Queer Defamiliarisation: Writing, Mattering, Making Strange

Description

A new theory of defamiliarisation as a process of queering, and of queering as a process of defamiliarisationThe first book to examine defamiliarisation from a contemporary critical perspectiveEngages with new materialist feminisms and queer theoryDemonstrates the importance of a simultaneously creative and critical approach by providing a gendered rewriting of Joyce’s chapter 'Oxen of the Sun' from Ulysses Helen Palmer examines the Russian formalist concept of defamiliarisation, or making-strange, from a contemporary critical perspective, bringing together new materialist feminisms, experimental linguistic formalism and queer theory. She explores how we might radically restructure this gesture of making-strange to create a dialogue with the affirmations of deviant, errant, alternative and multiple modes of being which have become synonymous with queer theory. Queer theory affirms multiple dimensions of sexuality and gender, while defamiliarisation celebrates shifts in perception. Palmer explores these processes from a number of literary and philosophical angles, concluding with a creative epilogue written in the voices of women throughout history.