Queer Fluidities
William S. Burroughs’ Conradian Traces
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12997381 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Benjamin J Heal (0000-0002-7053-4417, Institute for Literature, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of American Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1991-9336 • E-ISSN: 1991-9336 |
| Publisher | European Association for American Studies (PUBLISHER • FR) |
| DOI | 10.4000/15oy3 |
| OpenAlex | W7128907994 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 14 |
Burroughs’ works continue to be of interest to contemporary criticism as examples of the mutable subject, with experiments ranging from the editing (and endless re-editing) of a text, to the active production of open-ended, oscillating, fluid texts and transmedial productions and collaborations. Frequently noting the influence of Joseph Conrad on his works as a comparative anchor, this essay builds a historical/contextual analysis of the resonances between the writers’ works in their contemporaneous contexts, while considering the symbolic function of the sea and fluidity in those works. In this context, Burroughs’ works demonstrate a fluidity that reflects motifs present in several of Conrad’s works, which present bodies of water as sources of psychological darkness, unknowability and disconnection. These sensibilities are especially apparent through Burroughs’ attacks on what he saw as the negative psychological effects of twentieth-century American Neo-Imperialism and cultural hegemony through non-linear literary techniques, and explicit homosexual imagery where fluid of all forms acts as an anti-binary source of connection. This article will consider such distinctions, exploring further the parallels between Conrad and Burroughs’ works in the contexts of the sea and fluidity, as sites and spaces of queer resistance
American literature · Criticism · Hegemony · Parallels · Queer · The Symbolic · American and British Literature Analysis · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Poetry Analysis and Criticism
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |