Sport is an inherently hegemonic hyper masculinity-building project. Therefore, tensions exist when non-hegemonic groups reclaim sport. This thesis questions how normativity is constructed and resisted in non-normative sporting spaces. Drawing from semi-structured interviews, participant observations, self-reflection qualitative methods and post-structural, spatial and post-colonial theory, I problematize how sportsmanship (sportspersonship) is “cultivated” in a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (lgbtq) soccer league . Specifically, I interrogate how queer sporting bodies negotiate (homo/hetero)normativity by either contesting or confirming neoliberal values of ‘sportsmanship.’ Five interlocking themes that emerged from my data suggest that ‘a queer muscularity’ and ‘a normative queer nationhood’ is being (re)produced by and through queer sporting bodies and sports spaces. I argue that we need to be vigilant of queer sporting spaces that claim to be or are assumed to have greater inclusivity because these spaces may actually facilitate the (re)production of dominant discourses and norms.

Sport is an inherently hegemonic hyper masculinity-building project. Therefore, tensions exist when non-hegemonic groups reclaim sport. This thesis questions how normativity is constructed and resisted in non-normative sporting spaces. Drawing from semi-structured interviews, participant observations, self-reflection qualitative methods and post-structural, spatial and post-colonial theory, I problematize how sportsmanship (sportspersonship) is “cultivated” in a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (lgbtq) soccer league . Specifically, I interrogate how queer sporting bodies negotiate (homo/hetero)normativity by either contesting or confirming neoliberal values of ‘sportsmanship.’ Five interlocking themes that emerged from my data suggest that ‘a queer muscularity’ and ‘a normative queer nationhood’ is being (re)produced by and through queer sporting bodies and sports spaces. I argue that we need to be vigilant of queer sporting spaces that claim to be or are assumed to have greater inclusivity because these spaces may actually facilitate the (re)production of dominant discourses and norms.

Queer people of color in the United States are perpetually under siege politically, psychically, economically, physically, and affectively in the twenty-first century under capitalist white supremacist heteropatriarchy. Radical Self-Care, connects radical artivist performance in Austin, Texas with the theoretical genealogies of queer of color critique, women of color feminism, queer studies, and performance studies in order to propose a program for queer of color survival, sustainment and political revolt. Radical self-care is the holistic praxis that names the confluence of two distinct but inextricable processes developed in the first two chapters of this thesis. In chapter one, I take up the Generic Ensemble Company’s workshop production of What’s Goin’ On? as a case study in order to theorize the ‘performative of sustenance,’ a mechanism of queer worldmaking and queer world sustainment defined by its erotic and utopian affects. Chapter two, through a discussion of reproductive rights activism at the Texas state capitol, reformulates the concept of ‘parrhesia,’ the Socratic practice of ‘free speech’ taken up by Foucault in discussions of the care of the self, into a performance praxis of speaking truth to power with the potential to interrupt hegemonic systems of oppression. The final chapter explicates the ways in which these two mechanisms converge and operate as a dyad in the holistic process of radical self-care through an analysis of Fat: The Play, a devised work that premiered in Austin by and about fat queer femmes. Ultimately, Radical Self- Care aspires to offer queers of color a methodology of queer world sustainment that is also a program of political intervention, grounded in solidarity politics, into those systems of oppression that too often characterize queer of color existence as a project of survival rather than a project of flourishing. / text

Mit dem Begriff Heteronormativität wird die Naturalisierung und Privilegierung von Heterosexualität und Zweigeschlechtlichkeit in Frage gestellt. Kritisiert werden nicht nur die auf Alltagswissen bezogene Annahme, es gäbe zwei gegensätzliche Geschlechter und diese seien sexuell aufeinander bezogen, sondern auch die mit Zweigeschlechtlichkeit und Heterosexualität einhergehenden Privilegierungen und Marginalisierungen. Der Begriff tauchte erstmalig 1991 in Michael Warners Aufsatz "Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet" auf. Zentrale Bezugspunkte der Analysen von Heteronormativität stellen Foucaults Untersuchungen zum Zusammenhang von Sexualität und Macht sowie Butlers Theorie der Subjektkonstitution im Rahmen der heterosexuellen Matrix oder der heterosexuellen Hegemonie dar.

This dissertation is a text analysis of the short novel Carmilla (1872) by the Irish ghost story-author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. It is a close reading analysis where I apply a queer theoretical perspective using Mia Franck’s model to analyze different silence practices in Carmilla. I focus on the female vampire Carmilla and her companion Laura and how they are portrayed in this short novel. I will ask the questions: do the characters Carmilla and Laura show a non-heterosexual relationship, passion and desire? How do they depart from the gender norm and can they be seen as characters who deviate from what society considers ‘normal’ behaviour? And can Carmilla and Laura’s relationship be seen as an example of silenced homosexuality and in what way is it expressed? Carmilla and Laura’s behaviour can certainly be described as queer and it is effective to examine the novella using silence practices through a queer perspective. Many of the practices are written silences. Mostly, its things that the reader realizes before the storyteller Laura does herself. They reveal numerous oddities in the story, taking the form of narrative, camouflaged, performative, ritualized and existential silences. Prominent examples are the way Carmilla hides both her vampiric and lesbian sides which Laura is repelled at in addition to her own lustful and passionate emotions. As a future teacher, one of my most important jobs will be to educate my pupils about democratic values and that all kinds of discrimination should be discouraged. An essay of this sort is one way to educate them in how gender and sexuality can be seen from historical, political and cultural perspectives.

Cette thèse a pour objectif d’examiner la construction des subjectivités homoérotiques dans l’oeuvre littéraire de Caio Fernando Abreu, du point de vue de la narration et du discours, à partir de l’analyse de ses nouvelles, chroniques et romans, produits entre 1970 et 1996, année de sa mort. Sa correspondance personnelle est, quant à elle, confrontée aux textes fictionnels. Caio Fernando Abreu est l’un des écrivains brésiliens qui a le plus souvent écrit sur l’homoérotisme, thème à la fois central et secondaire dans son oeuvre. Il a été l’un des premiers à traiter du SIDA dans une oeuvre de fiction, à une époque où la maladie était directement associée à l’expérience de sexualités non hétéronormatives. Les sujets étant produits dans et par le langage, le processus de stigmatisation des sujets à tendance homoérotique est donc nécessairement engendré à travers le langage, matière-première de la littérature. Selon cette perspective, ce travail vise à identifier les stratégies littéraires utiliséespar l’auteur pour échapper à ce piège discursif, et les regroupe en trois catégories: l’ambiguïté, le décalage et la mise en évidence. Il apparaît que, au lieu d’assumer une identité sexuelle socialement marginalisée, ses histoires et ses personnages défient les catégorisations monolithiques et adoptent la notion de sexualités fluides, plurielles et interchangeables. Cette étude discute encore la construction esthétique d’une dimension éthique dans l'oeuvre de Caio Fernando Abreu, et la manière par laquelle la littérature peut contribuer à une représentation positive de sexualités non hégémoniques. / This thesis intends to investigate the creation of homoerotic subjectivities in Caio Fernando Abreu’s literary work from a narrative and discursive point of view. In order to do so, it analyses his short stories, chronicles and novels produced between the 1970s and 1996, year of his death. His personal correspondence is also examined as a counterpoint to his fictional narratives. Caio Fernando Abreu is a Brazilian contemporary author who has written frequently on the issue of homoerotism, a subject that is, at the same time, essential and secondary to his work. He was also one of the first Brazilian fiction writers to thematize AIDS at a time when the syndrome was directly associated to sexualities that challenged heteronormativity. Subjects are constituted in language and by language, therefore the stigmatization of homoerotically inclined subjects is also necessarily established through language, which is the primary raw material of literature. From this perspective, this work identifies three literary strategies the writer uses in order to escape this discursive trap: ambiguity, displacement and disclosure. Instead of assuming a marginalized sexual identity, his stories and characters defy monolithic categorizations and instead they adopt the notion of fluid, plural and interchangeable sexualities. This study also discusses the aesthetic and ethical dimensions in Abreu’s work as well as literature’s contribution to positively represent non-hegemonic sexualities. / Esta tese pretende investigar a criação de subjetividades homoeróticas na obra literária deCaio Fernando Abreu, do ponto de vista narrativo e discursivo, através da análise de seuscontos, crônicas e romances, produzidos entre a década de 1970 e 1996, ano de sua morte.Sua correspondência pessoal é também analisada em contraponto aos textos ficcionais. CaioFernando Abreu é um dos escritores brasileiros contemporâneos que escreveu comfrequência sobre o homoerotismo, tema que é, ao mesmo tempo, central e secundário em suaobra. Também foi um dos primeiros escritores de ficção brasileiros a tematizar a AIDS, numaépoca em que a doença estava diretamente relacionada à experiência de sexualidades nãoheteronormativas. Os sujeitos são produzidos na linguagem e pela linguagem, e, portanto, oprocesso de estigmatização dos sujeitos homoeroticamente inclinados institui-senecessariamente através da linguagem, matéria-prima da literatura. Sob essa perspectiva,identificam-se neste trabalho as estratégias literárias utilizadas pelo autor para escapar aessa armadilha discursiva, dividindo-as em três categorias: a ambiguidade, o deslocamento ea explicitude. Verifica-se que, ao invés de assumir uma identidade sexual socialmentemarginalizada, suas histórias e personagens desafiam categorizações monolíticas e adotam anoção de sexualidades fluidas, plurais e intercambiáveis. Esse estudo discute ainda aconstrução estética de uma dimensão ética em sua obra e a maneira como a literatura podecontribuir para uma representação positiva de sexualidades não hegemônicas.

L’objet principal de notre thèse est de démontrer que l’œuvre de Manuel Puig est queer avant la lettre. Notre lecture invite à entendre la littérature de M. Puig comme un acte politique qui vise à mettre en évidence la construction socio-culturelle de la subjectivité dans la société occidentale, patriarcale et androcentrique qui impose un paradigme unique basé sur la norme. L’œuvre de Puig opère en déconstruisant le patriarcat en tant qu’échafaudage transversal de divers systèmes (religieux, socio-politique, économique,etc.) qui préconfigure notre manière de penser, nos modèles et notre manière de comprendre le monde qui nous entoure. Notre démarche méthodologique s’appuie sur la coïncidence entre la focalisation queer et la technique de Puig pour créer de la fiction qui conçoivent le « être homme » et « être femme » comme une performance, créant ainsi de nouveaux discours, sous d’autres formes et à partir d’autres points de vue qui amènent l’auteur à intervenir sur les stéréotypes produits par le système pour révéler que les étiquettes humaines sont totalement artificielles. Les œuvres de Puig sont donc analysées en tant qu’artefacts culturels qui produisent et propagent des croyances en problématisant les valeurs de l’espace social. Dans la mesure où les subjectivités et les corps relégués à la condition d’objets viennent usurper le lieu de l’auctorialité (lieu de la production du capital symbolique) et produisent, à travers les personnages, des perceptions du monde alternatives où les possibilités érotiques sont explorées, analysées, réévaluées et redimensionnées, ces corps interfèrent de façon performative dans l’espace social. C’est ainsi que l’on peut dire que le discours littéraire contribue à produire de nouvelles possibilités et stratégies politiques pour mettre en évidence le corps, le genre et la sexualité. / The main object of our thesis is to demonstrate that Manuel Puig’s work is queer before its time. In our interpretation we contend that M. Puig’s literature can be understood as a political act aiming to reveal the socio-cultural construct of subjectivity in Western, patriarchal and androcentric society that enforces a single normative paradigm. Puig’s work exposes and deconstructs patriarchy as the overarching matrix of various systems (religious, socio-political, economic, etc.) that predetermine our way of thinking, our models and how we understand the world around us. Our methodology is based on the concurrence between the queer lens and Puig’s literary technique since both regard “being a man” and “being a woman” as performative behaviours, thereby creating new discourses deriving from other forms and alternative perspectives that in turn bring the author to engage the stereotypes produced by the system thus revealing the complete artificiality of human labels.Puig’s works are therefore analysed as cultural artefacts that create and propagate beliefs by questioning the values of the social space. Insofar as subjectivities and bodies relegated to the status of objects invest authorial spaces (spaces where symbolic capital is produced) and produce, through the characters, alternative perceptions of the world in which erotic potentialities are explored, analysed, re-evaluated and reshaped, these bodies interfere in social spaces in a performative way. Hence we can say that literary discourse helps to create new possibilities and political strategies that bring body, gender and sexuality to the fore. / La presente tesis tiene como objetivo principal demostrar que la obra de Manuel Puig es queer avant la lettre. Nuestra lectura propone entender la literatura de M. Puig como un acto político que pretende poner en evidencia la construcción socio-cultural de la subjetividad en la sociedad occidental, patriarcal y androcéntrica, que impone un paradigma único sustentado por la norma. La obra de Puig opera deconstruyendo el patriarcado en tanto que entramado transversal de sistemas (religiosos, sociopolíticos, económicos…) que preconfigura nuestra manera de pensar, modelos a seguir y manera de entender el mundo que nos rodea.Nuestra propuesta metodológica parte de la coincidencia que existe entre la focalización queer y la manera de producir ficción de Puig, que conciben el “ser hombre” o “ser mujer” como una performance. De ello se desprende que se puede crear discursos bajo otras formas y desde otros puntos de vista, que es lo que hace el autor al manipular los estereotipos producidos por el propio sistema, para poner al descubierto que las etiquetas humanas son artificiales. Las novelas de Manuel Puig se analizan entonces como artefactos culturales que producen y diseminan creencias y cuestionan valores del espacio social. En la medida en que subjetividades y cuerpos relegados a la condición de objetos usurpan el lugar de autoría (el lugar de la producción de capital simbólico) y producen, a través de los personajes, percepciones del mundo alternativas en las cuales las posibilidades eróticas son exploradas, analizadas, reevaluadas y redimensionadas, tales cuerpos interfieren performativamente en el espacio social. Por tanto, el discurso literario contribuye a producir nuevas posibilidades y estrategias políticas para evidenciar el cuerpo, el género o la sexualidad.

This​ ​essay​ ​examines​ ​the​ ​appearance​ ​of​ ​non-normative​ ​bodies​ ​in​ ​three​ ​films​ ​from​ ​the Marvel​ ​Cinematic​ ​Universe;​ ​​The​ ​Avengers​​ ​(2012),​ ​​Thor:​ ​The​ ​Dark​ ​World​​ ​(2013) ​and Avengers:​ ​Age​ ​of​ ​Ultron​​ ​(2015),​ ​in​ ​an​ ​attempt​ ​to​ ​find​ ​qualities​ ​that​ ​might​ ​suggest​ ​queer, non-binary​ ​or​ ​gender​ ​disruptive​ ​attributes,​ ​in​ ​addition​ ​to​ ​looking​ ​at​ ​how​ ​the​ ​movies handle​ ​them.​ ​Using​ ​a​ ​combination​ ​of​ ​feminist​ ​film​ ​theory,​ ​queer​ ​theory​ ​and​ ​discourse analysis,​ ​the​ ​Otherness​ ​of​ ​these​ ​bodies​ ​are​ ​put​ ​into​ ​contrast​ ​with​ ​the​ ​normative​ ​and hegemonic​ ​gender​ ​expressions​ ​employed​ ​by​ ​the​ ​protagonists,​ ​the​ ​heroes​ ​of​ ​the​ ​films. While​ ​the​ ​study​ ​finds​ ​several​ ​indications​ ​of​ ​transgressive​ ​bodies​ ​and​ ​'gender​ ​ambiguity' among​ ​the​ ​creatures​ ​and​ ​beings​ ​who​ ​play​ ​the​ ​part​ ​of​ ​inhuman​ ​threat,​ ​as​ ​well​ ​as​ ​the presence​ ​of​ ​discourses​ ​that​ ​paint​ ​them​ ​as​ ​threatening​ ​partly​ ​​because​​ ​of​ ​these​ ​qualities, they​ ​remain​ ​blurred​ ​and​ ​ill-defined,​ ​their​ ​queerness​ ​inferred​ ​rather​ ​than​ ​overt.​ ​The preferred​ ​reading,​ ​the​ ​analysis​ ​suggests,​ ​offers​ ​little​ ​in​ ​the​ ​way​ ​of​ ​identification,​ ​but​ ​all the​ ​more​ ​with​ ​regard​ ​to​ ​oppression.​ ​The​ ​way​ ​these​ ​bodies​ ​are​ ​treated​ ​in​ ​all​ ​three​ ​films implies​ ​that​ ​the​ ​tolerance​ ​for​ ​bodily​ ​deviance​ ​is​ ​virtually​ ​non-existent,​ ​and​ ​that​ ​a defining​ ​quality​ ​of​ ​masculine​ ​leadership​ ​is​ ​the​ ​ability​ ​to​ ​banish​ ​them​ ​from​ ​existence.

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