Lovecraftian Queerness: Weird and Queer Temporalities in <em>Lovecraft Country</em> and <em>Detransition, Baby</em>

<p>By analyzing H. P. Lovecraft’s work through the lens of queer temporality, I offer a queer perspective on Lovecraft, reading the monstrous outside in his work as a queer figure and casting the temporal conflict common to Lovecraftian horror as a conflict between dominant time and outside time. I argue that, by placing queerly-temporal protagonists in conflict with dominant temporalities, queer fiction is essentially an inversion of Lovecraftian horror. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope of the novel, I develop a theory of the queer chronotope in fiction to align with the queer temporalities that queer characters inhabit. I then analyze queer chronotopes in HBO’s Lovecraft Country, demonstrating where the show fell short in embracing queer time. In contrast, I offer a reading of temporality in Torrey Peters’ trans novel Detransition, Baby, arguing that it is a queerly temporal narrative that authentically represents the queer experience.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year dc:date.available

2023

Author dc:creator

• Dye, Eurydice

Contributors dc:contributor

• Morgan Read-Davidson
• Ian Barnard
• Joanna Levin

• Queer
• queer time
• queer temporalities
• Lovecraft
• Bakhtin
• chronotope
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies
• Literature in English, North America

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/english_theses/57

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.chapman.edu:english_theses-1060