Lee Edelman, No Future [Book Discussion]

Edelman’s book--a "searing polemic" whose "main target is the all-pervasive figure of the child... the linchpin of our universal politics of 'reproductive futurism'--was published in 2004. In the Contemporary workshop we would like to discuss how we might approach Edelman’s book nearly 15 years after its publication, in light of recently introduced marriage equality legislation and increased access to adoption and other options for establishing families for same-sex couples. We would also like to think about it in the context of already-present climate disaster, and how knowledge of worse to come may shape queer and straight people’s conception of future generations.