Queer x Trans Memoir: In Sight of an Embodied HistoryMain MenuWelcome to the ExhibitQueer x Trans* Memoir: In Sight of an Embodied History. Rhyan WarmerdamThe Memoirs"I was reaching for an embodied history, a past I could touch” -My Autobiography of Carson McCullersThe Map"Places are never just places in a piece of writing...Setting is not inert. It is activated by point of view” -In the Dream HouseThemes"Opposites can be transformed into each other" -Manuel De LandaTheoretical Framework and Critical Reflections"I’ve composed this memoir as a way to understand the fragments in relation to one another" -Jan ClausenWorks CitedRhyan Warmerdamd653787cdc72137b9ef84f52d431133c771ca9b7Rhyan Warmerdam
12023-07-24T22:01:46+00:00Welcome to the Exhibit54Queer x Trans* Memoir: In Sight of an Embodied History.plain2023-08-01T04:33:26+00:00
“The memoir is, at its core, an act of resurrection. Memoirists re-create the past, reconstruct dialogue. They summon meaning from events that have long been dormant. They braid the clays of memory and essay and fact and perception together, smash them into a hall, roll them flat. They manipulate time; resuscitate the dead. They put themselves, and others, into necessary context” -Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“I hold one thickly braided cord as story" -Cherrie Moraga, Native Country of the Heart
“If biography is peering through the windows of someone’s house and describing what you see…memoir is peeking into the windows of your own life. A voyeurism of the self. An interior looting” -Jenn Shapland, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers
The “X” in the title of this project — Queer x Trans Memoir: In Sight of an Embodied History — stands for the multiplicity of queer identity: the "x" a multiplication sign that indicates an action in itself. It stands for the continuous movement of queer identity, an identity always in motion.
Reading and writing on these memoirs has changed the way that I understand queerness, and therefore the way I view my self. In My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, memoirist Jenn Shapland similarly writes, "Carson is changing as I write about her, and so am I" (119). Queerness shows us that the self is always up for revision and modes of thinking need not be stagnant. I hope that viewing this project will help redirect you toward new creative paths of thinking, just like creating it did mine.