Jamiee Cook (California State University - Stanislaus)
jnco@****.com (Log-in to reveal)
What is the role of the body telling queer and trans stories? How have queer and/or trans bodies been constructed in literature, and how are current activist movements and political discourses around queer and trans identities reshaping the figure of the queer and/or trans body in literature? What risks are present in the essentializing and homogenizing of queer and/or trans bodies, and how do queer and/or trans writers resist these regulatory impulses? From early modern to contemporary literature, from realism to genre fiction and young adult texts, this panel offers an open call for presenters invested in the literary representation of the queer and/or trans body. Engagement with intersectional identifications relating to race, ethnicity, class, ability, and religion are especially encouraged.
Some topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
-queer and trans embodiment as resistance to oppressive dictates around gender and sexuality
-figurations of queer and trans embodiment that reify existing normative constructs of the body and are thus at odds with queer and trans resistance
-queer and trans of color embodiment and racial valences of queer and trans politics
-queer and trans embodiment as it relates to form and aesthetics
-queer and trans literary embodiment contextualized in contemporary homophobic and transphobic political projects (i.e., conversion therapy, book bans, censorship of LGBTQ+ education, physical and rhetorical violence)
-queer and trans embodiment rooted in genre traditions, such as comics, science fiction, horror, biography, etc.
-queer and trans embodiment and poetics
-queer and trans embodiment as it relates to the natural world (eco critical approaches)
-queer and trans embodiment and alternative temporalities
-queer and trans bio politics (gender affirming care; disability; reproductive rights; body modification; mental health; aging)