Real, Truly Live Places: Notes toward the Queer Uncanny
Issue Date
2011-08-31Author
Wendland, Milton W.
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
173 pages
Type
Dissertation
Degree Level
Ph.D.
Discipline
American Studies
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This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.
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This dissertation problematizes contemporary ideas of epistemological dependability and advances queer theory's critique of heteronormativity by reading the psychoanalytic concept of the uncanny in conjunction with the critical concept of the queer to produce the queer uncanny. The first chapter analyzes the The Wizard of Oz (1939) and introduces the disruptive interpretive potential of the queer uncanny in several of its manifestations: the compulsion to repeat, doubling, and dislogic. The second chapter focuses on the novel Mysterious Skin (Scott Heim) and of redemption in light of childhood sexual molestation, demonstrates the ability of the queer uncanny to broaden available interpretative ranges vis-à-vis cultural discourses surrounding traumatic events like child sexual abuse. The final chapter applies the lens of the queer uncanny to a municipal domestic partnership registry ordinance that by its own terms provides no rights to registrants but which upon further analysis turns out to offer evidence of the performative potential of the queer uncanny.
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