Tolkienists.org

“Something mighty queer”: Destabilizing cishetero amatonormativity in the works of Tolkien

— Danna Petersen-Deeprose

26 August 2021 | Amon Hen, № 290: August, 2021, 12

This project draws from intersectional feminist and postmodern queer theories to present a queer reading of Tolkien’s fiction. When I talk about queerness, however, I do not specifically mean same-gender sex or romance. Rather, I mean the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality, aren’t made (or can’t be made) to signify monolithically” (Sedgwick 1). I will examine Tolkien’s depictions of characters, relationships, ways of loving, and ways of existing that challenge contemporary cishetero amatonormative structures and assumptions.…

[See also Danna’s paper, by the same title given at the Tolkien Society Summer Seminar 2021. — ed.]

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date recorded 📅2021-08-27
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