Beyond the Heteronorm: Interrogating Critical Alterities in Global Art and Literature: Arpan Adhikary: Lexington Books

Beyond the Heteronorm

Interrogating Critical Alterities in Global Art and Literature

Beyond the Heteronorm

Interrogating Critical Alterities in Global Art and Literature

Description

Beyond the Heteronorm: Interrogating Critical Alterities in Global Art and Literature explores exclusionary practices inspired by the construct of gender and how these conventions often misconstrue and convolute sex, gender, and sexual orientation. The contributors to this collection examine literary and visual representations of critical alterities from around the globe to produce empathic and inclusive analyses of experiences shared between diverse subordinated and minoritized socio-cultural entities and collectives. Organized into three parts, the chapters critique the concepts of personhood, performativity, and the post-binary. This edited collection deconstructs gender essentialism and embraces gender inclusivity in both theory and practice.

Chapter 1: The Formless Shape: An Analysis of Ana Mendieta’s Silueta Body Artwork from an “Eerie” perspective

Chapter 2: Sanitising the Erotic: Women’s Body in the Ritual Performance of Jagoi Raas

Chapter 3: Objectification of the Female Breast: A re-reading of Mahasweta Devi’s Breast Giver and Yogesh Pagare’s Mulakaram

Chapter 4: Critiquing the Socio-cultural Gender Dynamics of Select Bengali Ghost Fiction

Chapter 5: Zami: Embracing the Body

Chapter 6: “Straight But Not Narrow”: An Ally Confronts Homophobia through Litost

Chapter 7: Cultural Currencies and Pathways to Queer Acceptance in Rwanda

Chapter 8: Being Single: The Plight of Spinsters and Divorcees in Urban Kolkata

Chapter 9: Bodies and Identity: The Dynamics of female identity in third generation Nigerian writing

Chapter 10: Motherhood—An Inseparable Fragment of Feminist Discourse in Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter

Chapter 11: Problematizing the Gaze: Cindy Sherman’s Depiction of Femininity in The Complete Untitled Film Stills

Chapter 12: Virulent Mistresses: Bionomical-Opposition in Select Renaissance Paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi and Judith Leyster

Chapter 13: Unveiling the Veil: A Study of the Political Role of Muslim Women in Medieval India

Chapter 14: The Shade: A Trans* Experience of Creative Resistance

Chapter 15: Teary-Eyed Tough Guys: Why Manshaming and Feminist Sons Don’t Go Together?

Product details

Published	Apr 02 2024
Format	Hardback
Edition	1st
Extent	242
ISBN	9781666910933
Imprint	Lexington Books
Illustrations	8 BW Illustrations, 3 Tables
Dimensions	9 x 6 inches
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Anthology Editor

Subhadeep Paul

Anthology Editor

Goutam Majhi

Contributor

Arpan Adhikary

Contributor

Pulkita Anand

Contributor

Saikat Chakraborty

Contributor

Gourishwar Choudhuri

Contributor

Kurtis Dennison

Contributor

Chabungbam Babina Devi

Contributor

Anh Dinh

Contributor

Aabrita Dutta Gupta

Contributor

Goutam Majhi

Contributor

Kevin Ngabo

Contributor

Mayuri Pathak

Contributor

Subhadeep Paul

Contributor

Sucharita Sen

Contributor

Marian Spaccaforno

Contributor

Omar Swartz

Contributor

Sakshi Tyagi

Beyond the Heteronorm contributes significantly to a range of emergent and established fields such as feminist literary studies, queer studies, and transgender studies. Interrogating the tenets of heteronormativity, this timely collection calls attention to the ways in which diverse creative works and cultural practices engage critical alterities.

John C. Ryan, Associate Professor, Southern Cross University, Australia
Despite a lot of activism and scholarship, the body-politics, ego-politics, and binary-politics of gendered knowledge production continue to take place in unquestionably celebratory ways. This thought-provoking volume invites us to explore varied pathways in which intersectional feminist culture and nature can be curated in unprejudiced forms, beyond heteronormative knowledge systems.

Sayan Dey, Author of Green Academia (2022) and Performing Memories and Weaving Archives (2023)
Beyond the Heteronorm is a representative volume bringing together different critiques of heteronormativity and heteropatriarchy from India, Africa, and the western world. An up-to-date read, highly recommended!

Clemens Ruthner, Trinity College Dublin