Welcome! I am a teacher, a Comparative Literature scholar, and an Andrew W. Mellon Engaged Scholar Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. My work interrogates the many ways in which children in a range of 20th and 21st-century historical and cultural contexts are made to bear the burden of resolving adult anxieties over survival and vulnerability by being forced to embody an idealized and unrealistic form of superhuman resilience in the midst of trauma. I strive to bring to light narratives by and about child victim/survivors that both evidence the real damage caused by this burden and suggest alternative modes of survival that honor vulnerability and interdependence over individualistic triumph. In particular, my dissertation examined the exploitation of the child victim as a representative for national renewal in contemporary post-trauma memory discourses in the United States, Argentina, and the Netherlands.
This site seeks to provide some of the narrative behind my various commitments, projects, and passions. If you’d rather take the shortcut, my CV can be found here. If you’d like to get in touch with me, you can do so here, or email me at sarah.ropp@utexas.edu.