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Children exist in strange temporalities, as Kathryn Bond Stockton argues in The Queer Child, in which she examines how children are queered by the very forces that both constrain and produce them. Through inspired readings of film, novels, and popular culture, Stockton describes the ghostly “gay child” that haunts our fictions of childhood and grows “sideways” outside of the linear narrative of straight, historical time. Stockton’s account of the “gay child” not only complicates ideological configurations of the child, but also our own experiences in the present as the adults who still feel the haunting touch of queer childhood histories.We’ll encounter notions of time and history over the course of our discussion, and consider what changes if we think about childhood in terms of “sideways” growth. Come with questions, thoughts, and ideas–even if you didn’t have a chance to finish the entire book!

Image: David Wojnarowicz, Untitled (One day this kid . . .), 1990. Photostat, 30 × 40 1/8 in. (76.2 × 101.9 cm). Edition of 10.