by Kerry Mallan

About Kerry Mallan

Kerry Mallan is Emeritus Professor at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. She is the author and co-editor of several books on children’s literature, including: Gender Dilemmas in Children’s Fiction, Secrets, Lies and Children’s Fiction, and Contemporary Children’s Literature and Film (co-edited with Clare Bradford). She co-authored New World Orders in Contemporary Children’s Literature: Utopian Transformations (with Clare Bradford, John Stephens & Robyn McCallum).

Queer

book Keywords for Children's Literature

The word queer is elusive and confusing; its etymology is uncertain, and academic and popular usage attributes conflicting meanings to the word. It is often used as an umbrella term that refers to a range of “nonnormative” sexualities and genders—gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and questioning (GLBTIQ). In other contexts, queer is a term that resists identity categorizations based on sexual orientation (including heterosexual). As a theoretical strategy, queer reveals the social and historical constructions of identity formation and dualistic concepts that govern normative notions of gender and sexuality.