Freeman Elizabeth Time Binds Queer Temporalities Queer Histories

8/20/2019 Freeman Elizabeth Time Binds Queer Temporalities Queer Histories

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contents

Peace i

ckowegmets v

to ctioee and ot ow

Jnk eritaces Bad img

Familial Aytmia i Tee Working

Cass Dyke aratives 21

Dee Le Temoa Drag and

te ectes o Feminism 59

Time Bis o otoistoriogapy 95

4 T te Beat Aond adomsocism

Tempoait istor 3

Coa 7

ei Distbtos r ims

a Vieos 75

Notes 77

Bibioa 193

Inde 29


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preface

n 95, te Britis poet Robe Graves wrote a poem ts a ueer

Time. Popularly derstood as a ligteaed topical ballad about te

trauma o trenc warare e poem sets up a counterpoint beween im-

ages o g bale ad o te aucnat utopias te secondperson

speaker encounters wen e loses consciousness. ts ard to know i

you're alive or dead' 1e poem opens Wen steel and re go roaring

1ro your ead. t's also ard to know i beng aive consists o gtng

1e war or blacking out. Here is a sample stanza te tird o ve

You're cargng mady at 1em yeing Fag!

Wen someow someting gives an d your eet drag.

You al and strike your ead yet eel no pain

And nd . . . . . . youre digging tunnels oug e ay

n te Big Barn cause its a rainy day.

O springy ay nd lovely beams to limb !

You're back in e old sailor suit again.

ts a queer time

Here te omopobia necessa to el masculine violence gives way to

aoer version o te trenc tunnels a aystack Te speaer nds

imse back on 1e arm were rain spring ay and wood suggestle He also appears to be dressed as a gay icon

Lest be accused o reading sailor suit and even queer anacronis

ticay let me summarize te oter stnzas. A but te rst woline closed

couplet end wi1 te rern s a queer tme' n 1e second stanza te

speaker is woded (you're clutcng at yo cest' ine 5) and astr-travels to 1e omosocia Treasure sland wic is some amga o

Orientaized Eastern tropic romance (spice winds blow I To lovely

groves o Mango quince and lime lines 7 ) and dimenovel west-

ern (Breate no goodbye but o! or 1e Red West' ine 9) n te

ou stanza wen a bomb its te speaker as es sleeping in a trenc

e nds imsel struggling gasping sruggling 1en . . uo! I Elsie

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comes pping gily down the trench I Hky to nose ] Geting

her pinore a over grime (lines 224) Given the cmpiness o Elsie's

re nd gestures, it's ard not to red Elsie giy s bit o a queen.

But she is lso n pparitionFunny becuse she died ten yers go

(line 25) so queer time ppers unted nd in the lst stn, thespeker remarks tht 1e ·ouble wi1 wr is 1t things hppen much

too quick (line 27): wheres queer me eongtes nd twists chronol-

o, war simply orecloses it He tes us tht even good Christins don't

like pssing stright I From Tipper or 1eir Hymn o Hte I To

euiacnting nd 1e cime O golden hrps . . nd . . I'm not

well today . . I It's queer me ( lines 3034). Te ine brek suggests

that te speker himsel might be "passing [or] strght; but the ne

enjmbed ine rewrites 1e verb to condemn 1e direct rote to Heaven.

Here te speker preers to dwe n some other tempor regime n

ei1er 1e oresortened me o te piot or 1e esctologic sceme

were det leds direcy to svtion He breeily dismisses his own

mo end, preerrng to be merely not we tody;' nd remins in

queer tin1e

This poem seemingly sets strigt nd queer tempoities, lie nd

de, milit nation nd hucintion aginst one noer but it alsosuggests t the pleasures o queerness cn be ond in the interstices o

nationlpolitic lie, nd tht tey re denitey wo living or Its

queer time is t once temporl (a phntsm in the rst stn, blck-

out in the second, n ppritionl enco1ter in te tird, nd the whole

scene ding wy in the ouh, s the speker ners det) nd istori-

cl the i'' in its queer time is cearly World Wr I, situated by

te poem's reerences to tences nd dugouts, te cemic explosive

lyddite, nd 1e "Boches;' French slng or kruts) o not only is 1etime o ntsy queer ere, so also is 1e time o wod ist d poli-

tics proper

This isn't exacy news to yone who has red y gy nd lesbin

isto te First World Wr sw te rise o nsceny gy subclture in

po cities where siors nd roug trade met one noter, nd in 1e

urbn res tht expnded to ccommodte ny number o migrtions. 2

But more tn teling st o how gy nd global histories intewine,

this poem nrrtes mit hists ilure to y orgnie time towrd

nationist ends Te speker is a soldier who reses to die or te gl

o his co but comes bck or more nd more o te pn tht wil give

im ccess to queer world o is own making Queer time ovekes

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bot secr nd miei time nd witin te lost moments o oci

histo queer time genertes discontinuous isto o its own wic

ncludes colonialist endevors e source mteri or te novel ure

sland) , te omosocil ntionalism o boys cutue te cutu work to

wic 'eure sland ws put) cowboy cte nd mnly Mniest Destiny in te "Red West o the meics te orementioned pos o

homosexul call dg cture nd even e urc itsel ech o wic

ostered eotic contct beeen men In oter wods these dems my

be dems o n escpe om histo but tley so give ccess to n

alterntive ist nd tey are more tl reveries tey re moments o

ereme bodily senstion. A e soldies pesumbly msculine gu

tivey impenetrble body is ipped by "steel d re line 2), struck in

e ed suocted wit lyddite nd sot wit a Gem ie e enters

queer time whic mkes queer ist e cn enter too.

Trougout tlis book I to tink ginst tle dominnt rrge-

ment o time d isto tat would odinriy guide e understnding

o is poem n wich historicl nve hee te Fist Word Wr)

orgnizes vious temporl scheme into consequentil sequence suct eventuy te speakers llucintions will be edble as rbinges

o his glorious scrice or his count) 3 Insted I tck e wys tnonsequenti os o time in te poem unconciousness ting

reveie d the erlie) c lso od suects into structures o belong-

ing d durtion tt my be invisible to the historicist eye. Tis poem

pregues my cptes in mny wys. For instnce "Its Queer Time

jposes e precise timings o miita incursions perps e ntion's

most explicit om o synching up boies nd time wi "tves ing] .

dozing strugging stagger [ ing] movements at bring pst d

present together lines 4, 9, 2, 29) In cpter I gue tt even non-ntionlist ctul belonging is ater o cts tt inee in mny

wys in sred timings nd I stke my cim or couterpoitics o

encounter in wic boies decomposed by te workings o experimen-

t m nd iteaure meet one note by cnce orging in te sense

o botl mking nd cotereiting histo ierenty In "Is a Queer

Time "Elsie mincing long in er Victoin regli ppers s n

achronism bot in er costuming d in terms o te clendr. In

chpter 2, I exmine mode o cpy d yet yerning quee rcivlism

tt tuns eminist sometimes t sometimes dowdy lwys unruy e-

mle bodies into ireveent iving ses. In "Its Queer Time;

cen spltterng o te spekers body cuses im to jp e time

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ine In capter 3 I demonstrate tat tis ntasy o rubbing up agst

te past as itse a past and I trace its uneven movement rom an

eigteent and arynintntcnu omosocia mod o sentimen

t ist in n avowedy erotic ad esbian wntitcnt version o

tis I rgue touces tat ar bot pin nd peasurabe break open tepast sicing it into asyncronous discontinuous pieces o time I ave

remarked tat te speaker o It's a Queer Time keeps coming back or

more pain e aso mow s] eaps down a in n' peraps paying at

warime to nd a st not yet recognized as suc (ine ) In cap

ter I take up e sadomasocistic pay t emerged rom te Frenc

Revoution rguing tat / reorgnizes te bodys microtmporaitis

enoug to et in istories o peasue as we as pain preseng gitivend resistant deigts and trasmiting tem uneveny across time.

But "Its Queer Time aso engages wit wat is seen by traditiona

itera critcs as te inaugura event o wentietcen moderni te

irst Word War Wit its pointed reerence to an event tat nobody

wd argue is nt istorica 1e poem aows me to inquire upon te

oci narrative o moderni s te byproduct o goba dterritoriaza

tions Insted Is Queer Time imagines a more intimate strtegy o

reterritoriaization wc I take up in my introducton Tere I arguetat corportions nd nationstates sek to adjust te pace oiving in te

paces and peope tey take on to qucken up and/or syncronize some

eements o eveday exstence wie oering up oer spces and ac

tivities s eisurey sow sacred cycica nd so on and tereby repressing

or eacing aternative strategies o organizing time 4 Tus being normativey modern is a matter not ony o occupying n imagined pace at

te new end o a sequence but aso o ivng a coordinated carey

syncopated tempo beeen a quick time tat seems to be enorced and asow time tat seems to be matr o ree coice In tis sense

sodierspeaker o "Its a eer Time is simpy an ordina vtar o

modern time a time wose vioence oers up queer possibiities despite

itse.

I queer time appears witin as we as in coterpoint to mode

time temporai as inected queer 1eor rom its outset Tke or

instance Mice Foucats interest in "owy ives reduced to ases in a

ew prases tat ave destroyed tem in te inmous wo are aso

unmous arcives stray dogs Or Eve Sedgwick's ocus on

queer "inner cid wi1 wom 1e sexuay dissident adut as a com

pexy narcissistic vowing and disavowing even pedopiiac reation 6

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Or Dougas Crimp's moig c or "mouig and miita' durig a

momet whe rage seemed the predomiat modal orAIDS actism 7

Or e gradua emergece o melacholia i Judth Buer's work, a gure

o psychic xatio or stucess t troubles 1e smoo machie o

geder peormatii Or the may udead reerets o Cherre Moraga's pay Givin Up the Ghost 986) i which me ad histor appear asborders, too, aogside the borders beee Aglo ad Chicaa, paish

ad Egish, 1e Uited tates ad Mexico, a o which 1e pay com

picates ad ioates These ad o1er works corot, o a actie

register irreducibe to traditioal historica iqui what has bee orgot-

te, abadoed, discredited, or otherwise eaced.

Yet uti recey 1e domiat strais o queer 1eor hae teded to

priiege the aatgarde At oe poit i my ie as a schoar o queer

cuture ad the0, I thought the poit o queer was to be always ahead o

actuay existig social possibilities O is model, it seemed at truy

queer queers woud dissoe orms, disitegrate idetities, ee taxoo

mies, scor the social, ad ee repudiate politics altogeer and ideed,

1ere is oe wig o queer the0 that does priiege this kid o egatig

work) But this ersio o"queerig the socia tex srikes me as some

what aki to Ee edgwick's otio o paraoid criticism: is abouthaig the probem soed ahead o time, about eelig more eoed

a1 oes cote Now I 1ik e poit may be to trail behid au-

ay exstig social possibities to be iterested i the tail ed o thigs,

wilig to be bathed i the adig ight o whateer has bee declared

useless For whie queer atioism appeas to me o a iteecual

leel, I d myse emotioally compeed by e otquitequeereough

ogig or orm at turs us backward to prior momets, orward to

embassig utopias, sideways to orms o beig ad beogig thatseem, o e ace o it, competey baa 2 This is te essece o wat I

thik edgwick meas by reparatie criticism at because we ca't kow

i adace, bu oy retrospectiely i ee the, what is queer ad what is

ot, we gaher ad combie eclecticay, draggig a buch o cutural

debris aroud us ad stackig it i idiosycrac pies "not necessa'il like

any preexistin whole tough composed o what preexists.3 For queer

schoars ad actiists, 1is ctura debris icudes our icompete, paia,

or otheise ed trasormatios o the social ed: like the speaker o

"Its a Queer Time' we eer hear the eluia But perhaps that is a

state to ejoy, rather tha ust mour

Thus is b ook is orgaized ot arod e great wars o e wetiet

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centu and beyond, but arod a series of led revolutions in te 960s

and 970politca programs not ony as ye incompletely realized but

aso impossibe to reaize in teir original modethat neveeess pro-

vide pleasure as wel as pin. I cnsider class revolutin as it deadends

again ad again nt ny in pstFordist merica but aso in waywarddaughters secondwave feminism's lost possibilities; e unished, mu-

tuay intertned projects of black emancipation and gay freedom er

rida reminds us tat wit nostalgia, teretu is accepable provided that

the reot, which initay inspired uprising, indignation, insurrection,

revoluinar mmentum, does nt cme bac!C In e prjects I take

up here, paicarly the visual tes, e 970s appear as a revoling"

decade in a slighy dierent way ey gimmer foh as an embarrass-

ment, as something that remains to be ougt, as te tes indigestible

materia, and/or as a point of deparure for resistance bt not for grand

revlutin. In oer wrds, uprising, indignatin, insurrectin, revolu-

tiona momenum" reappear, but not in a onetoone correspondence

wi e rigina scenes of dissent t inspire em. The 970s emerge as

te scene of mass sociaist, feminist, and gayiberationist projects reto

spectively loved or ated but aso used as pacehoders for thinking be-

yond e status quo of the 990s and eay years of the wenrst cenu simpler way of puting tis might be: l of e tes I anayze in tis

book engage wit historical postness" of is book's visual aists

(ough not al of te noveiss wose work I inewine wit lms and

videos) were born beween 960 ad 970, meaning that they were at

mst yog teenagers during the height of the sies the period be-

een the escalation of the Vietnam War in 965 and e resignation of

Rcard Non in 974 Tese aists, comig of age i he aerle of he

sties, are the successors to mass movements whose most radic elements were oen tamed, crushed, r detoured int individuistic prjects as

they were disseminated troug the mainstream media. Tese artists are

mre likey to have paicipated in te mre pragmatic, coition mve-

ments of e 980s and 990ADS and queer activism, prosex and/or

Tird Word/women of color feminism, and clturejammingtan in

proects tat expliciy named capitaism as te root enemy. Teir politica

experience unfded in and mved uard frm the 980s, when e

feminist, lesbianIgay, and ADS movements met cntinent eor in

the foundation of groups like 1e fenist uerrila irls and te ant

omopobic A UP, in mergers at made mass culture itsef e popular

front for e semiotic wfare eventuay known as queering' In paicu

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lar, the witnessed howA UP's understanding of AIDS as an epidemic of

signication" brought deconstructie reading practices and grassroots

actiism togeher, laing the groundwork or Queer Natons cleer de-

touements and for queer the Indeed, mst f these aists hae

worked within the academ as wel as bend it: all hld MFA or Ps and quite a few are professors t the same time, 1ugh, the lied to se

lesbian and ga identi manstreamed and triialized into just one of

man possible lifesles"; AIDS nomaized in 1 nited tates as new

drugs made HIV a chronic ra1er than terminal conditn and as it spread

bend urban ga enclaes; feminism mrphed int a cmmodied Girl

ower" and queer" into the premise for cable shows ACT UP, Queer

Naton, and 1e Guerrilla Girls achied in libraries and turned into mu-

se exhibits; and quee 1o become an academic subspecial.

ng he perid I coer, 1e hrzon f eectation has also changed

dramatical fr straight wmen, adt lesbians and ga men, and queer

ou1 It is now possible to imagine ( each constituenc as haing a histor; (2 each member of each adult constuenc as hag to nego-ate a t in which work time and mi tme" alternate or oerlap,

or moe precise, in wich women hae entered the wagetme of the

proessions, ad lesbians and ga men hae entered 1e repronormatietme f paentng and (3) each queer o" as hng a fture as a

queer adut and/or a fture in which he or she might moe among ga,

bi, or straight identities (or abadon 1m), or beween or beond gen-

ders. These changes seem paisewoh to man, et al of 1e works I

treatke our soldierspeaker aboeiew one r mre f these frms

o histo and turi without much enthusiasm, preferring to elaborate

was of ing aslant to dominant foms of objectchoice, coupledom,

fami, marriage, sociabii, and selfpresentation and s out of snch with statespnsred narraties f belnging and becming Een s,

their project is less to negate than t prearicate, inenting possibilites

fr ming thrugh and with time, encuntering pasts, speculating f-

tures, and intepenetating 1 wo in was t coer te common

sense of 1e present tense

chemaical, 1en, we could sa 1is: 1ese atsts exist n a mment

unaalable to the sldierspeaker, in whch their histo seems t be al-

read written. Haing encountered hist (thught as cecte me-

ment for change) through the massmediated detritus of 1 sities

through thei own paicipatn in 980s projects that struggled to nd

new orms of politcal action, and troug te institutionalization and

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commodicatio o these projects, the aists I treat here egage the

temporal politics o decostructio thought as a ati represetatioal

priilegig o delay, detour, ad deerral) to arrie at a dieret modalior liig historicay, or puttig the past ito meaigl ad trasorma

tie relatio with the preset Pure ostagia or aother reoutioamomet, their works seem to argue, wil ot do But or wi its opposite,

a pury ural orietatio that depeds o orgetig the past Istead,

te queeress o these aists cosists i miig the preset or sigs o

udetoated eergy rom past reoltios

Crucialy, the tes I discuss here see queeress as a powerl site rom

which we might read aother kid o ailure ot just that o progressie

moemets but the ailre o Weste "moderi ad the capitaist

system tat orgaizes it to completely oerwrite or take up a o te

meaigs ad eergies that they aim or Ideed, this is oe ersio o

what I mea by the word "bid i Freud, "bidig is a way to maage

excess yet this e bidig also produces a kid o rebod eect, i

which whateer it takes to orgaize eergy also triggers a release o e

ergy that surpasses the origia stimulus6 The aists I examie work

rom withi wat ooks ike a y "boud commodied postemiist,

postgay, postsociaist, postatioal word i which we are told our prob-lems are soled ow that our market iche has bee discoered Withi

that world, the aists I discuss cherish ot oy histors otsam ad

jetsam but also 1e excess geerated by capital, its castos, ad 1e epi

sodes it wishes us to orget ware that the actiist ad artistic eergies

idexed ad ispired by this material are aso potetiay aaiabe or

recapture, ey read ad write or more tha the iite play o meaig,

yet also or ess tha e total trasormatio o cture I their ow

ersio o rech waare, hey coect ad remobilize archaic or uristicdebris as sigs that thigs hae bee ad coud be o1eise That capital

ism ca aways reappropriate is orm o time is o reaso to ed with

despair the poit is to ideti "queeress as e site o the chace

elemet at capita iadeey produces, as we as te site o capitals

potetial recaptre ad icorporatio o chace 7

Meodologicay, 1eir work ioes someig tat migt at rst

gace ook rather rearguard or recacitrat close readigs o e past or

the odd detai, the uiteigible or resistat momet Readig closely

meas atig o 1at which resists ay easy trasatio ito preset-

tese terms, ay "progressie program or the turig o a ito a

cultura/istorica magic buet or toxi To close read is to liger, to

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dly, to tke plesure in tring, nd to old ot tt tese ctivities cn

low us to look bot rd nd sknce t te norm But in te works I

ve gtered ere, close reding is wy into isto, not wy out of it,

d itself form of istoriogrpy nd istoicl nysis 8 Tese ists

see ny sign s n mlgm of te incommensurte of dominnt uses inte present, of obsolete menings sensible only s kind of rdition from

te pst, of new potentil, d, more simply, of dierent points in time s

menings ccrue nd re sed Like te speker of Its Queer Time;

teir works l seize ncronisms lrge nd smll, ec of wic con

stitutes frgment of te queer pst mining towns, Hoyood weepies,

obsolete slng, mcrm, women's lib, pir of gold lm disco sos.

Tey bring out te ltent drems nd lost power tt dwel wi1in tese

siy detils Tus wt Id like to identi s perps te queerest commit-

ment of my own book is lso close reding: te decision to unfold, slowly,

smll uber of imgintive texts rter tn mss weig rcive

of or round tets, nd to tret tese te nd teir forml work s

teories of teir own, inteentions upon bot criticl te nd isto-

riogrpy Toug I m trined s iter critic, my tes re not pri-mrily novels even ug Be Hrriss Lover, M Seley's Fran-

enstein, nd Virgini Woolf's Orano mke ppernces but instedminor visu works by minor ists in minor ke Te cult tets I discuss

re minor becuse tey re contempor, so nd/or experiment,

nd mde by emerging ists disconnected from lrge nds or dominnt

modes of production nd distribution were I do tret cnonic works

suc s 'anenstein I reverse e cnonic/ noncnonic reionsip of

priori, treting te cnonic works s wys into noncnonic ones

rter tn vice vers Mny of te works I discuss re so mde in

epemer medi or medi subordinte to iterture in cdemic Englisdepments: lm, video, nd instltion

F nd video re, in p, minor iterure becuse tey re still

ssocited wit mindless ( nd ence overy embodied) bsorption, nd

tis crge olds piculry for te directovideo subgenres suc s

orror movies, ilers, terjerkers, ome movies, nd poogrpy,

wiin wic severl of my tets trc Mobilizing bot ction nd

ris corporeit te works I tret ere my seem even more minor

wen considered s exmples of mode of istoriogrpy if few die

rd cdemic iter critics re sti disinclined to see new medi s

literture, even fewer disciplin istorins tend to ccept nondocumen-

t mmking s metod of doing ist. Yet s Piip Rosen rgues,

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lm and disciplina isto ave sever 1ings in common A wit any

writing about oter times, te potograpic media negotiate te rela-

tionsip beween past and present a potograpic image consists of 1e

race of n object and presents at object n a moment o1er n e

moment of recording Potograpic media, like works of istoriograpy,inevitbly posit a dierent hen fom tt of te specttor and s

paicipte in a cuturl terran of istorici; 1e lter term describ

ing te stte of being recognizably istorical to a given public Rosen

stresses tat as wit te tes writen by disciplina istorians, te domi

nnt modes tey write in, and 1e way tese modes construct and con

catenate 1e objects of 1eir tet, lic te>ts im to put pst and present

into some stable relationsip to one anoter even as te medi11 puts

fo a model of reali as cange itsef Te potograpic media, in

Rosens analysis, are tinkable witout isto 1e mode as

sumptions tat 1e present diers from 1e pst nd s 1e past must be

recorded, nd te understnding of reali as protean, or at lest poten

tiy so Last, Rosen claims, lm intersects wi1 1e aspect of ist 1at

involves collective experience A a edium, lm emerged during 1e era

of a reorganization of te social along temporal lines Tere is muc in 1e

medi t mimics 1e segmenting nd sequencing oftime acieved inte er of industrial cpitalism A an institution, te mass cinema cer-

tainly borrowed te assembly line and o1er forms of rtionaized time

space, but its institutionalization also depended on te corola to or-

ganized labor time organized leisure time Only wen workers ad

disposable income nd disposable time, only wen te days nd weeks of

te msses were segmented into workdays nd odays, workours nd

oours, cold suc products as e mnee or 1e woour feature

lm become standrdFilm, 1en, creates a istocaly specic sared temporai setting

limits on ow long 1e specttor can dwell on any one object or experience

ny one st, nd tus socializing ( or, we migt say, binding) e gze 3

Tus, to pause on a given image, to repeat an imge over and over, or to

double an existing lm in a remake or resoot become productively queer

ways to desocialize t gaze and intervene on 1e istorical condition of

seeing itsef Te ime as of l, video, nd instalation are, ten,

mode of bot close reading nd istoriograpy, an opical nd visceral

unconscious encoding wat is t once lost nd foreclosed Yet 1is aes-

tetic is not just desocilizing but resocializing, s it also reses to aban-

don te terrain of basic bodily need Deleuze and Guattris Wat Is a

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Minor Literature? ;' toug it trets te question of writing in relation to a

dominnt national language, is a usel te for tinking about tis queer

politics of cinematic sle, for tis essay describes semiotic insurgency in

terms of bodily pin nd pleasure teet nd tongues, bloted or unger-

ing stomacs 4 Deleuze nd Guattari write tat one form of minor litera-ture dislodges referentii by overloding te dominant lnguge to e

point of explosion via neologism, ypotxis, or semantic overpcking, as

in te work of James Joyce Tis is a kind of fat'' aesteic tat rebinds

ed menings and alows new associative cains to form Anoter form

strips te dominnt lnguge down to a bre minimum partaxis, repeti-

tion, and pronominal mbigui, among oter tecniques, rob language

of 1e senso pleasures of referentiai, as in te work ofGeude Stein or

amue Becke Tis migt be caed a in aes1eic nd produces e

same utimate eect of restringing 1e signiing cain In tese models of

gorging nd purging, bloating nd wsting 1e language, se a mode

of embodying languge itsef lso performs a relationsip to rater n

a mere duplication ofwat Foucalt caed discourse and New Historicists

referred to as cultura logic in ny given culure at any given time, te

dominnt paradigms witin wic not ony a but also lived experience

itself could take sape 5 As several critics ave argued, Fouculdin ndNew Historicist nlyses ave tended to en ot te reltionsip be-

ween imaginative te and te istorical formations witin wic te

re produced weter imagintive te are perceived as mere eects of

larger cultural forces, as equl to tem, or as indistinguisble from tem,

1e rest is a cein omogenizing of matters aestetic. But sle by

wic I men not ony or not even prmarily gures of speec but ll of te

compositional elements of literature, 1e visual as, and ive performance

encodes nd enas 1e bending o dominnt orm eter ft, tin,or some1ing else, se nei1er trnscends nor subses cuture but pries

it open a bit, rearranges or reconstitutes its lements, providing gimpses

of n otewisebeing tat is unreizable as street activism or as blueprint

for te ure

Tis book folows its te' unc 1at ermeneucs, 1e prope ofart as well as criticism, indirecy feeds 1e mking of new soci forms

across spce nd time at Dipes Cakabty writes of te nyic

soci sciences igned wit Marx is so true for pranoidsle ciicism

in 1e umnities tat it aempts to demsti ideology in order to

produce a crique 1at looks towrd a more just soci order' To is

Cakrab opposes 1e ermeneuic tadition wic produces lov

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ing grsp of detil in serc of n understnding of te diversi of life

worlds It produces wt my be ced ective istories [It] nds

tougt immeditely tied to plces nd to piculr forms of ife It is

nntey criicl of e niilism of t wic is purely nic

Of course, to do queer e nd tetul criticism witot somereltionsip to socil justice seems impossible merey to nme queer tess suc registers n impulse towrd not only understnding bt promot-

ing te diversi of life words Bt lso, to tke seriously tt lov

ing grsp of detil produces ective istories entis inking tt

bodiy motion ( grsp, clutc, res to let go) migt ve some

ting to do wit knowing nd mkng ist wit continuities, con

tcts, nd contrdictions mong pst, present, nd ture oug bo1

pysicl senstion nd emotionl response And indeed, Ckrbrs

Hist 2 seems especily ripe for queering wile Hist te

istwicpitl H tt subtends Grvess poem, is p of e

modernizing nrrtive ( s) of citizensip, bourgeois pubic nd privte

te ntionstte nd especily te opertions nd perceived inevitbii

of cpitism, Hist 2 emerges wi1in 1e logic of cpitl s mnifest-

tion of its contrdictions, frequenty s seemingy rcic mteril not

yet ly vnquised Lesbins nd gys, Jon DEmilio reminds us,emerged in just suc wy cpitlism broke up te mily economy,

producing subjects vilble for proects oer 1


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detail that do not accede to existing 1eories and lexicons bu come into

predictable contact wi1 them close readings at are, for most aca-

demic disciplines, smply too close or como. 3

Tis commitment to overcloseness also informs my sense of ano1er

oterorganizing term or tis book queer To me, queer cannot signala purely deconstructive move or postion of pure negativi In enjoining

queers to operate as agents of dis or deguration, critics like Lee Edel-

man whose compeing No Future ollows 1e Lacanian injcion 1at

tere is no sexual relationship) risk evacuating te messiest 1ing about

being queer 1e atual meeting of bodies wit o1er bodies and wi1

objects 33 ontact with oter bodies demads, and will generate, a gre,

as happens over and over in te batte scenes of It's a Queer Time'

Indeed, sex may bind selves and meanings, bu these must relatively

qckly rebound into antasies, or te sexua agents woud perish aer

only one release o energ Te fact t e seconda gure may be false,

or in a belated relaionship to t1e movement of desire, is less compelling

to me tan e fact at it is oen so beatil and weird Tus my rst

book, The eing Copx, began wi1 my ascnaion over a poly

morpous white child nding the wedding, of al things, a s table gure

and focus for er mtiple vectors of longing ad repulsion, paticulary in relation to her black nursemaid. 34 nd Tie ins began wen I der

stood someone else's selfpresentation as drag, if drag can be seen as te

act of plastering tl1e body wi1 otdated rather just crossgendered

accessories, whose resurrection seems to exceed te axis o gender ad

begins to tak about, indeed tak bck to, hist This drive to gure,

ong with our drive to love, surive, and mourn, is pa of our hist'

or at least our way of becoming and being istorica A much as sexua

dissidents have suered, lived as ojects of contempt or oblivion, endured pysic and emotion pisment, we ave aso risked experi-

mentation wi our bodies and 1ose o oters, with aliation, and wi1

new practices of oping, demanding and otherise making claims on the

ture, and tis as entailed an enormous commitment to te pleasure

and power of guration

For instance, among al the blocks of the ADS Memorial NES Qlt,

tat eraordina tribte to those who died om complications of HV

and AD, only one persists in my visual mem it said, I had a ABu-

lous time' the word fabulous" emerging from te label of a brigt

orange bote o laundr detergent. Queers have, it is fair to say, ab

ricated, conabulated, told ables, and done so abulouslyin at and tl1in

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a, and moe in te face of geat pain Tis is te legacy I wis to ono

ee, tat of quees as close enoug eades of one anote ad of domi

nant cutue to gathe up, liteay, lifes outtakes and waste poducts and

bind tem into ctitious but beautifl w) oles Because in takng cae of

ou \ we have aso been foced to stay close, to wash one anoessweatsoaked seets in Fab wen no one else would, I am ad pessed to

give up on sex and sociabili, especially sociabili and even eotics with

the dead, as ways o knowing and making

Eac chapte in tis book, 1n, exploes not only te sapnel of failed

evolutions but also one o moe moments when an established tempoal

ode gets inteupted and new encotes consequeny take place

wete o not I use te pope etoical tems, I focus on teual mo-

ments of asncony, anachonism, anastophe, belatedness, compes

sion, delay ellipsis, ashback, hysteonpoteon, pause, polepsis, epeti-

tion, evesal, supise, and othe ways o beaking apa wat Walte

Benjamin cals "omogeneous emp me35 Toug Benjamn used is

pase to descibe te spaalied, featueless calendical time acoss wic

the isto of nations supposedly maches fowad, I take it to be 1e case

tat 1ee ae, in fact, mutiple discusive egimes not educible to nation

ood t depend on emp omogeneous time. These consist not only ofhisto "pope but so coming out, consummation, development, do-

mesici, famy, foeplay, geneogy, identi, libeation, modeni, te

pogess of movements key concepts fo gay and lesbian as we as

o1e soci justice pojects and 1eoies, and a of wic take 1ei mean-

ings fom, and contibute to, a vision of time as seamess, unied, and

fowad moving 36 Quee tempoaities, visible in te foms o intep

tion I ave descibed above, ae points o esistance to is tempoa ode

tat, in tun, popose ote possibiliies fo living in elation to indete-minately past, pesent, and tue othes that is, ofliving histoicaly

e an intoduction 1eoiing ime and hist in elation to one an

ote, my st o captes focus on te familial times tat ogaie te

duational and te eveday in supposedly univesal o at least Westen

expeience geneationali and intiacy 3 Bot focus on wite women,

who have adtionaly been in chage of maintaining both integenea-

tional ies and the ousehold hyms tat mak middeclass belonging

Capte I, "Bad Timing, Junk Ineitances focuses on what I ca chrono

noaivi, te intelockng tempoal scemes necessa fo genealogies

of descent and fo te mundane wokings o domestic life. It centes

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on tee texts by lesbians in 1e 9s and 99s Cecilia Douges

eigmiute expeimenal Pixelvison video Coa Miners Granaugh-

ter 99 ) , Diane Bondes entfominute expeimenta 8mm video

The Physics of Love 998 ) , and Beta aiss novelLover 9) al of

which use e waad tempoalities of he female body to foil bodiacony and syncony and to aiculate a wokingclass dyke politics

of he cance encote In is capte, e ie pase "Bad iming,

Jnk Ineiances names both 1e eec of moden, whic is to say

eteonomaive, ime on laboing and pleasuing bodies, and te sate-

gies ese aiss use o imagine alenatives Chapte , "Deep Le uns

fom empoai to te queston of isoiogapy, fom the incomplete

ad awed pojec of class solidai to e aelife of wie secondwave

feminism his chape focuses on Elisabe Subins feaueleng1 inde-

pendent video Shuie 99) alongside e at instalatons of Ayson

Mitche fom o , in ode to poe e classicy quee pac-

tce of dag peomance as one of tese atenatives, at is, as a counte

genealogical pactce of aciving cultues owaway objects, includng

1e outmoded mascunities and femininities fom whic usable pasts

may be eated My name fo 1is pacice, as well as fo te set of

feelings 1a infoms it, is tepor raghe second pa of this book focuses even moe closely on istoioga-

py, in pat to inoduce e quesion of acial dieence Capte ,

"ime Binds moves ouwad again to coin a new tem at can capue

the cenai of pleasue, especiay sexual pleasue, in quee pacices of

encounteing and docenting te pas Establising a genealog of sos

fo what I cl erotohistoriogp, his cape moves fom Ma Shelleys

novel Frankenstein 8) to Viginia Woolfs novel Orno 98) o

1e analyc centepiece, ila Boughes independent featueleng mm metvel m The Sticy Fingers ofTime 99) his lm, I ague,

picks up on the latent acialiing logic of bo of the novels, fo in Stic

Fingers a black woman bo gues and blocks e sentimental anslation

of feeings acoss tempoay dispaate b odies, pecisey because such time

·aveling seems o depend on wie mnesia Capte 4, "n he Beat

Aound takes up te poblematic acialiing logic appaen in my eo

istoiogaphic texts by ing to Isaac Juliens eigminute lm The

Annt 9 9) In his wok, I ague, Julien uses oleplaying S/M as a

fomal device fo a new hisoiogapy, one ta aenaes beween sus-

pense and supise o beak up he oi�ng tableau of the slave auion,

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tus openng up 1e bodes of its actos towad a quee and black "botom

stoiogapy in wic 1ey migt ly clam to e omoeotics of e

slave tade on tei own tems

Taken togete, 1ese captes ae, in some ways, notng moe n a

seies of tougt xpements Lookng backwad, I can see ow 1ecisscossing enegies o postcolonal studies, sudes in medieval and

o1e socalled pemode peiods, and citcal ace 1eo made te

questions of times sexual poltcs ( and 1e tempoal potics of sx) , f not

inevitable, at least aleady asked in seveal deent idoms. Since 1en,

my own wok as emeged n ts nd stas aongsde, and oen in

convesaton wt, many exceent e1inings of tempoali n the name

of sxual dssdence, to wc I feel deeply ndebted 3 It s my ope tat

ees sill somehing to say on e suect (aloug as my wng

scede lagged fe and fe beind my bestlaid plans, I decded

at e book must someow estalis at beated is 1e new "now) .

But wat I cant oe is tat wic wod, in any case, folow te knd of

poectve logc t quee cutua poductons so oen dea: a neat

tanslation of 1eo into polcy, a pogam fo bee and moe adcal

lvng. Instead, I oe te most complicated gamble on tomoow and

teeae wtng To wte, ae , is ony to aad 1e possibilitat 1ee will be a tue of some sot, a "Quee Time o te baeld

of eveday exstence, n wc e act of eadng migt take place some

ow, somewee Ts book s my bet

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acknowledgments

Co1ting ones inteectual and pesonal debts is a biesweet fo1

of time tavel, fo it eminds me of both m geat fotune and some losses

along the way. Fanois Metes and a aootunans semina

"isto and Liteatue at the Univesi of Chicago in 99 got me

thinking abot Orano and poions of te pape I wote fo them

appea in chapte 3 "Time Binds, o, Eotohistoiogaph This book,

though, ealy began with an invitation fom Ann Pellegini to wite a

eiew of nda as eeen the oy an the Fsh fo GLQ poions of

which became chapte 4, "Tn the Beat Aound Lynda has since died of

cance, and ough I did not know he well, he book launched me into

thinking about sex and time in ways that make me wish I could have

convesed with he. Lucky fo me, eae Love asked me, on e basisof that eview, to contibute to a specia issue ofNe Litera> on

he "aelves of cultu studies Wih faith and sight, she shepheded

aong the essa that eventua became pa of chapte "Deep Le and

she continues to be a pince of a fiend and colleague. At that point, too, I

was luck to be taking pat in a eading/wokshop goup at New Yok

Univesi, whose membes gave the da a necessa and fo the most

pat loving kick in the pants I am especiay indebted to A Cvetkoch,

Lisa Duggan, anet akobsen, Ann Peegini, and Pa White fo theiinteenions and continued fendsip, and to Ed Cohen and Douglas

Cimp fo aendng to the piece on thei visits to the wokshop. Judi

abestam had faith in the poject ealy and saw sevea vesions of

things, aways oeng me he own special band of ensiasm and

ough love e citique and editing, as well as 1se of os Muo and

David Eng, wee invauable in 1e pocess of witing what became chap-

te 3 fo hei specia issue ofSocia on he new quee studies. A thee

continue to help and inspie. Mike Goode geneously shaed 1e poofs

of hs book with me befoe chapte 3 went to pess, and boe with m

citing his disseation in 1e meantime. Ellen Roone, aong with Ae

Cheng and ano1e anonmous eade, helped bing chapte 4 to fuition

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by way of publising an ealie vesion of it in erences Cvetkovic

and Anamaie agose kindy invited me o do a special issue of GLQ on

quee tempoaities I especiay gael o tem fo thei elp wit

he noduction, pas of wic veled o this book, and to e conib-

utos to that specia issue fo ei ideas .Eac of tese capes owes a geat deal, oo, o audiences at con

feences and i�ted lectues I wat paicualy o thank audiences at

the Univesi of Califonia, Bekeleys Cente fo Gende and Sexuai,

especialy Daniel Boyain and Michael Lucey Penn Sae Univesi En-

glis Depamens "isng Scolas Symposium, especiay Sco e-

ing my Damout umanities Insitue Futues of Ameican Stud-

ies plena session, especially Don Pease e Univesi of Pennsylvania

Speake Seies on Sealit, especiay eate Love and Amy Kaplan

fo te oug questions) and te aad Univesi "Sexuities acoss

the Discipines Goup, especiay Bad Epps and Oit alpen we as

feow paicipants and audience membes a te "Disciplining Time

oundtable of te Pemboke Cente fo Reseac on Women at Bown

Univesi, especialy ane Eio and Rebecca Scneide. I owe a gea

deal, also, to audiences close o ome, a e uc Davis Depament

of Englis Fa Lectue, Pefomance Studies Reseac Cluste (specialtanks o Kaen Simakawa and Sopie Volpp) , Quee Reseac Cluse,

and Englis Depamen Scolas Symposium

Beyond ose captive audiences, Ive been ve lucky to ave col

leagues wo ae fiends enoug to ead das of ings and oe tei

commens, encouagement, and inspiing examples Moly McGa stil

eigns supeme in is categ e geneosi, loyal, smats, and sense

of ave susained me moe than she knows Steven Blevins, Pee

Covieo, Rebecca Godon, Dana Luciano, N Lukes, Timoty Moton, Ann Pelegini, Aison Sonkwile, Kan Bond Sockton, and

Kaa Tompson ae fiends, comades, colleagues, and my goto people

fo stupidi cecks, oug wen ey ae done wit anyhng, te e

maining supidi is solely my own. Stephen Bum, Michael Cobb,

Gayati Gopna, Bisnu Gos, E L McCalum, Macia Ocoa, Mi-

cael ORouke, uana Maa Rodigue, Micael Snedike, Betany

Scneide, Ka Sugg, Kaen Tongson, Kate Tomas, and Mikko Tka

nen also lent me ei minds and heas at vaious moments, knowingy

o no Eileen oy paieny engaged wit wat became capte 4 on te

blog "In te Medieval Midde eanCisope Castei of Good Ma

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cine Poductions kindy spoke wi1 me wen I st began tinking

about The Sticky Fingers Time, and fo 1at I 1ank im

At c Davis, I ve been founate to ave sma colleagues wom I like

ve muc Magaet Feguson as been an exempla mento toug

is stage of my caee, and David Robeson and David S impson lookedae 1is books emegence ealy on Im gatel to a 1e ote membes

of my depament too, but paiculay to Se Caganti, osua Clove,

Lucy Coin, Geg Dobbins, Fan Dolan, Mak eg, Katleen Fede-

ickson, Desie Man, Coin Milbun, Eliabeth Caolyn Mille, Linda

Mois, Caeine Robson, Paama Roy, Mattew Statton, David n

Lee, Claie Wates, Evan Wans, Kal Zende, and Mike Zise o 1ei

geneosi wi maes intelectual, administative, o bot Ou depa-

ment sta headed up by Te Antoneli and then Dala ya, contib-

uted to my eseac poga in couness ways In geneal, te Univesi

o Califonia and e Davis capus ave been eaodinaily suppoive:

I coud not ave witten tis book witout a Pesidents Reseac Felow

sip in 1e Hnities in 20067, a c Davis Cancelos Felowsip

fom 2004 to 2009, and seveal c Davis mal Gants fo Reseac A

ellowsip at the Penn H1anities Fo at te Univesi of Pennsyl

vania in 9992 also enabled me to complete a st da of capte 2,1e st piece I wote fo tis book

I tank my gaduate eseac assistants at c Davis, too, fo ei

aienated labo and scholaly input Meissa Bende, Apil Boyd, Ca-

eine Fung, Anett essop, Samaine Lockwood, Vanita Reddy, Meissa

Stong, Julie Wilelm, and especiay te magnicent Kaa Tompson

a elped wi tis book immensey Katin Geim did some impo-

tant acival sleuing as my pedoctoal feow at c Das tudents in

my gaduate semina "Sexuali and Tempoali in TwentietCentAmeican Liteatue in 2005 and 2009 pused my 1inking Two unde-

gaduates, Meg Kavanag and Selene Stewa, asked the ight quesions a

long time ago Finay, te aists Ive woked wit ave been unstintingly

kind and patient Im gatefl to Cecilia Doughey, Shaon Hayes, Ay-

son Mitcell, Nguyen Tan Hoang, and Elisabet Subin fo lowing me

to pint images of tei wok and elping me obtain tem, Mona Jimene

o images fom The Psics of Love, Hans Sdquist at Video Data Bank

fo images fom Shuie, Tamsin Wigt fo images fom The Attenant,

ad to Nick Penose at c Davis Academic Tecolo eices fo is

wok on seveal ote images

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Ken Wissoke as been a amaing edito, 1failingly kind ad e-

cient te stat Duke Uivesit Pess as made poducing 1is book a

pleasue. I also wat to extend my thaks to Cistope Neaon ad

anote aoymous eade fo Duke fo 1ei eemey elpl com

mets on the manuscipt. Laue Belant gets cedit fo helping me getove myself and appoac Ken wit my second book Ad special tanks

to Lynn Lagmade fo te index

Finy, I am luc to ave suc geneous fiends ee in an Fan-

cisco, godmamas Loi Lamma ad Racel Robso, ooay a uties LiRodigue ad Melissa een, and felow lesbian mamas eate ad-

lock and Ka1y Vit ave saved me fom any numbe of time bids

Adey enet, Bigitte ililand, Emiy ilton, Daphne Magnawa, lie

Owe, Jenny agstomWanes, ad Lisa chille Teai ave also pe

fomed eoic escues and plied me wit cocktails. aa Lawton and

Aexada odon ave give advice and comfot. M dea Obeli

fiends A. K ummes, Deb cwa, nie Pipe, and Camia Endes

continue to inspie. Te hee ae hose wo ave ad e misfoue of

ting to makefil wi1 me wile I am on "book time B J . Way was

an ealy suee and I ak e fo e foiude. Amy Robiso e-

minded me of wat else 1ee was Diane Bonde, wose life was cut soby cace, was a steady pesence, and I miss both e and te wok se

could ave done My paents ad 1ei paes, Caoline Feema and

len oman, and Doad C. ad Magaet Feeman, buoyed me up.

M bo1e Roge Feeman ad is pane Miun gave elp witout

being asked. Jac Che deseves a meda, o at least my undying and

11ble tanks Ad Caoline "Fie FeemanCey as taugt me

eveing I kow about slowing down To Jac ad Fiey, especialy, I

owe te wold Ad a bit moe of my timePoions of 1is manuscipt ave appeaed elsewee as folows pef-

ace: "til e;' in 1e special issue e ex?' ed. Andew Pake ad

Janet aley, South Atlantic Quae' 16 , no 3 (summe 27) : 495

oo intoducio "Intoduction; i e special issue "Quee Tempoali-

ies ed Eliabet1 Feema, GLQA oul of esbian and Gay Studies 3 ,

nos 2 3 wteI spig 27) 5976 chapte 2 "Deep L Tempoal

Dag and the pectes of Feinism; in t1e special issue "Is Tee Life

Ae Identi Politics?;' ed Bil Abeini, Ben Lee, eate Love, Mike

Mine, Paille, Aice Rtkowski, and Ba Wagne, Ne Lite'a

H 3, o 4 ( tun 2) : 72744 capte 3 : "Time Bds, o,

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Eotostooa te speal sse "Was Quee abot Quee

Stues Now? ed Dad Eg, Jdt Halbesa, a Jos steba

Muo oc 885 (Octobe 2005) : 5768 an ate 4 "T

te Beat Aound: Sadomasosm, Tempoaty, Hso; deences 9

o 28) : 3270

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introducton: Queer and No Now

I Nguye Ta Hoag's video I.P. () , a youg ma fces a past

that may or may ot be hs Te video opes with series of graiy,

ckerg, blur sots of body pas ashig across te scree evetualy

it's cear that the scee shows o wite me avig sex he me's

shag haircuts ad sideburs ad the lowres qual of the video imges

suggest that the period s the 9 or ealy 98s For the f four-

mte duratio of Nguye's piece the scee skps ad stuers, wth

dropouts, black fraes, or smears of color occasioaly iterruptg te

acto The slght distoio of te mages, occasioa glare, ad f g

stac "sow idcate that we are ot seeig the scee drecy but ra1er

through the curved glass frot of a oldfashoed cathode ray tube tele

vsio Reected o the surface of the motor ots the ghoske faceof a youg mle e director mself, as t turs out expresso blak,

glasses gltig a bt, mouth occasioaly opeg slghty, as if to eat, to

suck, to speak, or as if simply surprised se gure )

KI explicity coects eerimetal video's tempora dssoace to

queer sexual dssidece: it ks the malleabili of lmc time to the

sexuay experimetal body To be sure, it has ay umber of qualites tht

e merely geeric to experimetal ad vdeo Eschewig the arra-

tve covetios of classcl Hoood cem, ts gere foregrous1 mdi's status s a "tme a'' ad emphaszes the costructdess of

its imges, te materiai of the productio process, ad/or te stor

cal cotigecy of its apparatus But Nguye's piece aso speaks to mass-

populr ways of usig lmc tempora to expad bodily possiblties,

ad of usg the bodys rhhms to reimagie what ca s ay ad do

The origial por tape's iteded audiece of ome video watchers, who

may or may ot ave bee gay but were cealy pacipatig i 1e

stgmtzed sexual practce of vewg gay sex acts, a presumbl got

te ter pleasures from just e k of remix that video techolo it-

sel eables For tey cold zoom the tape backard to te moey sot

as oe as they wated, witessig mutiple cmas far beyod the

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I Stil fo

Copyh Nye Ta Hoa Coesy of the as

capacit of the male body to produce them Ad apparen is is exacy

what these viewers did The temporal reshuings paicular to e rag

mented sex scene beween the wo h actors actua came from a

specic hist of consption, raer than sole from Nguen's manipulations at the level o production, as is generaly the case with experimen-

tal lm 2 In hs notes for I which appear on the oo of his complete

works, Nguyen describes nding a videotape ted "ip Noll Superstar,

Pa I 98 ) , a compilaion of the heniconc po star ip No's bestsex scenes put together by the proic pornography director liam

Higgins 3 Nguyen's cop o the tape, which he repos renting at Tower

Video in San Fracisco's Castro district, was damaged It had apparen

been rewound too man times to the most explicit sex scene, so that t1eimages now skipped and repeated, and entire frames were blurred or

erased In other words, "the hotest pa of the tape;' as Nguens noteputs it, appeared in his viewing o it as instances returning to themselves

over and over, and as a series of leaps across the bodi gesures or sexal

choreographies that we are ordnariy supposed to experience as smooth,

continuous, and natural

KI.., then, folows video pornographys logic ointeractive spectator

ship : the reected face becomes a gure for te way this genre enables the

viewer to deral te notve progression of sexual intercose from

foreplay to penetration to clima In fact, Nguyens reshoot and the over-

lay o an amost motionless face disconnect gesture from response, action

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from cosequece, by separatg them i tme4 Far from cosolidatig

the spectacle ad aturaizig power dieretials, IP suggests, the

medium of video, ad especi he gere of porograph, produce pow

erl sexual disorietatio ot the least of which is dis itegratig the

socaled sex act as if there could be oy oe) I keepig with thisderagemet of bodies ad pleasures, eve Ngues title breaks dow

tl1e i of "p Nols muscular body ito t1e alphabec, recomba

torial "KI P he reshoot itself the uses this logic of fragmetato ad

remxg to ope up gaps i the sexual dad, ivitig i ot oy a third

par i the gure of the spectator bu also, potetial, a ber of

viewers or eve paicipats I sho, Nguye seems to recogize tt a

hiccup sequeal tme has tl1e capaciy to coect a group of peo-

ple beyod moogamous, edurig couplehood ad this awareess, I

would argue, is crucia to revitazig a queer poltcs ad the that ut

farly recety has focused more o space a o tme

B porayig the reciprocal deragemet of bodies ad sequeces,

IP oers a throughthelookigglass view of how tme binds a socius

By "bids I mea to ivoke the way lt huma eerg is collated soat it ca susta itsel6 B "time bds; I mea somethig beod the

obvious poit that people d t1e1selves with less time tha they eedIstead, I mea that aked esh is bod ito sociay meaigfl em

bodimet tough tempora reglato: bidg is what turs mere exis-

tece ito a form of maste i a process Ill refer to as chrononoativi,

or the use of tme to orgaize idividual ha bodies toward maxim

productivi Ad I mea that people are boud to oe aother, e-

grouped, made to feel coheret coective, lrough pacular orchestra-

tios of time: Daa Luciao has termed t1is cronobiolitics, or "t1e

sexua arragemet of t1e tme of life of etire populatios 7Chrooormativi is a mode of implatatio, a techique by which

istitutoal forces come to seem lke somatic facts Schedues, cedars,

tme zoes, ad eve wrisatches iculcate what the sociologist Evitar

Zerubavl calls "hidde rhythms forms of temporal experiece that

seem atural to those whom t1ey prvilege Maipatios of time co

ve historica specic regimes of asymmetrical power ito seemigly

ordia bodiy tempos ad routies, which i tur orgaize t1e value

ad meaig of tme he advet of wage work, for example, etaed a

violet retemporaizatio of bodies oce tued to the seasoal rhyhms of

agricultural labor A eve broader descriptio of chrooormati

appears i Pierre Bourdieus discussio of habitus a social groups cuti

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vated set of gestural ad atttudal dspostos Bordeu argues that

"the duraly staled geeratve prcple of regated mprovsatos

structurg te orms of emodmet, persohood, ad actvi a

culture takes shape wt e rhyhms of gi exchage° For Bourdeu,

cultural competece ad thus elogig tself are maers of timg, ofcomg to hait a culure's expectatios aout the temporal lapses e-

tee geg ad gvg such that they seem or More recetly,

Jdh Buer has show how he rhhms of gedered peormace

specly, repettos accrete to "freeze masculii ad femi

to tmeless truts ofeg Zeruav's "hdde rhythms Bourdeus

"hatus;' ad Btlers "geder performatv all descre how repe

tto egeders idet, stuatg te od's supposed ut what

Netzsche cas "moetal e;' or stac exstece outsde of hstori-

cal movemet2 But Bourdeu aloe allows us to see that suectv

emerges pa tough masterg te culural orms of wthholdg,

delay, surprse, pause, ad !owig whe to stop through maste

over cea forms of tme I temporal mapulatos tat go eyod

pure repetito, hs work suggests, stitutoaly ad cuturay eforced

rhs, or timigs, shape esh to legle, acceptale emodmet

I chrooiopolitcs, ths process teds eyod idivdual aato-mes to ecompass the maagemet of etre populatos: people whose

dvdual odes are schrozed ot oly wth oe aother t also

wth arger tempora schemae experece elogg tself as atura I a

chrooiologcal soce, the state ad other stttios, cludg repre-

setatioal apparauses, k propery temporalized odes to arratves of

movemet ad chage These ar teeologcal schemes of evets or strate

gies for lvg such as marrage, acculatio ofhealt ad wealt for the

ture, reproducto, chldrearg, ad deat ad ts atedat rtualsIdeed, as the athropologst Joh Borema's work claries, socalled

persoal hstories ecome legile oly witi a statesposored time

le3 Ths timee teds to sere a atio's ecoomc terests, too I

the Uted States, for stace, states ow cese, regster, or ce h

(ad thus citzeshp, evetuay ected a Social Secur ID for

taxpayig purposes ) , marrage or domestc paership (whch privatizes

caretakg ad regulates te dstruto of privatzed prope) , ad

death ( whch teates the dettes lked to state eets, redstrut

ig these eets through famal chaels) , alog wth sudy prvleges

lke drvg (to jos ad commercal veues) ad seg te mlta

(thus icurrig state expedtures tt oe sere corporate iterests) I

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1e eyes of te state, ts sequece of socoecoomcaly "producte

momets s wat t meas to ae a lfe at Ad zoes ot y

reducble to e state , say, psyca, medce, ad law ag a

lfe etals te abl to arrate t ot oy tese statesactoed terms

but also a oelstc famework: as eetcetered, goaloreted, tetoal, ad culmatg eppaes or major trasformatos 4 Te

logc of tmeasproducte 1ereby becomes oe of sera causead

eect: te past seems useless less t predcts ad becomes materal for a

ue Tese teleologes of lg, tur, stucture te logc of a "peo-

ples ertace: rae a just e asfe of prate proper alog

eteoreproducte les, ertace becomes te famlal ad collecte

from wc a group w draw a propey potcal te be t

atoal, etc, o sometg else

Croobopoltcs aresses ot oly sequece bu also cycle, te da-

lectcal compao to sequece, fo e dea of tme as cyclcal stablzes ts

foard moemet, promsg eewa rate ta rupture Ad as ua

stea argues, te geder ba orgazes te meag of ts ad

oter tmes coceed as outsde of but symbotc wt lear me5

stea clams tat Woma, a s a cutura symbol, comes to be correlated

w1 e edless reurs of cyclca me, as we as te stass of mou-meta tme: e gure of Woma supplemets te stocally specc

atostate wt appeals to aure ad eter Lucao dates a par-

tclay AgloAmeca erso of ts aagemet to e early e

teet cetu, we separate spees were aboe a tempora: te

repettos ad outes of domestc fe supposedly estoed wokg

me to 1er status as uma begs espodg to a "atural ero-

met, reewg er bodes for ree to te tme of mecazed

producto ad colecte atoa desty 6 I te wake of dustaza-to e Uted States, se wrtes, moug was ewly recocep-

tulzed as a epeece outsde of oda tme, as etera, ecuet,

ee saced ad so, I would ague were ay umber of ote aecte

modes Mdeteeceu wtes gured matea loe, domestc

blss, romatc aacmets, ad eetualy ee bacelorood as aes

fom a eaess world ad, more mpoaty, as sesatos tat moed

accordg to ter ow bea Te emergg dscose of domestct,

especaly, culcated ad dated a set of feelgs loe, secu, a-

moy, peace, romace, sexu satsfao, motey stcts pa by

gurg tem as tmeless, as prma, as a 1a codto located ad

emaag from 1e psyces teror I s sese, e etee ce

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tu cbated "hat' xpincd by its own as th ba of achac

o calcitant snsations, was th laboing bodys doubl, th ip sid of

the sam coin of industialization. Th fa hat th wage systm pivat-

izd domstic activits also mant that thy cold b expeincd as

taking plac in a dient tim zone. In th home, time bound psons"back to "natu' a stat of innocnc hat could b dstood as

stoativ ony if womn's domstic labo w ly aced If tim

bcoms histo though its oganzaion into a sies of disct its

linked by cause and ct, this oganizaton in tun etospectvly con-

stucts an magnd plnitude of "timss tim to which histo can

tun and goup

Thus th monumntal o sacd tim at istva also dscibs as

"Womns Time does not escap chonobiopolitic gulation ei

Lucians cucia ension of and intention into isteva's wok dm

onstats t nations and o public foms of ngoupmnt dpnd

not ony on pogssiv, lina tim and th cyclical tim that butsss it

but also on th illusion t tim can b suspendd Pauss o intup

tions in e outinizd hys of eveday life, in the sequnces xpctd

to ufold natualy fom one anothe, become he matial fo a people

hood xpincd as p o apolitical, as my human In dscibingh naativ ttu of modn naoni, Homi B habha too ns h

distinction bwn linahistoic tim and mo static tims o

cycic and monta m h dscibs diacc bwn a "pda

gogica m n which histoica vents sem to accete towad a given

dstiny, and a "pomatv tim in which a pople cats itslf as

such though taking up a givn activi simtnously 7 ocitng th

masss to stop and fl togth, acivitis don in tandm wi stangs

sn and unsn, ik singing nationa anm o watching Oympics, vivi naiona blonging as a ma of shad motion ath than

civic aion. Bhabha clams that within pefomativ statgies of national

blonging, sss can opn up to suggst oth histoic momnts o

ways of iving d indd, as Luciano points out, in countpoint to l

tim of facto lif in th antebl Unitd Stats, a st o "pfoma-

tive sensations and copoa foms was imagind, o ven felt, not just

as a contibution to nationa dstiny but aso as an impdimnt to o

bulwak against th pdagogic tim of histo pop Mouning and

omanc, mpathy and acton w not segmntd into ocktim,

vn if highly ituaized pubic pomncs lik couship and giving

did foow timins th sntiments and ei pecivd hythms coun

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tered work time eve as they were also a product o it So did the time

of specic body eeds A Ei Zaretsky writes, he family, atued to

he atural rhyhms of eatig, sleepig, ad child care, ca ever be

whoy sychrozed with e mechazed tempo of dustrial capital-

ism' Emotioal, domestic, ad bological tempos are, though cuturally costcted, somewhat less ameable to the speedig up ad micro-

maagemet that icreasigly characterized US idustrializatio

ime's Wods

A Luciao puts it, i the dialectic beee liearatioal histo ad

cyclicaldomestic time, histo appears as damaged time time appears as

the pletude that heals the historcal suect Time, the, ot oy

bids esh ito bodies ad bodies to social bu also appears to bid

histors wouds Bu the gure o damaged time also became the siga-

ture of lateieteethcet decadece d modeism Of course, the

appearace of sexual ideti as a eld o kowledge ad seldescriptio

was pat of a more geeral movemet toward the abstractio ad ta-

oomizig ofma qualities, the reicatio of both space ad time, that

beg with idustrial capitaism 2 I this sese, homosexual idetwas simply the product a historical momet i time Bu sexual dissi

dets have also i may ways bee produced by, or at least emerged i

tadem with, a sese of moder temporai he doubletime o the

late ieteeth ad early eteth ceturies was somewhat dieret

from the highy gedered, sacred time of atebel domestic: ratherha evokig timelessess, it tracked i sigs of fractured time Its

sigate was iterruptive archaisms ickerig sigs of other histori-

momets ad possibilities that materiaized time as always areadywoded hus gay me, lesbias, ad oer pees have also sered

as gures histor or either civizatio's declie or a sublimely

turistic release from ature, or both 2 Here we might cite, or istace,

the poet Ree Vivie's Sapphic vampires, the ovelist Dja Bares's

hybrid aimal/ childI lesbia Robi Vote, or S Eliots sexuay alie-ated Alfed Prufrock declarig himsef to be Lazarus, come om the

dead 22 Seal dissidets became gures for ad bearers of ew cor

poreal sesatios, icludig 0se of a ceai couterpoit beee ow

ad the, ad o occasioal disruptos to the spedup d hyperregu-

lated time of idus

Freud's cocept of e coscious ackowedged exacy is doubed

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time: it elocated modenits tempoal spittings into te psyces in

teio and us fom tei mooings in istoicay specc canges) .

Feud teoied te "nomal sel as a tempoa phenomenon, te ego as

a manifestation of displaced and disavowed past expeiences. Te Feud

ian unconscious sd to make an expeience obsolete o to elegate itto past wiin te Feudian paadigm tat L


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costraiig rather liberatig: shame, passiit, melachoy, ad

recoil, to ame but a few, were ways of resig the progressie logic

by which becomg eer more isibe was correlated wi1 achieg eer

more freedom. 25 Lateietee1cetu pees, melacholicay at

tached to obsolete erotc obects or fetshes ey ought to hae outgrow,or repeatig uproductie bodiy behaiors oer ad oer, aso used pas-

tess to resist the commoditime of speedy maufacture ad plaed

obsolescece

Histo's Holes

Iteresigy, 1e diaeic beee ime ad hist has bee character-

isic of ot o EAmerica moderi but aso queer the, or at

least oe paricuar caricate of queer the "Ludic queer the, as it

has bee called, teds to aig itself wi decostructio, with e play

of sigiers ad the possibilities opeed up by uderstadig idetitiesas relatio, costructed, ad edlessy detoured to meaigs outside

1emseles 26 Isofar as decostcio depeds o the edless peetra-

tio of the whole by the other, curret meaigs by prior oes, it has

dismaed the ctio of a me fy preset to itself ad accessible assuch its detotaizatio of time has bee usefl to a queer the co

cered wi desire ad tasy But accordig to some critics, ludic queer

1eo has ot always cocered itself with histo uderstood as a collec

tie cosciousess of 1e sigicace, sigulari, ad sheer pai of ex-

ploitatio, or as coectie agecy toward relief from that pai 27 A more

somber queer theor o the other had, teds to aig iself with Marx-

ism, with socia coict ad suerigs iicted by powerfl groups, wit

a politcs attued to eed with histories ad ee wi Histor 2 Buttis ersio of queer teor as ot aways aeded to te agaries of

temporai, as practced ad as embodied, that make ew coceptos of

1e historica possible

Jacques Derrida's pece o Marx has bee a key te> for brigig ese

wo strais of queer the ito coersatio, isofar as it expicates

te "hatologica properies of Marxist ugt Marx, De·ida ar-

gues, eorizes a e1ics of resposibiit towad e o1er across ime

toward e dead or toward that which was impossible i a gie historica

momet, each uderstood as cas for a dieret ure to which we

caot but aswer wi1 imperfect ad icomplete reparatios. I this

Marx, e preset is tereby always spit, but split by prior iolece ad

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ure possibili raher than simply by he naure of signicaion2 A

Deida argues, we are thereby bod no only o hisor (ha is, we do

no make i jus as we please) , but also, and cruciay, to he oher who

always akes precedence and has priori and thus splits our seood,

deours our forwardmoving agenc Here, ime does no heal bu herssures hiso

prs o, hen, conibues o queer he0 he idea hat me

can produce new social relaions and even new forms of jusice ha co

ter the chrononotve and chronobiopotcal. This ca for a more

sensate, sens0 hisorica method aso appears in oher impoant criical

heories, wheher expliciy Marxs or no Waler Benjamin's concep of

shock' for instance, suggess hat modei reorganzes he human

sensorium. 3 Raymond Williams's phrase srucures of feeling suggests

l1at social change can be fel as well as cognively apprehended, and hat

i appears alongside dominan srucures in the uncanny persisence of

obsolee formaons and he prolepc, parial emergence of new ones 3

Jamesons mous dicm 1a his is what hs oers ano1er ex

ample: in his analysis, largescale social strutures set imis on individual

desires, even as works of imaginatve cion repress he fac of those mits

and provide ormal resolutions o irresolvable social conics 32 In Lyo-ards formulaon of 1e drd is ye aoher version of his0 as hu:

occurrences earn their hstorical eveness by delegimaing boh the

exising methods for !owing he pas and the forms hat ha knowledge

can take: in his sense, tra1aic experiences producively humiae and

discombobulae the knower ino new epistemologies, or a leas ino

feeings ha inmate the possibili of new modes of apprehension. 33 Yet

none of hese formulaions engages wih wha might be ced vugar

physical pleasure Even Derrida consisenty displaces his radicy po-rous ghoshos ino a visual and occasionay aural economy ( seeing and

beng seen, callng and respondng) , and p o Ma also nsists tlt

he ghost can ony be , at bes, a proshetc body.

Indeed, in conempora crical heo the body itself seems an im-

possible objec wih which or hrough which o hnk hisoricaly ame

son suggests hat body he0 is acualy he sympom of a ceain loss

of time isef, specicaly he deeply comparaivist time of modei 34 In

he moment of moderni's emergence, he argues, prior modes of pro-

duction had suved alongside indusrial capitasm o produce a sense of

lng in wo dieren time zones. There was something o compare

modern emporali to, hough Luciano's work impoanly suggess hat

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alteatve times were not so much prior to industrialization as they

were coconstructed within it For Jmeson, temporal heterogenei hs

been replaced by the instnei of 1e Internet, cell pones, d so on, and

it seems cler enough that when you have nothing le but your own

tempor present, it foows 1at you ave noing le but your ownbody'35 To do body o, he suggests, is to reduce histo to soming

timeless and permaent, to heal histor wi body pleniude in the way

Lucino describes denizens of ntebellum sentimental cuure doing

nd unfountely, gender and queer 1 ar Jameson's strawgirl ex-

amples of disciplines clinging to 1e con of a meless, monoliic

referent. Yet ameson so reminds us t the body is an insistny non-

present, non1ied nonenti We experience the body ough our

eerience of the world and of oter people, so that it is perhaps a mis

nomer to speak of the body at al as a substantive with a denite aicle,

unless we ave in nind 1e bodies of others, rater tan our own pe-

nomenologic rfrn'36 Queer 1or and feminist th have an

swered to cls for poststructurist nd aective historiography by fore-

groundingjust his kind of body, t is, one intelligible only ough its

encounters with oter bodies. Pace meson, tough, wht makes queer

o queer as opposed to simpy deconstructionist is aso its insistenceon riskng a ceain vulgar refrntiy, its understnding of the sexu

encounter as precisely the body and ego's undoing 37

Qeer th, then, pays antion to gaps and losses that ar both

strucural and viscerl: the atooreal limits presented by stigmtiz-

tion of AIDS, by violence aginst lesbins nd gays, by the unberble

heaviness of the gender bin Qeer theo also describes how specic

forms of knowing, being, belonging, and embodying are prevented from

emerging in rst place, oen by techniques that inmately involve hebody However, even in tese descriptions pain as taken center stge

Qeer melancoli 1, n especiay lush ccount of how l1 mourn

ing process bodies foh gendered sujects, insists that subjectivi itself

is a record of paings and foreclosures, crosshatched wi com-

pensat forms these absences engender With this paradigm, queer

becomingcoectiveacrosstie nd even 1 concept of ti itself

are predicated upon inj separations, injuries, sptial displacements,

preclusions, nd oer negatve nd negating fo1s of bodily experience

or traums tht precede and determine bodiiness itself, tt make

maer into bodies. This pardigm is indebted, via Jdi1 Butlers The

Pchic L o Power, not only to De·id bt also to Freuds eo at

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a body imago and eventaly te ego tself emerge from raw ser-

ng Wt Fred we gan te nderstandng tat s wat morpolo

gzes; t congeals ncoate senstons nto personay nd cltrally leg

ble forms of embodment we mght even say tat to Fred s what

stores. In On Narcsssm Fred descrbes ow te lbdo nvests nan ncomfoable loc sensaton sc as tootace by wc means t

dobles back pon tsef to delneate body pars as sc Fred sggests

tat te gents re peraps e most nsstent loce for sc ypocon

draca xaons 3 In e Ego and e Id he arges at from wn

ts Mbs loop of lbn selfaacment to senstve areas an n-

cresngy ned sense of bodly contors emerges and ese contors

materaze e ego tat s at rst a body ego' an nterconnected set of

perceved sfces and bodares. 3 Openng ese terms ot nto e

soca we mgt nk of engropent e collecve form of e ego

forged beyond fmlal tes as engendered by s process as wel as by

or ongsde crononormtv Body expeences of pan ncted on a

poplaton or ndeed te agony of beng socay redced to a nsreadng

of ones own body may nrm qeer socal contors a wonded mor-

pology of e soca folowng a wonded morpology of te ndvd

Indvd body imos n so are nascent coectve and stor-c formatons n at tey may arse from contngent nstttonazed

forms of h at are experenced smtaneosly and sve over tme

yet cannot be duced to te soca reaons of e mode of economc

prodon We mgt ca ese collectvey hed morphologes e rw

matera for a qeey nected conscosness that can old deconstrc

tonsm and storc materasm n prodctve tenson

Bt why s t tat even n qeer e ony pan seems so socay and

teoretcay genertve? ng back to Fred we mght ask why pys-cal sensaton whc e sees as te grond for body and psyce mst

lways be npleasant and even wy ts orgna bodly dspleasre s

eventay recast as te knd of tmescence or engorgement t only

peses experence In order to become ego t s Freds wod

mst eectvey be rned nsde ot nto a pas as Jdt Btler pts

t The gapng ole n e mot e panoply of orgnc and ypocon

dracal alments are synteszed n d smmarzed by te protopc

male gentals4 Bt even Ber's revson ofFred va te lesban pas

ony sggests tat te prma tmescence from wc te ego emerges

mgt be prodctvely relocted onto arms pbones and oter stes as a

way of tleorzng a lesban ego ; t doesnt calenge e paczng con

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struction of sensation" itsef Where goes that interesting aching hoe,

smptom of a ceain desire to be led up b et us risk a vugar

referent

One gure fr that he might be the open muth of 's simuta-

neus mourning and usting spectator, wo seems t want t ave sewi histo wi dead men, with men oder than he, wi an era and

pace barred b both linear time and racia potics Thus 's haun-

togica imaginings actua revise and g bend Spt o Ma and

much of the queer wrk that has fowed frm it b centering n ertc

peasure In tis igt, we can reread as mre n a gaarmatve

eperimenta m: it is aso a queer hantoogica eercise For Nguen's

videographic doube eposure epoits Kip No usergenerated discom-

bbuain oflmi and roti sequence, in order t jam historil se

quence In the remake, e reection of Nguen's wn face hovers ver a

scene f peniude e did nt wiess direc, a time that he never eperi

enced but neveeess cear murns for: the euberant moment when

urban ga men in the I970 and ear 98 cd pursue and enjo casua

se wi0t ate To ung, t racaized, t freign that is, to

queer b more than hafNguen cud not have itera joined the

pre white urban g mae scene for which Kip Noll Sup is ametnm But b superimposing is own image as a spectator nt a

scene a·ead containing a trace of earier spectators, with that trace in

turn present n in te negaive as gaps and repetitins, Nguen gura-

tive jins a cmmuni f past and presenttense viewers, some of

whom we can presume died in the epidemic r are nw serpsitve

And he dos so without ever presentng those peope or at communit

as compete or appreensibe, for uP.' I presume, is a ri not on

on Kip No's name but aso on , or Rest in Peace' indicating bothte desire to eniven the dead and the understanding t tis is never

wo possibe 4 acknowedges that wle psica contact across

time ma be ke the seua relation itsef impossibe, the ver wish fr

it demands and enacts forma strateges and poitica stances woh taking

serious

Lnging produces mdes of b1 beonging and being ong r per

sisting ver time 4 et this is mre than desire, fr desire is a form of beief

in e referenta ject tat te suject fees s/e acks and tat woud

make him r her we (and insfar as ths referentia bje is oen

posited in terms of a lost bject, desire is historigraphi a wa of

wrig tat bject nto he present) Ers, on e oer and, tracs

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less in belief than in encounte, less in daaged wholes tan in intesec-

ions of body pas, less loss nove possibili (will tlis pa t

into tat one? wats y gende if do tis o tat to y body? )

pes a poductive disbelie in the eeential oect, a disbe�ef stng

enoug to poduce se kind of pseudoencounte wit it tt isntwoied about the pseudo Hee, aice is pa of t1e pleasue the etish-

istic belie te lost obect is less ipoant te illaion o bt a

te s ae of te peoance of substitution itsef s quee

subect would thus feel a enco1te with what looks like a histoica index

not as a ested wleness but as a oenta eoganization o ezon-

ing o pas, even o the pawhole elation (will is pa of a collective

past t into y pesent, eake it in soe inteesting way? how does is

pa of y pesonal past estange a colleive pesent? ) He o she would

efse to wite the lost obect into te pesent, but t to enco1te it

aleady in the pesent, by encounteing e pesent itself as ybid And

he o she wuld use the bdy as a tol to eect, gue, and peo that

enco1te By cononting e eotics fha1tolg, intevenes not

ony on Specters o Ma bt also on te occasion fo at te: Shake-

speaes Hamlet O ae, aows us to estoe to Hamlet apleasur-

Z visceal sense f tepoal and histoic dissidence t even Deidafo the ost pa• skis

0 0 0 0 that hakespeaean Dag

Fllwing , we night ead hakespeae a bit e itealy F

when Pnce Halet says tat e e is out f ont e descibes te

as if its heteogeneit feels ike a skeletal, o at least deeply soatic, dis-

location4 In this faous phase, time has , indeed is, a body the disup-tion of pesent by past and te esuting disuni o t1e pesent see

visceal And so it was in the eay oden peiod of Englis histo

whee kinship iculated n bo e discsive and te physiolgical

senses o the te the body politic 44 That is, the eshy bonds of a-

iage ad paentage (te lae sealed ough a e�gious o eventuy

civil ceeony tt would legitiize an eventual ei) not only eta-

phoized asyeical powe elations but also diecy egated tans-

fes ad eges of authoi Hee ad thoughut Hamlet, then, the

bdy is less a etapho fo tie than it is t1e eans fo and eect f

convolting tie, and consequently the sooth aclne of political

powe, o te ode of te states poduction As Halet ecognizes,

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tme as body, and the times or te sphere of ocial politics ad national

histo form a joint the body and te state are, rather than mere meta

phors for one another, mutuay constructing.

But Hamt the play and Hamle e Prnce stick he gears of s

machne. Centered on a protagonist who eschews the marrage plot oreven its alternative, the revenge plot, hakespeare's play freezes narrative

movement, potcal/histoca progression, ad psychic development

John Hnt argues, Hamlet is a fantasa of corporeal disgement and

fragmentaton, reducng the han fo to a collecton of pieces whose

mrbdi ntimates ther vlent dissolution'45 Hamle's disaiculated

body, as we the bodies of those around him, both registers and peorms

time's heterogenet Indeed, the ver manner in which Claudius murders

Kng Hamlet eects generationa disarray and somatc disintegration A

the Ghost tels it

leepng wthn my orchard,

My custom always of the aernoon,

Upon my secure hour y uncle stole,

Wh juce of cursed hebenon a val,

And in e porches of my ears did pour

The leperous distiment; whose eect

Hods such an enmi wth blood of man

That sw as qucksiver it courses through

The natural gates and aleys of e body,

And with a sudden vgour doth posset

Ad curd, like eager droppngs nto milk,

The thn and whesome bld: so did it mine;

And a most nstant teer bark'd about,Mst azarlike, wth vle an athsme crust,

A my smooh body ( I 5 5973)

In this sted Edenc tale, Caudius, whom the Kng has already called

e serpent hat did sting hy faher's lie" ( 1 5 3 9 ) , pos a poisonous

iquid into the sleeping ngs ear, so at the King is feminzed not ony

n e mpicit anao to Eve but aso n tes of the naural gates and

aeys" f hs body The Ghost goes on to compare e ng's bod to

milk, anther female ud, and the poison t curds in the mik Given

that Hamlet hmself later makes e pun f hs mther lying n an en-

seamed" bed ( 3 4 92) , this supposedy femae milk looks suddenly and

suspciousy ike semen The leperous poison Claudius adminsters, and

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the fct tt the ngs bod eupts teters" nd crust' lso mke the

trnsmsson look venerel The st of Adm nd Eve hs here been

trnsformed nto st of Adm n Steve, scene of wht looks ve

much ke meonmle orl or nl sex cusng the rol house t f

from helt nto dsese, tmeless glo nto sord hstPerhps, too, Hmlet s compct wth t est p of ths st gven

hs dsnterest n mng Ophe, obsesson wt Cludus, nd psson

for Lees, ts not unresonble to ed the entre pl s lke KI

melncholc wsh for he homoerotc Eden tt s hs pls prm scene

In hstorcl terms, tht lost Eden mght even be the er pror to the

estbshment f the Church of Englnd, when Ctholc monsteres

shetered pssons beween men For Hmet, the tme for love beween

men s, ndeed, out of jont, s t s for Nguen, whose I mgnes

derent cuton beween pst nd present, bo nd coecvt

Thrugh I. we mght mgne derent Hamlet, n whch the Prnce

wold hve gured ut w t nswer hs cross genertonl nd sme

sex desres nd, s e openng nes of hkespere's pl put t, stnd,

nd unfod ourself" towrd other tmes (1.1 2) .

But the hkesperen referent for I


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bu erotc) we seem to have scrubbed from so much deconstrucionist

ad Maist critcism alike. InA Midmmer Nhs Dream, Duke The

seus and is parallel in te world, the king Oberon, move in

tandem with one another Wi eir enances nd exits exquisitely cho-

reograped in counterpoint, Theseus and Oberon demonstrate ow syn-chrony wi one oer ad power ov

Freeman Elizabeth Time Binds Queer Temporalities Queer Histories

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