'Unflinching in the examination of a life marked by trauma and joy, all the beginnings is ultimately a book about falling in love: with writing, children, mothers, and with the self. This is how I learn about love: in the violence of the senses. In the inside. In the outside coming in.' (Publication summary)
'This article critiques Donna Haraway’s slogan ‘make kin not babies’ via a reading of her SF tale ‘The Camille Stories’. It does so by considering the relationship between the care labour practices involved in making both kin and babies. The article has two central operations. It is an explicitly eco-social feminist argument against the use of making kin as an uncomplicated theoretical standpoint in the environmental humanities. At the same time, it deconstructs the iconic feminist ambit to be liberated from housework. These parallel operations emerge by characterising making kin as a kind of housework, which is a deeply ironic evaluation of Haraway’s slogan. Overall the article is a response to the question: how is the work involved in making kin both the same as and different to the labour of making babies? The answer is constructed through the method of literary close reading, paying attention to genre and plot of ‘The Camille Stories’ alongside Fiona McGregor’s novel Indelible Ink [2010. Melbourne: Scribe Publications] and Quinn Eades’s all the beginnings: a queer autobiography of the body [2015. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing]. These comparative readings enable a reckoning with the gnarly and contradictory implications of ‘making kin’ across contemporary environmental humanities and feminisms.' (Publication abstract)
'All the Beginnings opens with ink and fish, tattoos and peeling skin. With body. And assertion. Author and tattooist are turning a body into ‘something new, that is old, that is new’ (2). Beginnings and ends and new beginnings. The ink, the body, this text says: ‘I see you, and, I am here’ (3).' (Introduction)
Heather Taylor-Johnson examines Quinn Eades' all the beginnings: a queer autobiography of the body and analyses how physical trauma is expressed and processed by the body.
Heather Taylor-Johnson examines Quinn Eades' all the beginnings: a queer autobiography of the body and analyses how physical trauma is expressed and processed by the body.
'All the Beginnings opens with ink and fish, tattoos and peeling skin. With body. And assertion. Author and tattooist are turning a body into ‘something new, that is old, that is new’ (2). Beginnings and ends and new beginnings. The ink, the body, this text says: ‘I see you, and, I am here’ (3).' (Introduction)
'This article critiques Donna Haraway’s slogan ‘make kin not babies’ via a reading of her SF tale ‘The Camille Stories’. It does so by considering the relationship between the care labour practices involved in making both kin and babies. The article has two central operations. It is an explicitly eco-social feminist argument against the use of making kin as an uncomplicated theoretical standpoint in the environmental humanities. At the same time, it deconstructs the iconic feminist ambit to be liberated from housework. These parallel operations emerge by characterising making kin as a kind of housework, which is a deeply ironic evaluation of Haraway’s slogan. Overall the article is a response to the question: how is the work involved in making kin both the same as and different to the labour of making babies? The answer is constructed through the method of literary close reading, paying attention to genre and plot of ‘The Camille Stories’ alongside Fiona McGregor’s novel Indelible Ink [2010. Melbourne: Scribe Publications] and Quinn Eades’s all the beginnings: a queer autobiography of the body [2015. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing]. These comparative readings enable a reckoning with the gnarly and contradictory implications of ‘making kin’ across contemporary environmental humanities and feminisms.' (Publication abstract)
