Date of Award
Winter 12-1-2014
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Human Development (MHD)
Department
Biology
Abstract
The critique of Orientalism's binary logic finds a complementary analysis in the questioning of static sexual and gender categories. There is already significant research that points to these intersectional critiques—for instance, Joseph Massad's Desiring Arabs and Jasbir K. Puar’s Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. In this paper, I will use analyses of Orientalism to review the ways in which hegemonic knowledge and binary logic contribute to the invisibility of non- conforming gender and sexual identities. In other words, I will use the language and lens of critiques of Orientalism to observe, analyze, and comment on the current politics of inclusion. Although the intersection of post-Orientalism with Queer Theory is an emerging field of study, there is already an abundance of literature on the subject. As a result, I have decided to primarily focus on the practice and discourse of “coming out of the closet.” That is, the ideology of "modern" western sexual citizenship in which the practice of "coming out" is heralded as liberating in fact only reinforces hegemonic knowledge and thus control of bodies and pleasures by, for instance, supporting the notion of the "authentic homosexual."
Recommended Citation
Bonapace-Potvin, Michelle, "Orientalism and "Authentic Homosexual": How "The Closet" Reinforces Hegemonic Knowledge and Binary Logic, Contributing to the Invisibility of Non-Conforming Gender and Sexual Identities" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 6592.
https://commons.und.edu/theses/6592
