This semester I found myself attracted to “queer” theory, perhaps because through Butler I also get my dose of deconstruction and post-structuralism without getting lost in Derrida’s jargon. I like that I can trace other theorists influencing each other and see how academics utilize, say, deconstruction, in ways that are more productive. Although ambiguous, elusive works of literature and film intrigue me, I am also troubled by what it means when an author ends a story abruptly, only to leave a reader with no answers. I am, however, acutely aware of the pleasure I get from equivocal works—a criteria for me, I now know, because I often believed it was merely “fun” to be baffled by something that I was never going to pin down, something that will always be in the back burner but never removed.[2]
For instance, I watched a few David Lynch films in high school, which—though cool—had also fallen flat in lots of ways. So these days the idea is that I can revisit the films and find ways to piece things together, but also complicate it even more (always frustrating). It is what I value, which brings me back to the static endings: I like to think and feel that I am piecing things together, doing, moving towards something—this, I think, is where Derrida’s euphoric “play” will end for me. Of course, this is not to say that I think authors should pick a side and resolve endings, but I (a reader) want to resolve the end and come up with my own conclusions if I think there is a reason to pick a side. However, for the moment, I find myself on a real binary kick, and I could probably spend more time trying to destabilize categories. This is also one reason why I thought Butler’s anxiety under a “lesbian” sign interesting. Another discovery in the process of making critical moves is that I can’t escape psychoanalysis if I really want to pursue more queer studies, so the project is to read more dead men and see if I can piece things together. Ambiguous works thus provide me with something to chew on.
The warrant for all of this is that there is, in fact, a real cultural significance/value in works of literature that allow some leeway for multiple interpretations, because it affects readers and writers. I value this because there is something transformative embedded in works that seek to destabilize categories, as with Michael Chabon’s novel. It matters because a project that seeks to think about naming, citing, categorizing makes one think about one’s own position and response—see? I am back, more or less, to Freud's Psychopathic Characters on Stage, which brings to conscious (too see the conflict via reading) my own opinions and asks me to look back at myself (the mirror! OMG), and what I will become in pursuing what I value.
The process of writing (and coming up with ideas—thinking block), however, is still a struggle. I work with pieces of quotes that I find interesting, but making connections between ideas and pushing those ideas further, as well as pacing and breaking this task into smaller, doable chunks is a difficulty—an on-going project that will be manageable through time and more experience, I hope. Really.
update: 12/15/05 -- 2:41 am
And while I think that I am engaged and excited in psychoanalytic and “queer” approaches, I feel rather limited in lots of ways, if this kind of study is an extension of my own identity, which I guess comes with becoming an expert in an area. I do find it (at this stage, at least) rather bothersome, and feel I could be filling gaps in literature and waiting for epiphanies of some sort.
[1] I borrow part of my title from Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.
[2] I got the soup(of ideas) on low fire metaphor— always warm, even if other projects are in the way the ideas continue to percolate and never leave one’s head, or something to that effect—probably from a book about writing a dissertation (can’t remember) or maybe an academic’s blog.
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