Being Human and Living: How HIV/AIDS Established a Vocal and Visible Queer Identity Within Queer Poetry Leading into the 21st Century

Identifier

174

Author

Rachel E. Layton

Date

2020

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Major

English

Concentration

Literature

Committee Member

Cookie Woolner

Committee Member

Don Rodrigues

Abstract

This thesis examines how the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s - 1990s affected the ways in which queer poets wrote about queer identity. Firstly, it outlines the trends of queer poetry prior to the AIDS crisis and how those trends developed once the AIDS crisis worsened. It then discusses the theoretical approaches of Lee Edelman and José Muñoz, arguing on Muñoz's side that queerness focuses on futurity. The themes of urgency, honesty, and the lived queer experience are all discussed alongside the works of queer poets writing during the 1980s and 1990s in order to make the argument that queer poetry is focused on a futurity in which queerness is able to exist on even ground with heteronormative society. Part of this argument states that death is a driving force for queers to strive for life, specifically a future generation that may live outside the confines of "straight" and "gay."

Comments

Undergraduate Honor's Thesis

Library Comment

Honors thesis originally submitted to the Local University of Memphis Honor’s Thesis Repository.

Recommended Citation

Layton, Rachel E., "Being Human and Living: How HIV/AIDS Established a Vocal and Visible Queer Identity Within Queer Poetry Leading into the 21st Century" (2020). Honors Theses. 109.
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/honors_theses/109