User:Senka/Thesis Proposal
What
I would like to explore forgotten and overlooked queer histories in the context of the Balkans in order to counter the idea that queerness is an export of the 'rotten West'.
How
In order to challenge how knowledge is produced in an academic context, I want to write a porous essay which allows for more fictional formats to seep into it. This thesis will be akin to theory fiction and will offer more narrative-driven and immersive writing.
Apart from this, considering that the content of my research (archives of queer histories) is often full of gaps and violence, I want the writing to reflect the difficulty of this kind of unearthing. Which is why I will employ a non-linear, fragmented, scattered mode of writing [1] to bring the archival material and its value closer to the reader. I want to employ the scavenger methodology, which is a queer methodology that comprised of different methods fused together to cultivate wonder, offers possibilities for repair and challenges academic modes of knowledge production (this method has also said to make worlds) [2].
For mode of address, I have been considering writing the thesis in the second person. This is a tool I have used in previous writing to bring political ideas and realities closer to the general reader. This approach allows the reader to feel the text on their skin as if they were the ones going on this search to begin with. Additionally, it opens up the space to learn new things and be challenged (in what they consider knowledge). I would love for my encounters with the stories of the archives to be fleshed out in the thesis through scenes or people the reader speaks with. The footnotes could be a place where these interactions get fully fleshed out.
Key Issues
The 3 key issues I would like to explore are:
1. Narrative structure: homonationalist [3] narratives in the west (of the Balkans) and the narrative of queerness as inherently western (in the Balkans).
For this part I want to look into the structures of narratives, with what political agenda are they crafted with, as well look into the use of language.
Questions:
- What can be done to get out of the one way street in which LGBT questions are considered a marker of Europeanness? And therefore other to a local context? (Modified question taken from: Ulićević, J. & Brković Č. (2022) „Trans otpornost u Crnoj Gori: Medijski narativi o životima trans ljudi“. Postjugoslo/avenski TRANS. Multimedijalni institut: Zagreb. pp. 49. Translation by me)
- How can one counter homonationalist narratives that posit the west as a the source of queerness and non-western countries as a source of backwardness?
- How has the conception of national identities influenced the attitude towards queer identities?
2. Gaps and inconsistencies in archival knowledge (and alternative archival approaches as remedy)
I want to research queer Balkan histories (from a variety of archives) and what forms of othering affect this region. Along with this I want to explore more fluid approaches to archival practices which experiment in what way knowledge is shared and distributed.
Questions:
- How could one dig up queer histories that have been hiding in plain sight, or overshadowed by violence?
- How does one address the violence cemented in archives? Or address the histories it chooses not to include?
3. Political imaginaries
I want to see what potential political imaginaries have in changing the detrimental narrative that circulate about queer people. In exploring political imaginaries, I want to utilize different methods of creating narratives (imagining exercises, critical fabulation, theory fiction), to see what role they can play in bringing about a change.
Questions:
- Which forgotten queer Balkan histories would help us imagine the future differently?
- What do a local queer culture and a queer vocabulary look like when they are not forcefully copy pasted from western queer pop culture?
- How can (3d/immersive) fictioning from archival gaps and remains allow for new political imaginaries of queer futures?
Research Questions
For previous research questions look >here<
Key sources
Same as project proposal:
Ugrešić, Dubravka. Confiscation of Memory.
Bakić-Hayden, Milica. Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia.
Todorova, Maria. Imagining the Balkans.
The Yugoslawomen+ Collective. The tale of ‘good’ migrants and ‘dangerous’ refugees.
Editors Bilić, Bojan and Milanović, Aleksa. Post-Jugoslo/avenski TRANS.
Kosofsky Sedgwick, Eve. Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or You're so Paranoid You Think This Essay is About You.
Butler, Octavia. Kindred.
Keser Battista, Ivana. Places, non-places, spaces.
Visser, Barbara. Alreadymade.
Lorenz, Renate. Queer Art: A Freak Theory.
Machado, Carmen Maria. Dream House.
Kolev, Kaloyan. Yugoslavia’s Digital Twin.
Hartman, Saidiya. Venus in Two Acts.
Hartman, Saidiya. Intimate History, Radical Narrative.
Additional:
Hedva, J. (2016) "In Defence of De-persons". GUTS, Issue 6: Futures. Available at: https://gutsmagazine.ca/in/ (Accessed: 21 October 2024).
Vidojković, Marko. (2017) E bas vam hvala.
Blagojević J. & Dimitrijević O. (2014) Među nama: Neispričane priče gej i lezbejskih života. Beograd: Hartefakt Fond.
Zvan B. & Schifter M. (2022) There is no Abusive Game Design: A typology of Counter Game Design. Copenhagen: IT University of Copenhagen.
Wilson D. & Sicart M. (2008) Now It’s Personal: On Abusive Game Design. Copenhagen: IT University of Copenhagen, Center for Computer Games Research.
dys4ia. (2023) PC [Flash Game]. itch.io: anna anthropy.
Milački, A. (2018) Once Upon a Time in Yugoslavia. The Avery Review 35. Available at: https://www.averyreview.com/issues/35/once-upon-a-time (Accessed: 21 October 2024).
2.22am. (?) PC [Game]. itch.io: umbrella-isle.
- ↑ For reference this mode of writing has been practiced in different ways by writers such as Johanna Hedva (in 'In Defence of the De-persons') and Carmen Maria Machado (in 'In the Dream House').
- ↑ A scavenger methodology is a queer methodology that refuses to produce knowledge in the same way as white cishet academia acknowledges and allows for a mix of approaches. It recognizes undervalued sources as a possible site in which knowledge is produced.
- ↑ Homonationalism is an ideology which affirms nationalist ideology and LGBTQIA+ rights. It is often built on the notion of othering those whose nation is considered to be anti-LGBTQIA+ and ‘backwards’. This ideology often results in islamophobia, anti-immigration stances and racism.