RECLAIMING QUEER TIME: QUEER TEMPORALITIES IN ALI SMITH'S "HOW TO BE BOTH"

Corpus Navalón-Guzmán

doi:10.34739/fci.2023.04.06

Authors

Corpus Navalón-Guzmán University of Murcia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34739/fci.2023.04.06

Keywords:

Queer Temporalities, Queer Time, Non-linearity, Queer Narrative, Queer Studies, LGBTQIA+ Identity

Abstract

This article examines the different manifestations of alternative temporalities in Ali Smith’s Goldsmiths Award novel How to be Both (2014). My argument is that the novel ‘queers’ understandings of time in two significant ways: by highlighting new possibilities of narrative structure that challenge linear conceptions of time and by questioning regulated notions of developmental temporalities in terms of progression from childhood to heteronormative adulthood. Hence, by drawing on the compelling framework of queer temporalities, the main goal of this article is to analyze the mechanisms deployed by Ali Smith to generate unprecedented configurations of queer time.

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