{"id":89,"date":"2021-02-07T14:18:20","date_gmt":"2021-02-07T19:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/?p=89"},"modified":"2021-02-08T20:51:23","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T01:51:23","slug":"study-of-a-universally-queer-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/2021\/02\/07\/study-of-a-universally-queer-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Study of History: Addressing the Queer Body"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her poem Study of History, Adrienne Rich first writes: \u201cThe mind of a river \/ as it might be you\u201d. Rich writes this poem entirely in the second person, making the reader wonder whether she is addressing the entire queer community or a singular queer individual.
\nIt is important to first notice Rich’s metaphor. Not only does she choose to write about water; she chooses to write about a body<\/em> of water, a river in particular. This is crucial because body is a word used to represent either a collective community or a particular individual. Words and terms such as \u201cupstream\u201d, \u201cbelow the water line\u201d, and \u201cwhich of your channels diverted\u201d imply that this body is complex, fluid and diverse. This could represent vast diversity within the queer community, but could also be interpreted as the fluid complexity of one\u2019s sexuality\/gender.
\nThe last line of the first stanza and the entire second stanza describe external factors that destroy the river. When Rich writes of \u201cLying in the dark, to think of you \/ and your harsh traffic \/ gulls pecking at your rubbish\u2026 pleasure cruisers wiltlessy careening you\u201d, it is made clear that this river has been exploited; it is polluted and decaying. This forces the reader to not only recognize society\u2019s general impact on the queer community, but also recognize that societal norms restrict\/slow down an individual\u2019s queer identity. Use of gerunds in the first and second stanza not only imply that this is the river\u2019s current state, but a continuous state that will likely flow into the future.
\nRich also indicates that past trauma further impacts the river\u2019s decrepit state. The third stanza focuses more on \u201cwhat was done to you upstream\u201d (Rich). When inquiring about the past Rich asks the reader \u201cwhat powers trepanned\u201d. After a quick google search, I found out that trepanning (now very illegal) was a surgery much like a lobotomy, but instead of an ice pick through the eye socket doctors used a drill entering through the temple. Separating essential nerve endings in the frontal lobe from the rest of the brain, doctors believed this surgery would guide queer people back to an acceptable sexuality. As a community, Rich could be referring to the literal surgery, therefore reflecting on a collective, historical trauma many queer bodies experienced. Yet also, her use of trepanning could refer to the restrictive gender\/sexuality norms that were metaphorically \u201cdrilled into our heads\u201d from a young age. Homophobic ideology becomes so ingrained into our society that queer bodies are likely to suffer from internalized homophobia.
\nTherefore, Study of History reflects on a universal queer history, as the river represents histories shaping the collective and individual queer body.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her poem Study of History, Adrienne Rich first writes: \u201cThe mind of a river \/ as it might be you\u201d. Rich writes this poem entirely in the second person, making the reader wonder whether she is addressing the entire queer community or a singular queer individual. It is important to first notice Rich’s metaphor. … Continue reading Study of History: Addressing the Queer Body<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqhistoryandliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}