The Boy in the Yellow Dress : Reframing Subjectivity in Narrativisations of the Queer Self single work   essay  
Issue Details: First known date: 2007... 2007 The Boy in the Yellow Dress : Reframing Subjectivity in Narrativisations of the Queer Self
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

From author's abstract: 'In my experience, religion strives to drive a wedge between queer folk and their sexuality. Further, by perpetuating the sexualised construction of identity, it excludes particular sources of knowledge as fit only for people situated comfortably within its heteronormative models. Yet there is plenty of evidence that many queer lives are open to sources of "spiritual" insight ... beyond the heteronormative filters of the standard model. I present an extract from my memoir, a work in progress titled 'The Boy in the Yellow Dress', to demonstrate how the practice of life writing can produce versions of subjectivity that are resistant to homophobic constructions. ... The dis-illusionment that many gay men go through is re-presented as a stripping away of illusions, precipitating a radical inquiry into the nature of being that I propose is at the very heart of spiritual practice. ...I argue that, rather than upholding a fixed notion of self that is culturally produced, historically situated, and politically defended, in its quest for continuing liberation queer intelligence can prove responsive to the deconstructive imperative inherent in dertain "Eastern" approaches to religious practice.' (263)

Notes

  • Includes an extract ('Child's Play') from a work-in-progress, The Boy in the Yellow Dress.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Life Writing vol. 4 no. 2 October 2007 Z1435997 2007 periodical issue 2007 pg. 263-285
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Related Works

y separately published work icon The Boy in the Yellow Dress Victor Marsh , Melbourne : Clouds of Magellan , 2014 7368680 2014 single work autobiography

'Perth in the 1950s. After being caught wearing his mother’s yellow dress, young Victor had to hide any tendency towards gender inappropriate behaviour. But his interest in dancing and theatre (and mooning over Rudolph Nureyev on the telly) were bound to make the façade collapse at some point. Emerging sexuality and the sense of not being 'at home' in his body, let alone the world, ran alongside a search for meaning that brought him eventually to a spiritual awakening under the young guru Maharaji ...

'Part family tragedy, part existential comedy, The Boy in the Yellow Dress is a warts-and-all account of exile and the subsequent journey homewards that is less about finding a respectable place in the world than an intimate connection with the ultimate source of being. ' (Publication summary)
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Last amended 25 Sep 2017 16:00:02
263-285 The Boy in the Yellow Dress : Reframing Subjectivity in Narrativisations of the Queer Selfsmall AustLit logo Life Writing
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