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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Ecological Crisis, Or “Intersex Panic,” As Answer Of The Real?, Stephanie Hsu
Ecological Crisis, Or “Intersex Panic,” As Answer Of The Real?, Stephanie Hsu
The Goose
Drawing upon Cal’s eventual metamorphosis into “The [white] Man” in Middlesex, and an examination of the Real of ecological crisis, Hsu explores the intersection of environmental racism, climate change denial, and intersex discrimination in order to advocate for a renewed awareness of ecological interdependency and the need for self-determination of people of colour in ecological and environmental justice discourses.
Trans-Pacific Imaginaries And Queer Intimacies In The Ruins Of Middlesex, Dai Kojima
Trans-Pacific Imaginaries And Queer Intimacies In The Ruins Of Middlesex, Dai Kojima
The Goose
Taking up Roland Barthes’s concept of the “third meaning,” Kojima analyzes the character of Julie Kikuchi, the Japanese American love interest of the grown-up Cal. Taking Julie seriously as a character beyond mere plot contrivance and cultural reference, Kojima invites us to consider the intertwined histories of economic rise and fall, trans-Pacific wars, and other intimacies that Middlesex remains entangled in yet fails to fully acknowledge.
Materialism’S Affective Appeal, Elizabeth Mazzolini
Materialism’S Affective Appeal, Elizabeth Mazzolini
The Goose
Citing the pronounced lack of academic engagement with Middlesex since its publication and riffing on the novel’s recounting of the demise of the auto industry in Detroit, Mazzolini examines how cycles of obsolescence and currency work within academic discourse and ultimately advocates for the novel’s potential for examining the material and affective nature of relevance itself.
On Being Intimate With Ruin: Reading Decay In Middlesex, Kaitlin Blanchard
On Being Intimate With Ruin: Reading Decay In Middlesex, Kaitlin Blanchard
The Goose
Blanchard argues for an intimate attention to the ruin in Middlesex and Detroit as a means of exploring the geo-bio-politics of decay as a problem of our socio-ecological present.
From Rusty Genetics To Octopussy’S Garden, Stacy Alaimo
From Rusty Genetics To Octopussy’S Garden, Stacy Alaimo
The Goose
Alaimo critiques the “rusty” understanding of genetics, gender, and sex in Middlesex, advocating instead for queer ecological futurism.
Mulberiddlesex, Catriona Sandilands
Mulberiddlesex, Catriona Sandilands
The Goose
Through a careful tracing of the botanical presence of mulberry trees in Middlesex, Sandilands argues for a reading practice that takes plants seriously. Thinking with plants interrupts the tendency to consider literary plants primarily as motifs, metaphors or agents of crude naturalization. Sandilands insists on involving plants in reading Middlesex in order to take the novel in less anthropocentric directions: even as Cal enlists mulberries to signal inevitability, their own stories overflow the novel’s deterministic views of race, species, territory, and gender identity.
Border Crossings, Watery Spaces, And The (Un)Verified Self In Middlesex, Jenny Kerber
Border Crossings, Watery Spaces, And The (Un)Verified Self In Middlesex, Jenny Kerber
The Goose
Kerber traces the ways in which water liberates and transforms various characters in Middlesex in order to critique and complicate water’s taken-for-granted liberatory powers. Kerber invites us to consider the majority of those for whom water is as deadly as it is (possibly) emancipating, especially those most vulnerable to climate change and other ecological and violent upheavals.
Dehumanism And Disposability, Julietta Singh
Dehumanism And Disposability, Julietta Singh
The Goose
Singh draws our attention to the “mute objects” of Middlesex, particularly The Obscure Object’s silent Black maid, Beulah, who quietly supports the unfolding romance between Cal and The Object. Through careful attention to histories of people silenced by slavery, dehumanization, and violence, Singh demands that we consider where and through what means some get to be fully human while others are made and sustained as objects for their comfort and play.
Beyond The Biography Of A Gene, Laura J. Collins
Beyond The Biography Of A Gene, Laura J. Collins
The Goose
Collins approaches the ethical nuances of Cal’s intersex narrative in Middlesex, drawing comparisons with current debates in North Carolina concerning gender-normative bathroom use and trans rights, in order to advocate for more ethical practices of relation and responsibility outside of mere knowledge creation and policy.
Middlesex And The Biopolitics Of Modernist Architecture, Nicole Seymour
Middlesex And The Biopolitics Of Modernist Architecture, Nicole Seymour
The Goose
Highlighting the architecture of the Middlesex house of Eugenides’ novel as a major technology of modernity, Seymour argues for the biopolitical understanding of such modernist architecture and for the ways in which it often works against the exploitative effects of automation and sexology, yet constitutes a complex and even contradictory force in processes of modernization, and in the novel itself.
Introduction: Sex And The (Motor) City: Ecologies Of Middlesex, Kaitlin Blanchard, Catriona Sandilands
Introduction: Sex And The (Motor) City: Ecologies Of Middlesex, Kaitlin Blanchard, Catriona Sandilands
The Goose
This special cluster consists of twelve short essays, originally presented in two linked roundtables at the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) conference in Detroit in June 2017, examining Jeffrey Eugenides' 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Middlesex. Through the novel, these papers explore the historical, intersectional, and ecological understandings of Detroit, exposing an exceptional—indeed, epic—range of social ecologies, concerned with everything from intersex and multispecies bio/geopolitics to transnational economies, to the aesthetics of architecture and decay. Focused on a very particular novel, written about a very particular city and experience of it, these papers bring to light and …
Embodied Ecologies And Metafictional Musings: The Limits Of Writing Intersex In Middlesex, Christopher Breu
Embodied Ecologies And Metafictional Musings: The Limits Of Writing Intersex In Middlesex, Christopher Breu
The Goose
Breu critiques the limits of the intersex narrative of Middlesex and advocates for a non-reductive, materialist, and “muddled” approach to understanding sex and gender.