Publication Date

2016-04-25

Availability

Open access

Embargo Period

2016-04-25

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PHD)

Department

English (Arts and Sciences)

Date of Defense

2016-03-25

First Committee Member

Joel Nickels

Second Committee Member

Pamela Hammons

Third Committee Member

Brenna Munro

Fourth Committee Member

Joshua Gang

Abstract

Focusing on texts by Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes, and Langston Hughes, this dissertation examines the temporally situated body as a gendered, sexed, and racialized site of contestation through which dominant ontological modalities are challenged and ultimately destabilized. This transgressive politics takes the form of an interrogation of the heteronormative time-table that constructs, regulates, and disciplines subjective ontological progress. Specifically, these texts challenge the notion that legibility is produced through a triad of progressive temporal phases: the adolescent/early adult direction of sexuality towards the heterosexual union, normative marriage and family-based kinship bonds, and finally the transmission of cultural values, norms, and beliefs through the figure of the child. Barnes, Hughes, and Loy all provide textual examples of queer child figures, transgressive sexual identifications, and non-traditional kinship bonds that resist and reject the strictures of the “chrononormative.”

Keywords

Modernism; Queer Theory; Queer Temporality; Gender; Sexuality; American Literature

Download

Share

COinS