A FEELING AS UGLY AS NUMBNESS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.9771/ell.i70.44081Keywords:
Affects, Queer studies, Chelsea Girls, Eileen Myles, NumbnessAbstract
This paper aims to analyse the ways in which numbness, an affect traditionally seen as negative, may be useful when interrogating heteronormative social structures. For this end, a reading of numbness in Eileen Myles’s Chelsea Girls is carried out so as to highlight the interpretations of the state of numbness in the interactions the protagonist establishes with the world around her. Considering the contributions of theorists such as Muñoz (1999), Despentes (2016), Ahmed (2010) among others, it may be concluded that numbness is a complex affect which, in negotiations not devoid of suffering, reveals inconsistencies in our social and political scene by questioning what has been conventionally named “good feelings”. This way, numbness becomes an “ugly feeling” with possible political uses.
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References
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