Re-imagining Identity: Revisiting Hanif Kureishi’s My Beautiful Laundrette (original) (raw)
Desiring Identity: Revisiting Hanif Kureishi's My Beautiful Laundrette
Performing Identity and Gender in Literature, Theatre and the Visual Arts, 2017
Hanif Kureishi’s work focuses on the shifting and polyvalent manifestations of desire and sexuality within the social and cultural realms in Britain, opening up spaces in the cultural landscape to include intentionally – the marginalised and politically disenfranchised, while interrogating at the same time hegemonic discourses pertaining to the formation of identities. Such an approach gestures towards a re-evaluation of desire which, in turn, can lead us to re-think identity as a constantly evolving, uncategorised and therefore politically powerful apparatus. After the publication of his memoir, My Ear at His Heart (2004), in which the reader is given insights as to how and why characters in the author’s work were created, it seems that affective terms such as desire and sexuality can indeed be used to re-imagine the ways in which identity is experienced. Such an approach alludes to the complex constitutions of identity/ies apropos aesthetic or political concerns, and to how they can engage in a difficult and complex, yet fruitful relationship, avoiding what can be considered by the mainstream as ‘socio-political abnormalities.’ In that, I put forward that a retrospective re-examination of Hanif Kureishi’s My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) is imperative, as it can help us understand how an evolutionary model of writing nods towards a sense of identity whose articulation has become distinctly polycultural, even post-racial. Such a revisiting of known texts can offer new insights on debates about identity and nation that transcend solipsistic and exclusivist diasporic matters about ‘myself’ as they gesture towards the aesthetic. Indeed, my chapter invites the reader to conceive contemporary identity in affective terms and consequently as a space that surpasses the solipsism of cultural diversity, racial difference or narrow national exclusivity, thus inviting us to experience identity as a cultural instigator carrying socio-political possibilities
Consumerist Approach to Sexuality in A World of Dynamism: Hanif Kureishi’s The Nothing
2020
As one of the major phenomena in the contemporary global context, consumerism has been shaping lifestyles in different aspects. Signifying the demand for the consumption of the properties that are produced and accessed quickly, consumerism has not only shaped the tendencies for the consumption of products, but it has also had impact on the approach to interpersonal relations in cultural, social and individual areas. In contemporary British fiction, Kamila Shamsie focuses on the disillusionment of the immigrants with their hopes for a civilised life due to their consideration as “outsiders” and she views this as an embodiment of the consumption of their dreams for the future in Home Fire (2017). Zadie Smith reflects the consumerist approach to the relations among family members in On Beauty (2005) with reference to Howard Belsey’s affair with Victoria as a signification of the quest for his new self and his failed efforts for the reconciliation with his family. However, in The Nothin...
I Went to Bed With My Own Kind Once: The Erasure of Desire in the Name of Identity
Language and Communication , 2003
This paper explores how some individuals' talk about sexual desire is rendered as incomprehensible when those desires are not easily talked about through categories of sexual identity. Using data from an 'alternative lifestyles' support group in New York City, I argue that paying attention to expressions of desire is vital for understanding what 'sexuality' has come to mean in contemporary theoretical accounts. Moreover, such an approach enables a critical view of both the political systems which underpin sexual identity as well as the relationships among language, gender, sexuality, and desire. # Language & Communication 23 (2003) 123-138 www.elsevier.com/locate/langcom 0271-5309/03/$ -see front matter # 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. P I I : S 0 2 7 1 -5 3 0 9 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 4 5 -9
This paper is based on empirical research using video diaries to explore the performance of sexual identities in work, domestic and social spaces. The diaries allow respondents to show the clothes they wear on different occasions, and to talk about the process of performance. The paper focuses on the ways in which identity as a concept functions within 'academic', 'political' and 'subcultural' discourses of sexuality, and draws on diarists' discussions of comfort and discomfort in performing their (differently-inflected) identities in these spaces, linking this to theories of performativity and reflexivity.
Queer Modernism(s) II: Intersectional Identities (12-13 April 2018, University of Oxford) - CFP
Call for Papers ‘Reed / slashed and torn / but doubly rich’ – H.D. After the resounding success of the first Queer Modernism(s) conference in 2017, we are excited to announce the CfP for Queer Modernism(s) II: Intersectional Identities, set to be held on 12-13 April 2018 at the University of Oxford. Queer Modernism(s) II is an interdisciplinary, international conference exploring the place of queer identity in modernist art, literature, and culture, with an emphasis on intersecting identities. Panellists are invited to question, discuss, and interrogate the social, sexual, romantic, artistic, affective, legal and textual relationship between queer identity and modernity. The CfP closes 18 December 2017. Decisions will be made in early January. We are delighted to announce that our Keynotes will be Dr. Sandeep Parmar (University of Liverpool) and Dr. Jana Funke (University of Exeter). Dr. Parmar is a BBC New Generation thinker, and has published widely on women’s literature in the 20th century, especially lesser known and non-canonical women. Dr. Funke is a Senior Lecturer in Medical Humanities in the English Department at the University of Exeter and a Wellcome Trust Investigator. Her research cuts across modernist studies, the history of sexuality and the history of science. She has published on modernist women’s writing, the history of sexual science and queer literature and history. We are further thrilled to announce that Queer Modernism(s) II will include a workshop on ‘Queer Historiography and Heritage’ run by Heather Green. Heather is a librarian, curator, and archivist who has worked extensively on figures such as E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence, and Lord Byron. ________________________________________ The early twentieth century saw sweeping changes in legislature, politics, and lifestyle for queer people. More than ever, LGBTQ+ citizens faced penal repercussions for their behaviour, as well as public scrutiny. In 1895, art collided with the judicial system as the trial of Oscar Wilde scandalised the press, succeeded by censorship against the likes of Radclyffe Hall and Federico García Lorca. At the same time, queerness became a political issue. Throughout the 1900s, governments codified and legislated sex work, same-sex relations, queer bodies, and women’s reproductive rights. After the outbreak of war in 1914, there were global concerns that homosexuality was a disease, spreading through the dug-outs like tuberculosis. The New Woman sparked a wave of lesbian panic, as feminine ideals were cast aside in favour of driving, smoking and dancing. Political upheaval throughout the world saw queer rights used as a bargaining tool as new governments came to power. In the same period however, LGBTQ+ citizens were establishing sites of resistance against social norms and state intervention. The Hirschfeld Institute was set up as a means of studying non-normative sexual behaviour and gender identity, pushing for the German government to legalise same-sex acts between men as they had in South America. Around the corner boy-bars flourished in Berlin, notoriously outrageous and cherished by figures of the silver screen. In Paris, Gertrude Stein and Natalie Clifford Barney set up influential salons, whilst The Rocky Twins made their debut performance as The Dolly Sisters. Across the pond, Gladys Bentley crooned about women, while the infamous ball scene began to lay its roots. Early queer theory rippled through both the arts and science. Myriad new terminology appeared, ‘cures’ for inversion came to light, Havelock Ellis published his theories of sexuality, sex reassignment was pioneered in Russia and Freud played analyst to many modernists. Writers and artists from Larsen to Forster to McKay to Bryher to Thurman to Tatsumi to Isherwood to Baker explored queer themes implicitly and explicitly within their work, many of which remain radical today. Nevertheless, sexuality and modernity are not neatly packaged. Queerness is explored, troubled, empowered, frustrated, and intrumentalised by illness, class, nationality, race, work, disability, citzenship, gender, technology, language, age, religion and countless other forms of identity. One need only look to Bloomsbury, Cairo, Harlem, the Left Bank or Tokyo to be confronted by innumerable examples of these. Queer Modernism(s) II seeks to unpackage such identities through panel discussion, roundtables, and seminars. The conference invites discussion of the ways in which modernists negotiate the concept of queerness within their work, with particular attention to intersectional identities. Topics may include, but are not limited to: • Friendships, Romances, Patronage • Camp • Life-writing and Biography • The Intersection of Sexuality and Race, Class, Gender and/or Disability • Psychology and Sexology • Early / Late / New Modernism(s) • Sapphisms • Pride • Queer Spaces / Sites of Resistance • Sex Work • Queer Culture • Religions and Spirituality • Femininities / Masculinities • Drag • Formal and Aesthetic Responses to Queerness • Kink • Civil Rights and Legal Standing • Ball Culture • The Death Drive and Pleasure Principle • Shame • Trans and Non-Binary Identities • Queer Historiographies / Queer Geographies / Queer Linguistics • Sexual Deviance and Inversion • Femme and Butch Presentation • Pornography • (B)identities • Rumours, Gossip and Slander • Ecologies ________________________________________ Papers Individual papers should be fifteen minutes in length. To apply, please send an abstract of no more than 500 words to queermodernism@gmail.com as well as a brief biography of no more than 200 words. Panels Panel presentations should be forty-five minutes in length. To apply, please send an abstract of no more than 800 words to queermodernism@gmail.com as well as a brief biography of no more than 200 words per person. Submissions are open to all MA and PhD students, as well as ECRs and academics.