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Linda Hess (Augsburg): "Queer Aging in North American Fiction"
Abstract
Aging is currently a topic of great importance in North America. It has not only gained attention in the fields of medical and social research but has also become more prominent in literature and film and hence has attracted scholarly attention. One important area of aging, however, seems to remain largely invisible, particularly in scholarly work: queer aging in literature and film. Although queer aging has recently gained some prominence through the movie The Beginners (2010), this appearance of an aging gay man in an Oscar-winning mainstream movie seems a rather isolated instance without any particular history besides the recent gain in attention paid to the subject of aging.
This “particular history” is the topic of my dissertation project, Queer Aging in North American Fiction. It traces the development of the depiction of queer aging in fiction mainly from the 1960s to the present decade (2010s). In particular, it analyzes interconnections of depictions of queer aging with developments in queer fiction, the queer community, and the discourse of aging in North American societies.
This paper focuses on one aspect of this larger study. To open up a space where such developments can be perceived, it will focus on Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance (1978) and Armistead Maupin’s Michael Tolliver Lives (2007). Both novels present gay male protagonists, who are each integrated in a queer community. However, published about forty years apart, they exist in different historical and cultural contexts and differ in their depiction of queer aging: one presents aging characters only marginally and stereotypically as lonely and old, whereas the other offers a multi-layered portrayal of queer aging. Thus, they will serve as cornerstones for identifying constitutive elements in depictions of queer aging in fiction and for considering possible implications for discourses of queerness and aging in North American societies at large.
This “particular history” is the topic of my dissertation project, Queer Aging in North American Fiction. It traces the development of the depiction of queer aging in fiction mainly from the 1960s to the present decade (2010s). In particular, it analyzes interconnections of depictions of queer aging with developments in queer fiction, the queer community, and the discourse of aging in North American societies.
This paper focuses on one aspect of this larger study. To open up a space where such developments can be perceived, it will focus on Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance (1978) and Armistead Maupin’s Michael Tolliver Lives (2007). Both novels present gay male protagonists, who are each integrated in a queer community. However, published about forty years apart, they exist in different historical and cultural contexts and differ in their depiction of queer aging: one presents aging characters only marginally and stereotypically as lonely and old, whereas the other offers a multi-layered portrayal of queer aging. Thus, they will serve as cornerstones for identifying constitutive elements in depictions of queer aging in fiction and for considering possible implications for discourses of queerness and aging in North American societies at large.
Bio
Linda Hess received her B.A. in English Literature from Jamestown College in Jamestown, North Dakota, USA in 2007 and her Magister in American Literature from the Goethe University, Frankfurt in 2010. Since November 2010 she has worked as research assistant (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin) at the English Department of Augsburg University, in particular for the Juniorprofessur New English Literatures and Cultures. During this time she has also been working on her doctoral thesis, and in Spring 2012 she became a member of the university’s graduate school: Graduiertenschule für Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften. Her research interests and also teaching areas are Queer Fiction, Queer Theory, Aging Studies, and to some extent also Women’s Studies, Migration Studies, and Postcolonial Studies. She completed the proposal for her Ph.D. project in Spring 2012 and is currently working on re-writing and expanding her first literary-analysis chapter, which focuses on marginal and stereotypical portrayals of queer aging in works of the 1960s and 1970s.