Fatty Fatty Two-by-Four—Can’t Get Through the Dressing Room Door?: An Examination of Excess as Queer Failure

<p>Failure and fat are not linear. It is taught, learned, reminded, and internalized. Our bodies have memories that are built through repeated moments. And for me, failure has been a part of my body’s map since I was born. This project is the culmination of many failures. In this dissertation, I am examining queer failure in multiple contexts including body size, as well as religion to create a corpulent critique. I do this by examining the lineage of queer failure as well as queer temporality as it is linked to failure (Edelman; Muñoz; Halberstam; Love) with fat queer bodies serving as foundational elements. Informed by LeMaster, I understand queer failure in the context of fatness as being imbued with a potentiality for creation. In addition, Love frames my queer temporal understanding of fatness as “looking behind” even as one traverses the linearity of straight time (5). In doing this, I connect the ways in which queer and fat temporalities often exist as failures when juxtaposed to heteronormative and normative-body- size temporalities. By using critical autoethnography and cultural critique, I demonstrate the way in which my body is implicated in always-being-too-much and never-being-enough. By weaving together my stories with Lilith and Ursula, I examine how fatness and failure create a new branch of queer failure that examines how they are linked in a way that provides possibilities for revolution instead of despair.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Year dc:date.available

2021

Author dc:creator

• Olzman, Miranda Dottie

Contributors dc:contributor

• Santhosh Chandrashekar
• Bernadette M. Calafell
• Erin K. Willer
• Frédérique Chevillot

• Fat studies
• Intersectionality
• Performance studies
• Pop culture
• Queer failure
• Queer temporality
• Communication
• Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication
• Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• Women's Studies

Statement dc:rights

• <p>Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.</p>

Language dc:language

en

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1970

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.du.edu:etd-2963