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Carrying queerness : queerness, performance and the archive

This dissertation responds to the archival turn in critical theory by examining a relation between queerness, performance and the archive. In it I explore institutional archives and the metaphors of the archive as it operates in the academy, while focusing particularly on the way in which queerness may come to be archived. Throughout I use the analytic of performance. This work builds on and extends from crucial work in Queer studies, Performance Studies and Archival Studies. As such it asks what has been said and what we can say with these givens to offer what sociologist Avery Gordon has called “transformative recognition” (1997, 8). The project contributes to knowledge a mode of inquiry I create and deploy which queerly addresses current theory and practice, asking that we move beyond to consider new forms of care with such material. Among its original moves are being first to critically explore the John Sex archive, as well as the work of artists Taylor Mac, Mitch & Parry and Christa Holka. In the project, I also employ a methodological framework of the promise following the work of Shoshana Felman (2003). Throughout the chapters, case studies explore central notions to the archive: preservation, history, affect (desire) and community (lifeworlds). In writing the case studies my methods take off from ethnography as well as Performance Studies. In the end, the project is not conceived of as an archive; per se. Instead it tracks key movements of inquiry into archival practice and the situatedness of queerness in relation to such practices, as evidenced in performance, in both the theatrical and anthropological connotations of the term. I have conceived of and track three types of bodies through the dissertation: inquiring bodies, queer bodies and archival bodies. The inquiring body becomes the catalyst for archival intervention.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:580546
Date January 2013
CreatorsHunt, Raymond Justin
ContributorsKelleher, Joseph ; Skantze, P. A.
PublisherUniversity of Roehampton
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttps://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/portal/en/studentthesis/carrying-queerness-queerness-performance-and-the-archive(9d796051-d8dd-424b-817a-07857c0de83e).html

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