Becoming Otherwise: The Queer Aesthetics of Childhood

This dissertation examines the relationship between discourses of childhood, theories of sexuality and cultural production. The theoretical framework draws on the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott. I read literature published in the fields of education, queer theory and childhood studies to posit a theory of childhood that acknowledges the role of the unconscious in learning and in sexual development. I ask how theories of childhood create the material conditions amidst which children develop, and how the adult's own history of dependence, individuation, and relationality informs their theory of what defines a normal childhood. Throughout the dissertation, I theorize queer childhood as that which exceeds the confines of normalcy and resists normative assessments of growth. In the scope of this project, queer childhood is that which transcends and troubles normative metrics of growth. Here, queer references both non-normative sexuality and childlike qualities, such as curiosity, creativity and the desire for play, which do not expire when adulthood is obtained.In order to use the proposed framework, I test theories of childhood development as they relate to sexuality, learning and loss by applying them to representations of childhood in film. I suggest that the adult's non-conscious dynamics operant in encounters with children and childhood instruct pedagogy and curriculum used to educate children. Methodologically, I examine aesthetic representations of childhood in four films in order to theorize the relationship between adult constructions of childhood and the experience of being a child. My intent is to show how the viewing of these films forms an aesthetic experience that can assist in the symbolization of an unconscious constellation of affect, defense and desire. To this end, I privilege psychoanalytic theories of how aesthetic objects describe and clarify subjective experience, and narrate conflict, in order to contribute a theory of queer childhood attentive to both social and instinctual life.Ph.D