Taking Back Desire: Visions of Queerness and Capitalism in Time

这项研究的核心问题是认为，酷儿可以产生一个抵制当前新自由主义政治环境的网站，尽管最近有许多将酷儿同化为新自由主义文化的例子。这场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。我的研究是在一个紧迫的时间，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（Judith Butler）、伊芙·科罗夫斯基·塞奇威克（Eve Korofsky Sedgewick）的作品，以及杰克·哈尔伯鲁（Jack Halbergold）和贾斯比尔·普阿尔（Jasbir Puar）的近期作品。这些作品以威胁资本主义现状的方式提出了关于主观性和表演性的论点。通过将身份和主体性阐明为表演性和建构性，权力通过社会表达编织的方式脱离了“客观”和“自然”等支配概念。这种对酷儿的理解质疑了许多文化的既定事实，并致力于拆除自然化的反抗，例如广义和集体意义上的“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”，然后很容易融入新自由主义的、以个人为中心的立场。促进和伴随着许多LGBTQAI+/酷儿讨论的言论可以被描述为身份政治，这只不过是自我品牌的一种实践。酷儿被顺利融入晚期资本主义当前景观的模式依赖于个人选择和权利是自由的核心载体的范式。作为同一性的施为性的酷儿性与拉康的立场相交，拉康的立场通过考虑贯穿这些点的时间含义将主观性理解为缺乏。我的研究将探讨如何performativity破坏了时间封闭的未来固有的“本质主义”的想法。同性恋主义（关于身份、取向、性取向等）是酷儿/酷儿理论经常坚决反对的一种立场。物质主义是与未来同步建立的，因为它是通过假设今天的东西也将是明天，并且永远稳定下来的。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，奇怪意义上的表演性可以被解读为迫在眉睫，因为它不属于“真实的”自我，而是一系列不断迭代的铭文，必须不断被制定。在这里，“缺乏”可以被重新设计，而不是作为一个网站被填补，但作为一个网站，允许探索性的发挥。在分析研究的同时，我还将采访电影和视频艺术家，参与展示“酷儿”移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络的详细图像。我目前确定的文化领域和媒体主要是北美和欧洲，但我在博士学位内的意图是扩大到更全球的影响力。酷儿理论，政治理论，精神分析和媒体研究的交叉点将结合在一个独特的平衡，及时和原创的论文，可以有相关性不仅在理论话语的框架内，但也体现，生活经验和组织。通过媒体和文化理论，主张重新理解酷儿具有强大的抵抗和质疑资本主义的能力，可以形成更大的解放斗争，抵制将主体同化为剥削。

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.