Performance duo Gerard & Kelly explore in their performance installation Timelining the way different actors in interpersonal relationships acquire their own histories and perspectives. By having performers narrate their shared history from their personal perspectives, two stories emerge that sometimes overlap and sometimes diverge. In this way, Gerard & Kelly seek ways to narrate stories about relationships without losing sight of the individual perspectives of those involved.
Legibility. Ed, Janna Houwen and Esther Peeren. Leiden: Brill.
In this article, I explore Samuel Delany’s novel Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders (2011), which is filled with extreme sexual fantasies and taboos regarding bodies and race. Delany, I suggest, employs these taboos to pave the way for sexual encounters that promise a sexual politics of coalitions beyond racism and discrimination.
In: hij/hem. Een ABC van regenboogboeken. Ed. Eric de Rooij, Coen Peppelenbos en Doeke Sijens. Groningen: Kleine Uil.
Louis Couperus’ De Stille Kracht is often read either as an anti-colonial novel, or as a novel in which Couperus could express his own non-normative sexual desires. However, these two readings cannot easily coincide–there is a tension between the two of them. In this article, I examine how a queer reading of this novel problematizes an anti-colonial interpretation, while at the same time an anti-colonial reading reduces the queer potential of the novel.
In this introduction to a special issue of Arabesken, I advocate for a reevaluation of Louis Couperus’ work through the lens of contemporary research on gender and sexuality. This approach, I argue, lends new meanings to his novels and characters, potentially engaging a new generation of readers with his work.
Leidschrift: Historisch Tijdschrift 35.2
With Nynke Feenstra. Arts in Society: Academic Rhapsodies. Ed. Sophia Hendrix, Merel Oudshoorn, Lieke Smits en Tim Vergeer. Leiden: Leiden University Library.
In my PhD thesis, I investigate the work of American author James Purdy. In his novels from the 1950s and 1960s, he rebels against the idea that sexual identity is inherent to a person. Instead, he tries to invent a language that demonstrates that sexuality is something one does, not what one is. This causes tensions among characters who resist committing to limited and limiting sexual categories and the people in their surroundings, who refuse to understand them as long as the cannot be neatly placed into categories of sexual identity.
Due to the introduction of digital television and online media, the relationship between content creator and spectator has shifted radically. This became painfully evident when online fans of the television show RuPaul’s Drag Race revolted against the use of transphobic slurs that were jokingly used on the show and had been part of it ever since its inception. Using this case as a basis, I investigate how digital interactions between content creators and audience provide the opportunity to democratize and queer media landscapes.
Proceedings from the SSSCP 2015. Ed. Stanimir Panayotov. Belgrade: IPAK. Center. 2016.
Coauthored with Gerlov van Engelenhoven. Barbarism Revisited: New Perspectives on an Old Concept. Ed. Maria Boletsi and Christian Moser. Leiden: Brill. 2015.
Gay and Lesbian Review 30.1.
English Studies 101.2.
TMG: Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis 23.1-2. DOI: 10.18146/tmg.677
English Studies 100.8.
Bodies 1.1.
Vooys 33.4.
Arabesken 56
Co-edited with Margriet Fokken. Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies 23.2
Co-edited with Fleur van Leeuwen. Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies 22.3.
Co-edited with Liesbeth Minnaard and Eliza Steinbock. Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies 21.4.
Co-edited with Liesbeth Minnaard and Eliza Steinbock. Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies 20.4.