Presentation Title
An Unconscious Muse: The Irresistible Forces of Femininity and Queerness in Writing
Faculty Mentor
Anne Richards
Start Date
18-11-2017 11:30 AM
End Date
18-11-2017 11:45 AM
Location
15-1802
Session
Interdisciplinary 1
Type of Presentation
Oral Talk
Subject Area
creative_arts_design
Abstract
Over the years of writing fiction, poetry, and personal essays, a persistent theme – or, as I’ve experienced it, a demanding muse – has developed the direction of my creative work: my relationship with the feminine. As I consciously questioned sexuality and gender identity, an unconscious answer emerged in the dynamic relationship between two female characters in a lifelong project, and in the eros and agape of my poetry. My creative work has celebrated the feminine and honored the relationships between women, even as I rejected femininity in my struggle with internalized heterosexism. In reviewing the trajectory of my poetry and fiction, I highlight creativity’s liberating power for myself and, by extension, everyone else in our cisheteronormative society of repressed femininity.
Summary of research results to be presented
My creative work has celebrated the feminine and honored the relationships between women, even as I rejected femininity in my struggle with internalized heterosexism. It was the persistence of this creative focus that brought me to understand that the source of my queer questioning originated in internalized sexism that rejected the feminine within me and looked down upon the close bonds I desired with other women. My unconscious turned the very thing I tried to repress, my relationship with the feminine, into my creative muse. In reviewing the trajectory of my poetry and fiction, I highlight creativity’s liberating power for myself and, by extension, everyone else in our cisheteronormative society of repressed femininity.
An Unconscious Muse: The Irresistible Forces of Femininity and Queerness in Writing
15-1802
Over the years of writing fiction, poetry, and personal essays, a persistent theme – or, as I’ve experienced it, a demanding muse – has developed the direction of my creative work: my relationship with the feminine. As I consciously questioned sexuality and gender identity, an unconscious answer emerged in the dynamic relationship between two female characters in a lifelong project, and in the eros and agape of my poetry. My creative work has celebrated the feminine and honored the relationships between women, even as I rejected femininity in my struggle with internalized heterosexism. In reviewing the trajectory of my poetry and fiction, I highlight creativity’s liberating power for myself and, by extension, everyone else in our cisheteronormative society of repressed femininity.