doi.org/10.9771/peri.v2i14.44273