Taking Back Desire: Visions of Queerness and Capitalism in Time

本研究的中心问题是争论酷儿可以产生一个抵抗当前新自由主义政治环境的场所，尽管最近有许多将酷儿融入新自由主义文化的例子。这一争论的关键是新自由主义和酷儿在主体性的建构中使用了对比的时间逻辑。在这里，拉康的立场被用来承认主体性是通过欲望，也就是说，通过缺乏而形成的。我的研究出现在一个紧迫的时间，主要是在当代的时刻。我所借鉴的酷儿理论是朱迪思·巴特勒、伊芙·科洛夫斯基·塞奇威克的作品，以及杰克·哈伯斯坦和贾斯比尔·普的作品。这些作品以威胁资本主义现状的方式对主体性和表演性进行了争论。通过将身份和主体性作为表现性和建构性来阐明，权力通过社会表达编织的方式脱离了诸如“客观”和“自然”等支配性概念。这种对酷儿的理解质疑了许多文化的给定，并致力于在广泛和集体的意义上拆除自然化的压迫，如“女性气质”和“男性气质”的规定。然而，现在被认为是“酷儿”的东西往往被简化为“身份”，然后很容易被整合到新自由主义的、以个人为中心的立场中。推动和伴随许多LGBTQAI+/酷儿讨论的修辞可以被描述为身份政治，这只不过是一种自我品牌的实践。酷儿已经顺利地融入了晚期资本主义的现状，这种模式依赖于这样一种范式，即个人选择和权利是自由的核心载体。酷儿性作为身份的表现，与拉康的立场相交，拉康认为主体性是缺乏的，通过考虑贯穿这些点的时间暗示。我的研究将探讨表演性如何破坏“本质主义”概念中固有的未来的时间封闭。本质主义（关于身份、取向、性行为等）是酷儿/酷儿理论经常坚决反对的立场。本质主义是与未来一起建立起来的，因为它是通过假设今天的东西，明天也会是，永远是这样的假设来稳定的。例如：如果一个人本质上是女性，那么他将永远是女性。与这种未来固定的身份相反，酷儿意义上的表演可以被解读为迫在眉睫，因为它不属于“真实的”自我，而是一系列必须不断实施的不断迭代的铭文。在这里，“缺乏”可以重新设计，而不是作为一个被填充的站点，而是作为一个允许探索性游戏的站点。结合分析研究，我还将采访电影和录像艺术家，参与展示“酷儿”运动图像作品的策展人，以及活动家，以获得酷儿如何通过文化机构网状的详细图像。我目前确定的文化领域和媒体主要是北美和欧洲，但我在博士学位期间的意图是将其扩展到更全球的范围。酷儿理论、政治理论、精神分析和媒体研究的交叉点将以一种独特的平衡结合在一起，形成一篇及时而原创的论文，不仅在理论话语框架内具有相关性，而且在具体的、生活的经验和组织中也具有相关性。主张对酷儿的全新理解，认为酷儿拥有强大的能力，可以通过媒体和文化理论来抵制资本主义，并将资本主义问题化，这可以连接到更大的解放斗争，抵制被剥削的主体被同化。

The central concern of this research is to argue that queerness can produce a site of resistance to the current political environment of neoliberalism, despite many recent instances of assimilation of queerness into neoliberal culture. The crux of this argument is the proposition that neoliberalism and queerness use contrasting temporal logics in the construction of subjectivity. Here, a Lacanian position is used to recognise subjectivity as formulated through desire, that is, through lack. My research comes at a pressing time and is primarily situated in the contemporary moment. The queer theories I draw from are formative works by Judith Butler, Eve Korofsky Sedgewick, and more recent works by Jack Halberstam and Jasbir Puar. These works make arguments concerning subjectivity and performativity in ways that have threatened the status-quo of capitalism. By elucidating identity and subjectivity as performative and constructed, the way power is woven through social articulations is disengaged from concepts of dominance such as "objective" and "natural". This understanding of queerness interrogates many givens of culture and works to dismantle naturalised oppressions such as the regulations of "femininity" and "masculinity" in a broad and collective sense. However, what is now considered "queer" is often reduced to "identity", which is then easily integrated into a neoliberal, individual-centric position. The rhetoric that promotes and accompanies many LGBTQAI+/queer discussions can be described as identity-politics, which becomes little more than a practice in self-branding. The model whereby queerness has been smoothly integrated into the current landscape of late-capitalism is reliant on the paradigm that individual choices and rights are the central vehicles for freedom. Queerness as the performativity-of-identity intersects with the Lacanian position that understands subjectivity as lack by considering the temporal implications that run across these points. My research will explore how performativity undermines the temporal enclosure of the future inherent in the idea of 'essentialism'. Essentialism (of identity, orientation, sexuality, etc) is a position that queerness/queer theory has often adamantly disagreed with. Essentialism is built in tandem with the future in the sense that it is stabilised by the assumption that what is today, will also be tomorrow, and forever. For example: if one is essentially female then one will always be female. In contrast to this future-fixed identity, performativity in the queer sense can be read as imminent in that it pertains to no 'real' self but a series of ever-iterating inscriptions that must be constantly enacted. Here, 'lack' could be reengineered not as a site to be filled, but as a site that allows exploratory play. In conjunction with analytical research, I will also conduct interviews with film and video artists, curators involved with the showing of 'queer' moving-image works, and activists to garner a detailed image of how queerness is webbed through cultural institutions. The cultural areas and media I have currently identified are primarily North American and European, but my intention within the PhD is to expand to a more global reach. The intersections of queer theory, political theory, psychoanalysis and media studies will be combined in a unique balance for a timely and original thesis that can have relevance not just within frameworks of theoretical discourse, but also embodied, lived experiences and organising. Arguing for a refreshed understanding of queerness as possessing a strong ability to resist and problematise capitalism through media and cultural theory can web to larger emancipatory struggles that resist the assimilation of subjects into exploitation.