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How Queer Came To Be: Deconstructing White Queerness In Melville's "Bartleby," Ginsberg's Howl, And Morrison's A Mercy, Sara Elizabeth Parnell Wilcox

Graduate Theses

In American LGBTQ+ communities, questions continually arise about what it means to live in a post-gay marriage world. Is there still a need for a division between LGBTQ+ and heteronormative spaces, such as nightclubs or parades? What purpose does the ideological signification of a queer identity serve if, ostensibly, queer communities are now equal with their heteronormative counterparts? Rather than accepting the homonormative, post-gay marriage premise that underlies frequent, current representations of “queerness” in terms of white, male, gay bodies, I plan to explore the convergence of aesthetics and politics as a method of freeing queer theory from some of …