scholarly journals "Iz ormara na police": O odrastanju i izlasku iz ormara u hrvatskoj queer književnosti

Author(s):  
Natalija Iva Stepanović

“OUT OF THE CLOSET, ONTO THE BOOKSHELF”: ON GROWING UP AND COMING OUT IN CROATIAN QUEER LITERATURE In the contemporary Croatian queer prose, growing up is represented as a process with uncertain outcomes. Contemporary writers do not describe gay and lesbian identities as already shaped, finalized, and unquestionably different from heterosexuality. Their poetics have many predecessors, Bildungsroman, the 19th-century genre that, despite conventional epilogues, depicts youth as a period of the adventure and overturn, being the oldest one. The second important influence are foreign coming out novels (texts that describe the articulation of gay and lesbian identities in the family and community) or narratives of affirmation, and the third Yugoslav young adult prose. The publication of the Croatian queer prose has increased dramatically since the first Gay Pride in Zagreb (2002) and the Queer Zagreb festival the following year. In the short story collection Poqureene priče [The queered stories] (2004) growing up is one of the prevailing topics with eventually popularized motifs such as coming out, moving away / traveling, cultural signifiers of gay identity, and crossings of sexual orientation with gender and class. Writing in the first person is also very popular. Vladimir Stojsavljević’s oeuvre is important because the author depicts growing up in three contexts, during Yugoslavia, in the war-time, and in post-transition, and texts by Nora Verde are a novelty because she writes about queer women as belonging to lesbian community. Young authors Mirta Maslać and Viktorija Božina reveal an interesting autobiographical discourse and share a tendency towards using diverse cultural references. This paper aims to show how the encounter of local gay and lesbian culture, foreign fiction, and already present genres has shaped the current texts about queer identity that manage to avoid writing about sexuality within simplistic, binary oppositions.

Author(s):  
Emily Langhorne

This chapter discusses the life and work of Dorothy Allison, who knows about growing up “white trash.” Born on April 11, 1949, in Greenville, South Carolina, Allison was “the bastard daughter of a white woman from a desperately poor family.” Poverty forced Allison's family to leave South Carolina for central Florida in search of a better life. In 1983, Allison published a collection of poetry, The Women Who Hate Me, followed by a short story collection, Trash, in 1988. In 1992, Allison published Bastard out of Carolina, a largely autobiographical novel about growing up in the Rough South. Allison's other works include chapters and a memoir, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure (1995). The term “white trash” and its prevalence demonstrate society's tolerance of stereotyping poor whites. Such stereotypes not only portray to outsiders a false image of the working class, but are reinforced within the working class itself. Allison writes to combat this myth and these prejudices.


Author(s):  
Natalija Stepanović

Although queer literature can fit into common timelines of the history of literature, this essay discusses ways in which Croatian lesbian fiction challenges and sabotages such attempts. It combines interpretations of fin-de-siècle early lesbian writing (novels the Widow by Josip Eugen Tomić and the Passion by David Pijade) with those of contemporary texts. As for recently published texts, the essay analyzes short story collection Posudi mi smajl (Lend Me Your Smile) and novel Do isteka zaliha (Until the Supplies Run Out) by Nora Verde, the short story "Vrata Pakla" ("the Gates of Hell") by Ružica Gašperov and the postmodernist short story collection Moja ti (My You) by Jasna Jasna Žmak, in order to show that foreign model should not be uncritically applied to Croatian literature. These texts were published almost simultaneously, which prevents a simple understanding of Croatian lesbian fiction as developing from suffering and secrecy towards affirmation and open displays of identity. Also, the authors appropriate and reinterpret older genre models - in the essay, I show that the timeline of Croatian lesbian fiction is a queer (nonnormative) timeline. Like the coherent chronology, coherent identity also comes under question: Žmak destabilizes it through her postmodernist textuality. The authors of Croatian women's prose treat lesbian relationships as parts of female self-actualization narratives. This shows that Croatian lesbian (and, more generally, queer) literature cannot be reduced to gay and lesbian confessions targeting a similar audience.


Author(s):  
Karin Heller ◽  
Bill Domonkos ◽  
Karin Heller ◽  
Bill Domonkos

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-125
Author(s):  
Omama Tanvir ◽  
Nazish Amir

The aim of this research is to apply deconstructive approach to a short story. For this purpose Daniyal Mueenuddin’s short story “Saleema” is selected and analyzed. Through deconstruction the feminist reading of the story is dismantled and the power dynamics of the patriarchal Pakistani society are subverted. The research is anchored in Derrida’s concept of unreliability of language and Cuddon’s idea of reversal of binary oppositions. The paper finds that the protagonist Saleema is not as weak and oppressed as she is perceived to be, rather she is a resilient, independent woman who uses any means possible to get what she wants. The power and authority reside with her and not with any male character. The study is purely qualitative and exploratory in nature.


The aim of this research is to apply a deconstructive approach to a short story. For this purpose, Daniyal Mueenuddin’s short story “Saleema” is selected and analyzed. Through deconstruction, the feminist reading of the story is dismantled and the power dynamics of the patriarchal Pakistani society are subverted. The research is anchored in Derrida’s concept of the unreliability of language and Cuddon’s idea of reversal of binary oppositions. The paper finds that the protagonist Saleema is not as weak and oppressed as she is perceived to be, rather she is a resilient, independent woman who uses any means possible to get what she wants. The power and authority reside with her and not with any male character. The study is purely qualitative and exploratory in nature. Keywords: Deconstruction, Post-structuralism, Feminism, Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, Saleema


Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-98
Author(s):  
Faith Mkwesha

This interview was conducted on 16 May 2009 at Le Quartier Francais in Franschhoek, Cape Town, South Africa. Petina Gappah is the third generation of Zimbabwean writers writing from the diaspora. She was born in 1971 in Zambia, and grew up in Zimbabwe during the transitional moment from colonial Rhodesia to independence. She has law degrees from the University of Zimbabwe, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Graz. She writes in English and also draws on Shona, her first language. She has published a short story collection An Elegy for Easterly (2009), first novel The Book of Memory (2015), and another collection of short stories, Rotten Row (2016).  Gappah’s collection of short stories An Elegy for Easterly (2009) was awarded The Guardian First Book Award in 2009, and was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the richest prize for the short story form. Gappah was working on her novel The Book of Memory at the time of this interview.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-210
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Sokołowicz

The present paper describes some orientalist stereotypes concerning women and manifesting themselves in Le Harem entr’ouvert (1919), a short story collection by Aline Réveillaud de Lens (1881–1925), a French painter and writer, whose works are devoted mainly to North Africa. The paper focuses on three, most common, stereotypical representations of the Oriental woman according to which she is, firstly, a beautiful odalisque serving the man; secondly, extremely sensual and thus unfaithful and, finally, jealous and, sometimes, very cruel. The author attempts to explain the origins of those representations and to answer the question why A.-R. de Lens used them in her writings


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-331
Author(s):  
Tatiana Ternopol

This study investigates the intertextual use of Greek mythology in Agatha Christie’s short stories Philomel Cottage, The Face of Helen, and The Oracle at Delphi, a short story collection The Labours of Hercules, and a novel, Nemesis. The results of this research based on the hermeneutical and comparative methods reveal that A. Christie’s intertextual formula developed over time. In her early works, allusions were based on characters' appearances and functions as well as on the use of motifs and themes from Greek myths. Later on, she turned to using allusory character names; this would mislead her readers who thought they already knew the formula of her stories. Although not a postmodern writer, A. Christie enjoyed playing games of allusion with her readers. She wanted them not only to solve a case but also to discover and interpret the intertextual references.


Rachel Joyce’s short story collection A Snow Garden and Other Stories (2015) is composed of seven stories which occur during a fortnight of the holiday, Christmas season. The collection uses narrative techniques which make it a unique set of stories. The stories have an urban setting and examine the intricacies of human relationships. The sense of interconnection highlighted by Joyce in the stories elevates it to a short story cycle. A short story cycle consists of individual stories which can stand on their own as complete narratives while also maintaining fictional links running through all the stories. The paper is an attempt to establish A Snow Garden and Other Stories as a short story cycle. It also argues that by narrating the interconnected nature of human lives Joyce’s work is exploring life as a complex system. As a scientific philosophy complexity theory explores the behavior of complex systems including human societies. Complex systems are self-organizing, dynamic, evolving networks that operate without any centralized control, similar to human societies. This paper will apply the principles of complex systems to reveal patterns of human behavior represented in Joyce’s work.


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