Writing the Queer Self: Sex, Gender, and the Creation of Space in Queer
Life Writing
=20
This panel seeks to examine the roles that the inclusion of queer sex and
gender non-conformity in LGBT autobiographies, diaries, and memoirs play in
creating a unique rhetorical space for queer bodies. Additionally, this
panel will look at the ways that specifically queer life writing alters the
landscapes of literary biographies of LGBT authors, and the interpretations
of their works. Possible topics might include a reading of place that quee=
r
sex holds in Joe Orton=B9s diaries, his creation of a hyper-masculine and
hyper-sexual persona, and how that influences John Lahr=B9s biography, and
current interpretations of Orton=B9s plays. One might do similar work with th=
e
life writing of Oscar Wilde, E.M. Forster, Radclyffe Hall, Jeanette
Winterson, or Dorothy Allison. For example, what in Wilde=B9s autobiographica=
l
writing explains the multiple tellings of his biography from Ellmann=B9s more
traditional work to Neil McKenna=B9s more sexualized Wilde to the 1997 film
Wilde? Additional possibilities for exploration include coming out stories.
How do the conventions of the genre function in relation/ opposition to mor=
e
traditional coming-of-age narratives? Finally, what is the larger cultural
effect of such queer self-creation as seen in the autobiographical works of
Quentin Crisp, Augusten Burrows, and David Sedaris?
=20
Send 300 word abstract with a short C.V. to Damion Clark at drclark_at_umd.edu
by September 15, 2006. Accepted panelists must be, or become current member=
s
of NeMLA by October 15, 2006.

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Received on Sat Jul 01 2006 - 07:13:01 EDT