Category: 2022 Blog Post

“Queer time and space are useful frameworks for assessing political and cultural change in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries (both what has changes and what must change). The critical languages that we have developed to try an assess the obstacles to social change have a way of both stymieing our political agendas and alienating nonacademic constituencies.”

Jack Halberstam’s In a Queer Time and Place; pp 4

I believe that this passage is refuting the idea queer time and space is abstract. In contrast, it reveals how queer time and space is tangible. It illustrates queer time and space have the power to influence culture in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries.  Thus, it is essential to expand the “critical languages we have developed” to find a home for all things queer by adopting the terms “queer time and space”. Queerness does not fit into the box of “normativity”, and it opposes the conventional forms of identification. Thus, queer time and space has its very own framework with core principles that do not change. Perhaps the time and space can be fluid. However, it will always be quintessentially queer and will refute the “middle-class logic of reproductive” mindset. This logic is similar to the philosophical theory regarding the primary cause responsible for the shapeliness of motion in the natural order. This is known as Aristotle’s concept of the unmoved mover for his explanation of God. Like God in Aristotle’s argument, queerness can also exercise its influence on natural beings as their final cause.

In this passage, it is also implied that queerness is not seen as natural. In fact, later in the text, Halberstam analyses western culture. In western culture, time is governed by a woman’s biological clock, the needs of children, and familial ties. For queer time and space to exist there must be an epitome of substance that allows time and space to stay distinctly queer. It is essential to develop a new critical language that represents time, space, and places that are queer. Being queer is more than having physical relations with people of differing identities. It expands past the rainbows and gay best friends. Queerness has its own space and time that is different from the heteronormative way of life. In sum, what I am really trying to say here is that queerness is tangible and can be seen observed in cultural changes.

“This frustration knows no neat theoretical divide between disability and impairment. Neither does disappointment nor embarrassment. On good days, I can separate the anger I turn inward at my body from the anger that needs to be turned outward, directed at the daily ableist shit, but there is nothing simple or neat about kindling the latter while transforming the former. I decided that Oliver’s model of disability makes theoretical and political sense but misses important emotional realities” (Clare 8).

This passage in Eli Clare’s “The Mountain” comes directly after his exploration of Michael Oliver’s definitions of impairment and disability and how they interact with Clare’s life. He describes his own experience with these concepts, illustrating disability with the unfair restrictions the school system places on test-taking and impairment with his body’s physical inability to climb Mount Adams. Earlier in the essay, Clare writes that “the first failure [his struggles with test-taking] centers on a socially constructed limitation [strict timing], the second [failing to climb Mount Adams] on a physical one [the slippery, steep rocks]” (Clare 7). Although Clare understands the difference Oliver suggested and is able to apply it to his own life, in the end it makes no difference in the pain and anger he feels. His awareness of the fact that the test issue is society’s fault and the mountain is merely nature does not weaken the blow of either failure. This is what begins the passage I selected to focus on. Clare writes, “This frustration [felt as a result of the struggles with both the test and the mountain] knows no neat theoretical divide between disability and impairment” (Clare 8). Although his brain can distinguish between the two phenomena according to Oliver’s theory, it makes no difference in his heart and the emotions he suffers. Another way to illustrate this is with the concept of being hit by a car. Being able to tell if the driver hit you by accident or if they were trying to hurt you may change your interpretation of the situation in your head, but it won’t have any effect on the pain you are experiencing. Essentially, Clare uses this moment to show that theory can only do so much. It is helpful to investigate, dissect, and theorize about how issues happen, such as disability and systematic oppression, but that intellectual process does not serve to fix or lessen the real physical and emotional pain felt by the affected people on a daily basis. Clare finishes this passage with, “I decided that Oliver’s model of disability makes theoretical and political sense but misses important emotional realities” (Clare 8). There is nothing wrong with theory, but sometimes this intellectualization becomes so far removed from the real-life experiences of humans that it is nothing more than words on a page. This feeds into the mental health concept of intellectualizing feelings and how this becomes an issue when it separates a person from actually feeling those feelings. Theorizing your emotions and discerning why they are happening don’t allow you to fully experience them and thus heal from them. This points to Clare’s broader argument about how queer theory and disability theory and every sort of intellectual work that relates to his life separate the mind from the body, disallowing the human as a whole to grow.

“The body as home, but only if it is understood that bodies are never singular, but rather haunted, strengthened, underscored by countless other bodies” (Clare 11).

In “Exile & Pride,” Eli Clare touches on the different ways our body can encapsulate contrasting parts of the self and its experience. The metaphor of “the body as home” has many meanings, but the one that I think it offers a particularly powerful message is about the importance of personal and collective ownership and comfort in the body.

The word “home” has many connotations, and it is usually associated with words like warmth, family, belonging, and permanence. However, for those like Clare who had a very difficult and traumatic childhood, they can “abandon that body” (10). To me, this makes the body feel like a house, not a home. It’s a place you’re forced to live in, but it doesn’t carry the same implications of belonging and happiness. This is why I find the word choice of “home” so important — it pushes the idea that to be truly happy, we have to find peace within our bodies, becoming intimately comfortable to a point where we feel like we can fully be ourselves in this safe haven.

Additionally, Clare goes on to say that a body isn’t singular but plural in that it is defined, influenced, and underscored (or emphasized) by other bodies, aka other people. This idea of singular versus plural is interesting because it pushes the idea that we are not alone, even in our own body. One could argue that everything we are — what we think, do, believe — is influenced by our surroundings and the people around us. In this way, bodies are like an amalgamation of others, a complex and clashing combination of traits and beliefs that are pushed onto us, willingly or not. And this number is “countless” — we don’t know how many people have physically or metaphorically touched us. It makes me think of a reading from my Mythology course, where it explained that the brain is a thief, stealing ideas from myths and stories around it to build a “personal narrative.” In this way, the body also steals what’s around it, for the better or worse.

The words Clare chooses to describe the house can be interpreted through the lens of a body or a home. “Haunted” makes me think of a haunted house, or a place of horrors that inspires fear. A person can also be haunted by their past or current anxieties. This double meaning of the word paints a very vivid connection between body and home. Similarly, a house can be structurally “strengthened” and a person can be metaphorically or physically “strengthened.” This word comes with connotations of energy and power, very positive emotions. The dichotomy of both of these existences living in one body adds to Clare’s larger point about the body as “complex, complicated, and contradictory.” Our bodies house so much; they make up who we are and what we’ve done. Clare hopes that by viewing our bodies as a home we can feel safe in, even if we don’t fully understand it, we can strive towards an internal and external embrace of who we are.

“I think about my disabled body, how as a teenager I escaped the endless pressure to have a boyfriend, to shave my legs, to wear make-up. The same lies that cast me as genderless, asexual, and undesirable also framed a space in which I was left alone to be my quiet, bookish, tomboy self, neither girl nor boy” (Clare 151).

Clare discusses how systems of power shape experiences by exerting control over bodies. He uses words relating to being trapped (“escaped,” “endless,” “pressure,” and “space”) and definition/characterization (“cast,” “framed,” and “lies”) to denote how systems of power inscribe false meanings onto the body. These “lies” written on the body force him to explore his identity under the surface, isolated from others. While being “left alone” seems like an escape from the rigidity of expectations, it is actually an example of a more subtle form of violence that manifests within structures of power. Clare identifies how interlocking systems of ableism, patriarchy, and compulsory (hetero)sexuality* pressure those who are able-bodied to conform to (hetero)sexual, binary gender experiences. But these systems ostracize Clare for his disability and gender fluidity by categorizing him as genderless and asexual. While Clare notes that this does provide him space to experience identity in ways often restricted by these systems of power, he still recognizes that it is an act of violence through exclusion and isolation; certain bodies are not held to the same standards because they are seen as “undesirable,” expendable, or perhaps unproductive.

Through this space of “undesirability,” Clare provides an example of chrononormativity, “the use of time to organize individual human bodies toward maximum productivity,” but he introduces the question of which bodies and in what ways (Freeman 3). Systems of power like those that Clare analyzes—ableism, patriarchy, and compulsory (hetero)sexuality, but also white supremacy and capitalism—shape our understanding of life as “event-centered, goal-oriented, intentional, and culminating in epiphanies or major transformations,” and often focus on productivity, not just of products but also of means to produce those products (Freeman 5). Not only does this relate to Clare’s metaphor of the mountain, but it also reverberates in what he notes about the experiences teenagers are expected to have. In a sense, the “endless pressure” forces people to follow a narrative path in life (having (hetero)sexual experiences during their teenage years and accepting traditional gender stereotypes like wearing makeup or shaving their legs) that will ultimately lead to the reproduction of these systems. So, while systems of power create a construct of linear time, they perform a cycle to maintain that power.

Clare’s passage describes this cycle. First, a person’s intersectional positioning impacts how they are expected to adhere to constructions of time that dictate a particular narrative experience of life. Second, the degree to which they adhere to that construction of time allows systems of power to measure the value of their body. And third, people, but specifically children, internalize this notion of value whether they experience the “endless pressure” to conform or not. The practice of queering time and place, then, challenges that cycle from the first step by asserting that there is more than one way of life. In essence, it contests the “lies” that systems of power use to define our lives.

*I write (hetero)sexuality to include both compulsory sexuality and compulsory heterosexuality.

“What if instead there were a practice of valuing the ways in which meanings and institutions can be at loose ends with each other? What if the richest junctures weren’t the ones where everything means the same thing?” (Sedgwick 6)

Prior to this quote, Sedgwick describes  “The Christmas Effect”. The statement above is when she ponders what it would be like if family units were not focused on conforming to the norm that is enforced and instead embracing the differences that occur between them. She then goes on to list things like a surname, a building, and a circuit of blood relationships. 

The Christmas effect is the idea that during the Christmas season, everybody; families, businesses, schools, and churches are all on the same page. This then puts people who don’t celebrate Christmas into an out group. She relates this to the experience of being queer becuase it diverges from what society portrays as the normal experience. Because of the strict norm of creating a certain family dynamic that is expected, it forces queer people into isolation and having to go through the process of “coming out”.

When reading this, it made me think of Micheal Warner’s piece when he says “almost all children grow up in families that think of themselves and all their members as heterosexual, and for some children this produces a profound and nameless estrangement, a sense of inner secrets and hidden shame.” This is the experience that kids feel because of the Christmas effect. Around Christmas time, you can barely even leave your house without being bombarded by something having to do with the holidays. This made me think of the role models and adults that queer kids are surrounded by, being almost entirely heterosexual. 

When Sedgewick says “What if the richest junctures weren’t the ones where everything means the same thing,” I think of the definitions of queer that we have come across in our readings. Many of them separate queer from just being about sex and open them up to a broader specrum as anything that stems away from heteronormative. Sedwick herself refers to the word queer as an “open mesh of possibilities,” (Sedgewick 8). I think this definition relates to what Sedwick is saying because it opens up opportunities to enjoy the differences that occur among people and relationships instead of trying to force conformity.

 

Eli Claire’s Stones in my Pockets, Stones in my Heart is a beautiful but complex chapter in one of his novels, Bodies. This chapter speaks on his experience growing up as an assigned female at birth person, and how he never fully felt that he fit into that assignment. He also speaks on the abuse he suffered through his father continually raping him as a child. The title of the chapter is a recurring theme where Claire describes how he used to collect stones as a kid. He creates this metaphor but seems to leave the meaning up to interpretation by the readers.

While reading this chapter of his novel, my first thought when it came to his metaphor of stones was how in Judaism, when a person dies, we place stones on their graves. There are a few reasons why or interpretations; to keep the person’s soul down on Earth, to keep demons from entering that grave, and because while flowers are beautiful to place by a grave, they eventually die. Reading Stones in my Pockets, Stones in my Heart through that lens creates a large meaning to Claire’s metaphor. That meaning is, even though Claire suffered a lot as a child from the abuse he received from his father and growing up feeling uncomfortable in his skin, the stones that he collected were a way to keep him grounded. As well, they were a shield or a piece of armor that he felt would protect him from the outside world.

Claire tells a story of when he was younger he had a caricature drawn of him at carnival. When his mother eventually ran into the artist, they both learned that the artist had “mistaken” Claire to be his mother’s son. After hearing that he would “smile secretly for weeks…” and  “reach down into my pockets to squeeze a stone tight in each fist.” Those stones were important to him and he used them to express his emotions of happiness by carrying them around with him and, like he explained in that one story, squeezing them, similarly how Jewish families show their love a grief through the stones they place on their loved ones’ grave.

“The depressing thing about the Christmas season—isn’t it?—is that it’s the time when all the institutions are speaking with one voice. The Church says what the Church says. But the State says the same thing: maybe not (in some way it hardly matters) in the language of theology, but in the language the State talks: legal holidays, long school hiatus, special postage stamps, and all” (Sedgwick 5). 

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s essay “Tendencies” touches on an essential theme in both the text and queer studies: how the dominant culture works to ‘other’ queer people and identities. We don’t tend to put the concept of Christmas and queerness in the same conversation, but there is something to be said about the queer isolation that the concept of Christmas causes, as Christmas can be seen as the epitome of heteronormativity. It’s heavily centered around the idea of the nuclear family, which is the “purest” example of the word and the type of family to which most ads market to. As soon as Thanksgiving is over, or even during and before it, the stores bring out the holiday mood, imploring you to start buying. They can’t waste one day of sales because it all comes down to money. The people who have those “Keep Christ in Christmas” bumper stickers would be making a real statement if it weren’t for the fact that someone cleverly sold those stickers to them for money, going against their very message. Christmas in either form, religious or capitalistic, or a mix of both, all feed the same monster called capitalism in the end.

Sedgwick goes on to talk about how every aspect of culture becomes monolithic, and if you don’t fit into it like many queer people do not, you are forced to sit down and watch anyway. If you are trying to escape Christmas, good luck. You will be met with it through the television, apps, radio, stores, and advertisements which are found in all four of those. Sedgwick asks the question of why everything has to be saying the same thing. The dominant culture dominates other voices and thus destroys a sort of diversity in ideas about how to live. What would be so wrong with different aspects of culture saying different things? I think that would make for a more interesting society, one that doesn’t follow certain institutions’ every move. I understand that most parts of society have something to gain from Christmas, namely money. 

However, this leads to people buying into the script that these things write for us. So many people who aren’t particularly religious celebrate Christmas, specifically the gift-giving of it. That is only one of the small ways the heteronormative lifestyle is given value and its one that queer people subscribe to as well. Grow up, get married, have kids, and die. Obviously other lifestyles exist out there, but that’s just it, these lifestyles are ‘othered’. They are called ‘alternative’. I’m not saying that if you celebrate Christmas you are giving into the Man, I’m not the Grinch. I just think it’s worth noting the ways in which we are conditioned to want to follow the linear structure of life that is presented to us through things like Christmas and elsewhere in the dominant culture. The linear way of life is emphasized as the way during Christmas, and in turn, disregards the existence of queerness.

“Family time refers to the normative scheduling of daily life that accompanies the practice of child rearing. This timetable is governed by an imagined set of children’s needs… the time of inheritance refers to an overview of generational time within… morals are passed through family… it also connects the family to the historical past of the nation, and… connect[s] the family to the future of both familial and national stability,” (Halberstam, page 5).

The concept of time, built upon those rooted within a higher power, obstructs the process of self-discovery. In the heteronormative ideal, the definition of a “virtuous” life resides only within the walls of what is seen as pivotal milestones (birth, marriage, reproduction, death) that will allow this approach to endlessly continue toward the future. Specifically, in this passage, the concept of “family time” demonstrates the responsibility placed upon young children to uphold this societal cycle. The majority of children are raised without exposure to the notion of “queer time” and “queer space” discussed within the essay, or an alternative to the heteronormative ideal. Children are pressured to replicate a pre-programmed version of life, looked down upon as unproductive when their identities, logistics, sexual preferences, occupations, morals, willingness to reproduce, etc. are not considered acceptable within the favorable collective norms. Imaginary “healthy” child chronologies that may seem insignificant (such as bed times) are harmful when considering the domino effect that agenda creates. Ironically, a child’s version of a pivotal milestone may be not necessarily fit within the teleology of living, causing inner turmoil within the self. What is considered “healthy” is, in actuality, unhealthy for their mental wellbeing. For example, the discovery of one’s sexual preference may cause fear within an individual due to their family’s traditional morals and expectations for them to reproduce. A vision of a happy future associated with queer time may cause disappointment in those around them, causing insecurity and even suppression of their identity to fit within heteronormative expectations. The responsibility of preserving not only a family, but societal legacy becomes more important than simply enjoying life as it is.

A default habitualness prevents variety seen within society, impeding the ability of queer identities to ordinarily flourish. This lack of variety will only strengthen heteronormative values in future generations, regardless if these morals originated years ago.  A simultaneous connection to the past and future protects the fear of a new version of time annexing what is considered “normal.” Those in a higher position do not want to risk any hinderance to the preservation of the nation, as not only pivotal life events will differ, but society will develop. This evolution would lead to additional adjustments within the economy and industrial departments. Thus, everyday items, such as television, are utilized by industrialists to impose these morals onto children at a young age, hiding any sense of a different way of living. By veiling education and exposure to alternate identities, the repeating cycle of consumption and production is secured.

“I never once heard, ‘you made the right choice when you turned around’. The mountain just won’t let go” (Clare 10)

 

This excerpt from Eli Clare’s Exile and Pride refers to Clare’s central metaphor of the mountain, being a hierarchical incline all are pressured to trek and conquer. At its peak live the highest in society, the successful, as well as success itself. At the bottom reside the marginalized and oppressed, most relevantly to Clare including the queer and disabled, who are labeled as lazy should they fail the climb. An integral part of Clare’s metaphor is understanding that the climb is not created equal for all who push towards the top. Because of his experiences living as disabled, Clare’s writing on the mountain illuminates the differing struggles of accessibility and equity that face disadvantaged and scored members of the ‘bottom’ of society. His metaphor is backed by a personal anecdote of a physical climb he attempted with an able-bodied friend, having to turn around as the steep and jagged trail was drenched in rain and became unsafe and impossible to continue on. He recounts friends and family trying to encourage him by pushing him to try again, and in the quote above reflects that none of them validated his decision not to reach the top. Instead, conquering the mountain is always assumed to be the best possible outcome of the climb, even at the cost of comfort, safety, and stability. The quote extends beyond his real-life experience and to the subsequent metaphor of the mountain, as society advertises life at the top to be the highest quality life possible for everyone, never considering the possibility that stopping along the side, or even remaining at the bottom, is an equal option. Selling the dream of the mountaintop is all about control, serving to maintain not only heteronormativity, but also capitalism. Imagining a world where the mountain has let go, and a life at the top is no longer the exclusive land of dreams above the cloud, but instead regarded as equal to a life built along its side, or at its base. Perhaps in this world it is an even field, not a mountain. The mountain demands exclusivity, not only thanks to its rough journey but in its very shape, the pointed top having less than half the surface area available at the bottom, built to have a singular highest point occupied by no more than one at a time. In a field however, no one is above another. That threatens a heteronormative society. It is harder to look down on someone when you are not standing above them. Furthermore, without the desire to reach the top, those already there can no longer force others to make the climb. Status means nothing when it is not desired, and people content to stay along the side cannot be manipulated with the promise of a valueless reward. That threatens capitalism, a system fueled by competition and hierarchy. People will no longer follow any societal rules which promise to get them to the top, nor will they buy any product which promises to aid in the climb. Contentment is the enemy of both heteronormativity and capitalism, leaving them linked in their efforts to retain power, and that contentment starts when we can stop pushing each other to reach the top, reject its illusion of utopia, and together make the choice to turn back,

I never once heard, “You made the right choice when you turned around.” The mountain just won’t let go. (Clare 10)

As I read through Eli Clare’s Exile and Pride, this line on page 10 stood out to me the most, and I think it ties really well into the discussions around normativity that we’ve had through the semester thus far. While there is an expectation and a normative belief that if someone is climbing a mountain their goal must be to reach the top, I think Clare is smart to push against that. While it’s subtle, I really think Clare sees the mountain as an allegory for societal norms. Similarly to the way Michael Werner pushes back against heteronormativity, I think Clare is making a broader point about normativity in general. Looking at the peak of the mountain as the normative ideal we are pushed to pursue, Clare is pushing against those societal beliefs by suggesting perhaps we don’t need to strive to fit ourselves into a place where we’ll never be able to truly find a home.

It’s a surprising versatile metaphor as well. While Clare uses it primarily as a personal anecdote around disability, I would argue the metaphor of the mountain can be applied in a number of different places just as effectively. Personally, I found parallels between Clare’s use of the metaphor and the climbing of the corporate ladder, where we are expected to strive for the top but never give ourselves the time to realize that perhaps another path would have been better; that maybe we should have turned back instead.

Especially within a queer context, the metaphor of the mountain speaks to a conflict of personal identity versus societal expectations that is very powerful. But even so, I think it’s important to note that Clare’s metaphor is not only applicable to his own non-normative, queer experience. It is also flexible enough to speak to a wider, broader range of experience that is not only present within queer communities, but outside them as well, pointing to a larger world of problematic norms through the mountain of normativity that must be addressed.