Sarah Seville started this project as in response to an assignment in a class taught by Professor Terry. She found her work for this assignment to be so compelling that she decided to undertake a much deeper look into the topic. Sarah particularly appreciated the opportunity to research a topic of such personal interest to her; her project blended her field of study into her life in a way that felt deeply affirming and deeply fascinating all at the same time. After graduating from UC Irvine, Sarah plans to attend law school at UCLA.

Young adult fiction has been a slowly growing phenomenon over the past fifty years, most notable for the specificity of its coming-of-age target audience and the ways in which that audience interacts with the works. In that time, queer young adult fiction has evolved from nearly nonexistent to abundant and regularly award winning. The genre has moved through periods of limiting focus on only men, of concentrating only on issues surrounding homophobia, and of eventually moving into telling a wide variety of more diverse stories. This more abundant and varied storytelling has allowed queer young adult fiction to develop as a genre and reach a wider audience. However, queer young adult fiction has also gone through intense censorship, removal from school libraries, and regular challenges to its place in school curriculums. There is still a long way to go before queer literature, especially literature aimed at young adults, is widely accepted as eligible for literary canon. Still, the genre is growing and its representation is improving. Moreover, it is finding the audience that so desperately needs it. This project examines how queer young adult fiction has evolved over the past fifty years—including the causes of that transformation and how it has affected matters of audience.

Jennifer Terry School of Humanities

Faculty Mentor statement to come.