Shared Selves

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.5622/illinois/9780252042799.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Suzanne Bost

Keyword(s):

Feminist Theory ◽

Queer Theory ◽

Disability Studies ◽

Gloria Anzaldua ◽

Indigenous Worldviews ◽

Surrounding Environment ◽

John Rechy ◽

Life Itself ◽

Personal Histories ◽

Western Intellectual

Writing about marginalized lives has the power to shift norms. In telling their own stories, John Rechy, Aurora Levins Morales, Gloria Anzaldúa, and other Latinx writers make visible experiences and bodies that are rarely at the center of the stories we read, and they dramatize the complexity of human agencies and responsibilities. Yet the memoirs this book analyzes move beyond focus on the human as their subjects’ personal histories intertwine with communities, animals, spirits, and the surrounding environment. This interconnectedness resonates with critical developments in posthumanist theory as well as recalling indigenous worldviews that are “other-than-Humanist,” outside of Western intellectual genealogies. Bringing these two frameworks into dialogue with feminist theory, queer theory, disability studies, and ecocriticism enables an expansive way of viewing life itself. Rejecting the structures of Humanism, Shared Selves decenters the individualism of memoir and highlights the webs of relation that mediate experience, agency, and identity.

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Introduction

Shared Selves ◽

10.5622/illinois/9780252042799.003.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Suzanne Bost

Keyword(s):

Queer Theory ◽

Disability Studies ◽

Intellectual Tradition ◽

New Materialisms ◽

The Subject ◽

Feminist New Materialisms ◽

Western Intellectual

The introduction establishes the project’s relationship to multiple intersecting theoretical methodologies: posthumanism, memoir studies, Latinx studies, feminist New Materialisms, queer theory, ecocriticism, and disability studies. By fragmenting subjectivity, emphasizing (human and trans-species) community, and incorporating death within life, the Latinx memoirs that are the subject of Shared Selves resonate with emerging posthumanist theories but are grounded in worldviews that exist outside of a Western intellectual tradition. Focusing on multiple alternatives to Humanism that emerge in this work leads to an ethics of connection, empathy, reciprocity, and humility.

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Cuerpo indeterminado: La precariedad del cuerpo en el discurso feminista

Revista de la Academia ◽

10.25074/0196318.0.47 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 20 ◽

pp. 47

Author(s):

María Isabel Peña Aguado

Keyword(s):

Feminist Theory ◽

Queer Theory ◽

Female Body ◽

The Body ◽

Philosophical Tradition ◽

Font Size ◽

Feminist Discourse ◽

Feminist Movements ◽

Cuerpo Femenino

La teoría feminista heredó de una tradición filosófica hostil la identificación de cuerpo y mujer. Partiendo de esta identificación de mujer y cuerpo es comprensible que un cuestionamiento del concepto ‘mujer’ influya asimismo en el lugar que va a encontrar el cuerpo dentro del movimiento y teoría feministas. Ese lugar será diferente dependiendo de las diversas reivindicaciones que marcan las diferencias entre los distintos feminismos y teorías queer. La pregunta que se plantea es hasta qué punto la precariedad del cuerpo femenino dentro de la misma teoría feminista es consecuencia del cuestionamiento del concepto de mujer o si, por el contrario, no será más bien el rechazo a una realidad corporal concreta lo que ha permitido y ayudado a desarmar los conceptos de ‘mujer’ y ‘mujeres’ hasta el punto de considerarlos como innecesario para el mismo discurso y políticas feministas contemporáneos.Palabras claves: cuerpo, mujeres, feminismo, Teoría Queer Indeterminacy of the body: precariousness of body in the feminist discourseFeminist theory inherited the identification of woman and body from a hostile philosophical tradition. Given this identification, it is understandable that a questioning of the concept ‚woman‘ also influences the place that the body will find in the feminist movements and theories. The question that arises is how far the precariousness of the female body within feminist theory itself is the result of a questioning of the concept of ‘woman’ or whether, on the contrary, it is the rejection of a concrete corporal reality which has enabled and helped to disarm the concepts of ‚woman‘ and ‚women‘ to the point of considering them unnecessary for contemporary feminist discourse and politics. Keywords: body, women, feminism, Queer Theory

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‘Sexuality is fluid’, or or is it? An analysis of television’s The L Word from the perspectives of gender and sexuality

interalia: a journal of queer studies ◽

10.51897/interalia/heez1704 ◽

2007 ◽

Author(s):

Nina Kuorikoski

Keyword(s):

Los Angeles ◽

Feminist Theory ◽

Queer Theory ◽

The United States ◽

Critical Discussion ◽

Gender And Sexuality ◽

Bisexual Women ◽

Current Article ◽

And Bisexual ◽

L Word

North American television series The L Word (USA 2004-present) tells the story of a group of lesbian and bisexual women living in Los Angeles. The current article offers a close reading of the first two seasons of the series, analysing them from the perspectives of both feminist theory and queer theory. It demonstrates that even though the series deconstructs the normative boundaries of both gender and sexuality, it can also be said to maintain the ideals of a heteronormative society. The argument is explored by paying attention to several aspects of the series. These include the series' advertising both in Finland and the United States and the normative femininity of the lesbian characters. In addition, the article aims to highlight the manner in which the series depicts certain characters which can be said to stretch the normative boundaries of gender and sexuality. Through this, the article strives to give a diverse account of the series' first two seasons and further critical discussion of The L Word and its representations.

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Choreographing the Chronic

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199377329.003.0017 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Patrick McKelvey

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Queer Theory ◽

Disability Studies ◽

Performance Studies ◽

Disabled People ◽

Dance Studies ◽

Dance Theater ◽

And Performance ◽

Hiv Aids

“Choreographing the Chronic” brings together dance studies, queer disability studies, and performance studies to examine Octavio Campos’s 2007 dance-theater piece, The Bugchasers. The essay considers Campos’s work alongside other representations of bugchasers—people who deliberately pursue HIV—in popular journalism, queer theory, and social media. It argues that Campos’s work illuminates what these other representations obfuscate: that bugchasers stage alternative temporalities of seroconversion and HIV/AIDS more broadly. The bugchasers populating Campos’s piece thwart seroconversion’s prominence as ostensibly the most important event governing queer life. By extension, they challenge dominant understandings of people with HIV and other disabled people deprived of the capacity to represent anything other than disablement.

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Feminist Theory and Queer Theory

Advances in Developing Human Resources ◽

10.1177/1523422314543820 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 16 (4) ◽

pp. 445-456 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Julie Gedro ◽

Robert C. Mizzi

Keyword(s):

Feminist Theory ◽

Queer Theory

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Happily ever after? ‘Successful ageing’ and the heterosexual imaginary

European Journal of Cultural Studies ◽

10.1177/1367549417708434 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 21 (3) ◽

pp. 363-381 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Barbara L Marshall

Keyword(s):

Health Promotion ◽

Visual Field ◽

Feminist Theory ◽

Queer Theory ◽

Self Care ◽

Later Life ◽

Successful Ageing ◽

Special Issue ◽

Ageing Body ◽

Controversial Concept

‘Successful ageing’ has been a controversial concept in cultural gerontology, prompting critiques of its inherent individualism, neglect of structural inequalities and promotion of neoliberal strategies of self-care. This article aims at developing the critique of its heteronormative underpinnings. Drawing on cultural gerontology, feminist theory and queer theory, a critique of the rhetoric and visual representation of ‘successful ageing’ is developed that demonstrates the extent to which ‘success’ is equated with enactments of normative, gendered heterosexuality. The intent is not to simply map the exclusion or marginalization of queer representations but to make visible the ways in which assumptions of heterosexuality organize the visual field of ‘successful ageing’. Using examples from ‘lifestyle’ magazines and health promotion materials aimed at mid-to-later life adults, I demonstrate how the promise of ‘heterohappiness’ shapes visions of anticipatory ageing. This article forms part of ‘Media and the Ageing Body’ Special Issue.

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Mad Mothering

Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies ◽

10.3828/jlcds.2021.3 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

pp. 39-56

Author(s):

Patty Douglas ◽

Katherine Runswick-Cole ◽

Sara Ryan ◽

Penny Fogg

Keyword(s):

Queer Theory ◽

Disability Studies ◽

Disabled Children ◽

Critical Disability Studies ◽

Post Colonial ◽

Theoretical Approaches ◽

Mad Studies

The article brings together the fields of mad studies (LeFrancois et al.), matricentric feminism (O’Reilly, Matricentric Feminism) and critical disability studies (Goodley, “Dis/entangling Critical Disability Studies”). The aim is to expose and challenge “relations of ruling” (Smith 79) that both produce and discipline “mad mothers of disabled children.” The analysis begins by exploring the un/commonalities of the emerging histories of the three disciplines. The article then identifies analytical points of intersection, including critiques of neoliberalism; troubling the “norm” (including radical resistance and activism); intersectionality, post-colonial and queer theory. Finally, the article turns to points of divergence and possible tensions between these theoretical approaches as it explores the absence of disability in matricentric feminism, the contested place of mothering in critical disability studies, and the absence of mothering in mad studies.

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Antisocial Feminism? Shulamith Firestone, Monique Wittig and Proto-Queer Theory

Paragraph ◽

10.3366/para.2018.0277 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 41 (3) ◽

pp. 364-379

Author(s):

Lisa Downing

Keyword(s):

Middle Class ◽

Feminist Theory ◽

Queer Theory ◽

Third Wave ◽

Monique Wittig ◽

Second Wave Feminism ◽

The Family ◽

Feminist Perspectives ◽

The Individual ◽

Second Wave

Recent iterations of feminist theory and activism, especially intersectional, ‘third-wave’ feminism, have cast much second-wave feminism as politically unacceptable in failing to centre the experiences of less privileged subjects than the often white, often middle-class names with which the second wave is usually associated. While bearing those critiques in mind, this article argues that some second-wave writers, exemplified by Shulamith Firestone and Monique Wittig, may still offer valuable feminist perspectives if viewed through the anti-normative lens of queer theory. Queer resists the reification of identity categories. It focuses on resistance to hegemonic norms, rather than on group identity. By viewing Wittig's and Firestone's critique of the institutions of the family, reproduction, maternity, and work as proto-queer — and specifically proto-antisocial queer — it argues for a feminism that refuses to shore up identity, that rejects groupthink, and that articulates meaningfully the crucial place of the individual in the collective project of feminism.

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Judith Butler, Gender Trouble

The Oxford Handbook of Classics in Contemporary Political Theory ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198717133.013.59 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Clare Chambers

Keyword(s):

Political Theory ◽

Feminist Theory ◽

Queer Theory ◽

Identity Politics ◽

Identity Theory ◽

Judith Butler ◽

Stable Category ◽

Gender Trouble

This chapter discusses Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (GT) and its legacy in political theory. It sets out five themes of GT: the claim that identity is always the result of power; the interplay between sex, gender, and desire; the critique of “identity politics,” including any feminism that posits a stable category of “women”; the concept of performativity; and the possibility of change via subversive performance. The chapter then goes on to discuss the major impact that GT has had on feminist theory, queer theory, trans theory, and intersectionality, along with the surprising lack of impact on theories of multiculturalism and identity theory more broadly. Finally the chapter discusses some main criticisms of the book.

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Experience

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199328581.013.12 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Judith Grant

Keyword(s):

Critical Theory ◽

Feminist Theory ◽

Queer Theory ◽

Subject Formation ◽

Consciousness Raising ◽

Critical Theories ◽

Personal Politics ◽

Anglo American ◽

Point Of Departure

This chapter analyzes multiple conceptualizations of experience developed within Anglo-American and French feminist theory, and traces their relation to the concepts “woman,” “patriarchy,” and “personal politics.” It explores experience as epistemological ground, as a mechanism of subject formation, as a technique in consciousness raising, and as a methodology. Taking the feminist sexuality debates as a point of departure, the chapter also situates the limitations of feminist notions of experience in relation to queer theory, critical theory, poststructuralism, and the problematics of humanism. Finally, the chapter shows how feminist theoretical uses of the idea of experience parallel explorations and developments of the concept in other non-feminist critical theories. Though it has very often been ignored or considered as something of an anomaly by other critical theorists, the chapter demonstrates that feminist theory is a kind of critical theory and situates it in that broader context.

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