Queer Cultural Memory and the Contemporary Gay Experience

当代的同性恋体验越来越多地面向过去。通过对21世纪同性恋文学精选中这种倒退取向的分析，这个项目询问当代同性恋体验是如何由我所说的“同性恋文化记忆”构成的。我的假设是，在后石墙时代成年的受试者中出现这种倒退取向，是这一代人主动接受古怪过去的结果，这种接受可以被理解为同性恋定义危机的症状，这是基于这样的理由而表面上结束迫害所带来的同性恋定义危机。当代小说家艾伦·霍林赫斯特、莎拉·沃特斯、科尔姆·托宾、加思·格林韦尔和迈克尔·坎宁安的作品都展示了这种对过去的奇怪转向。这项研究属于奇特的时间性领域，在这一领域中，文化记忆的概念到目前为止出人意料地少之又少。这个项目还有助于现有关于酷儿文化记忆的讨论(主要涉及找回丢失或被压抑的酷儿过去)，方法是在简和阿莱达·阿斯曼工作的基础上，对记忆进行更微妙和更复杂的解读。

The contemporary gay experience is one increasingly oriented towards the past. Through analysis of this backwards orientation in a selection of 21st century queer literature, this project asks how the contemporary gay experience is structured by what I will call 'queer cultural memory.' My hypothesis is that the appearance of this backwards orientation in subjects coming of age in the post-Stonewall era is a result of an active uptake of the queer past by this generation and that this uptake can be understood as symptomatic of a definitional crisis in gayness brought about by an ostensible end to persecution on such grounds. This queer turn towards the past is exhibited in the work of contemporary novelists such as Alan Hollinghurst, Sarah Waters, Colm Toibin, Garth Greenwell and Michael Cunningham. This research project falls within the field of queer temporality in which the concept of cultural memory has figured surprisingly little to date. This project alsocontributes to existing discussions of queer cultural memory (which are primarily concerned with recovering lost or repressed queer pasts) by moving towards a more nuanced and complex construal of memory that builds upon the work of Jan and Aleida Assmann.