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Bouncing Back: Queer Resilience in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century English Literature and Culture PDF

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Susanne Jung Bouncing Back: Queer Resilience in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century English Literature and Culture Queer Studies | Volume 24 Susanne Jung, born in 1975, received her doctorate in English literature from the University of Tübingen. She studied English literature, musicology and pharmacy at universities in Tübingen, Norwich, and San Francisco. Susanne Jung Bouncing Back: Queer Resilience in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century English Literature and Culture Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Na- tionalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de © 2020 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover layout: Maria Arndt, Bielefeld Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-5027-3 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-5027-7 https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839450277 Contents Acknowledgments ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 7 Introduction Towards a Theory of Queer Resilience �����������������������������������������������������������9 The Turn to Resilience ������������������������������������������������������������������������������13 The Art of Bouncing Back ��������������������������������������������������������������������������30 Narrative Strategies ����������������������������������������������������������������������������33 Narrating the Self in Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������36 Narrating the Past: Michael Cunningham’s The Hours and Queer History Writing �������������������������������������������������������������������������������49 Resilient Readings: Queer Visions of Sexuality and Kinship in Amy Fox’ Heights ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������63 When Readers Become Writers: The Case of Queer Fan Fiction ���������������������������76 The Art of Queer Emptiness ������������������������������������������������������������������87 Why Queer Emptiness? �����������������������������������������������������������������������������88 Queer Emptiness in the Poetry of Mary Oliver �������������������������������������������������94 Queer Emptiness in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes and Summer Will Show ������������������������������������������������������������������������������98 A Postscript: Michel Foucault’s Technologies of the Self ����������������������������������107 Performative Strategies �����������������������������������������������������������������������111 Queer Cultural Icons and the Performance of Sexuality: Patterns of Disclosure and Non-Disclosure, Acts of Creative Sexual  Citizenship and the Periperformative ���������������������������������������������������������� 114 Navigating the Closet in Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man ��������������������������122 Theatrical Performance, Camp Performativity and Ritual in DeObia Oparei’s Crazyblackmuthafuckin’self �����������������������������������������������134 Spatial Strategies �������������������������������������������������������������������������������145 The Garden as Queer Heterotopia in Katherine Mansfield’s “Leves Amores”, Elizabeth Bowen’s “The Jungle” and Maureen Duffy’s “Mulberries” ����������������������147 Interior Landscapes as Safe Space: Robert Duncan’s “Often I am Permitted to Return to a Meadow” ��������������������������������������������������������������156 Creating Queer Spaces and a Space to Belong: San Francisco, the Emergence of the Castro as a Queer Space and Harvey Milk’s Legacy of Hope ����������������������165 Bodily Strategies ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������183 The Art of Postpornography: John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus and Mark Wunderlich’s “The Trick” ��������������������������������������������������������������183 The Body as Resource: An Epistemology of Sensing/Feeling in the Poetry of May Swenson, Thom Gunn, Pat Parker and Carol Ann Duffy ����������������������������194 Conclusion ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������217 Credits �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������221 Works Cited ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������223 Acknowledgments My heartfelt thanks go to the following people who supported me throughout the writing of this book: My PhD supervisors Ingrid Hotz-Davies and Eveline Kilian, who both believed in this book project from the beginning. Christoph Reinfandt, Kaye Mitchell, Isabel Karremann and Jack Halberstam for critical and helpful in- put at various stages of the writing of this book. Ann-Katrin Zimmermann for never-wavering encouragement, immensely helpful comments and emotional support, always. This book would not have been possible without you. Kathrin Tordasi, Gero Bauer and especially Rebecca Hahn for helpful comments and sup- port. Everyone who commented on my work at various colloquia in Tübingen and Berlin: Thank you. And finally, Gisela Jung and Friedrich Jung, Ulrike Rieber and Markus Rieber, Finn, Hannah and Samuel, Till Jung and Eberhard Jung for their continuing love and support. Introduction Towards a Theory of Queer Resilience Consider the following: a world-renowned actor describing, in 2002, in an inter- view how he was able to cry – that is produce actual tears – on stage only after, in his late forties, he had come out to his parents as a gay man (McKellen, Inside the Actor’s Studio). Something had obviously unlocked in him by his act of reveal- ing his queer sexuality, which opened him up to a deeper level of connecting with his own emotions on stage. Consider also the matter-of-fact statement, two years later, of German football club FC St. Pauli’s former president Corny Littman that, in his estimation, the ramifications of coming out currently as an active European top league gay male football player were bound to take too much of a toll on these young players’ psychological health: “Ich würde keinem Profi raten, sich zu outen. Der soziale Druck wäre nicht auszuhalten [I would not recommend any profes- sional player to come out. The social pressure would be unbearable, S.J.]” (qtd. in Walther-Ahrens 7). As of the writing of this book, two male football players have come out after retiring from European Premier Leagues, Robbie Rogers in 2013 and Thomas Hitzlsperger in 2014. Still, as of the last fifteen years, no active player in any of the major European leagues has dared to prove Littman’s estimation wrong.1 The question of whether LGBTQ individuals, even at the beginning of the twenty-first century, deem it safe to come out of the closet seems to depend, 1 Robbie Rogers has since come out of retirement and continued to play in a U.S. league as an ac- tive out-gay football player. Whether this proves that closeted players’ fears around coming out in one of the top European leagues are unreasonable will have to remain to be seen (cf. Rogers). For some of the fears and presumed ramifications regarding a potential coming out in the Bunde- sliga, see Adrian Bechtold’s 2012 interview with a closeted German gay male football player who wished to remain anonymous (cf. Bechtold). Thomas Hitzlsperger addressed his gay sexuality for the first time, after retiring, in an interview in German newspaper Die Zeit (cf. Hitzlsperger, “Homosexualität wird im Fussball ignoriert” and “I finally figured out that I preferred living with a man”). Openly gay ex-NBA basketball player John Amaechi blames the dirth of out-gay top league football players on the ‘toxic’ climate he makes out in the leadership and management of Europe- an Premier league football clubs (cf. Amaechi). No doubt, the 1998 suicide of Justin Fashanu, the first and to date only active openly-gay football player in the English Premier league, who came out in 1990, also still haunts some of these interviews. The situation seems to be slightly better in women’s professional team sports.

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