Introduction -- Approaching intersex: conceptual and theoretical framework -- The intersex movement on the 1990s: speaking out against medical and narrative violence -- Challenging dominant narratives from within: autobiography as a critical reflection on the paradigm shift in intersex narratives -- Reimagining intersex: literary renegotiations of the dis/continuities between hegemonic narratives and the recognition of 'difference' -- Screening intersex at prime time: intersex in/as a state of emergency and popular culture's un/acceptable interventions -- "We exist, we are human, we are everywhere among you": A conclusion
This book explores representations of intersex - intersex persons, intersex communities, and intersex as a cultural concept and knowledge category - in contemporary North American literature and popular culture. The study turns its attention to the significant paradigm shift in the narratives on intersex that occurred within early 1990s intersex activism in response to biopolitical regulations of intersex bodies. Focusing on the emergence of recent autobiographical stories and cultural productions like novels and TV series centering around intersex, Viola Amato provides a first systematic analysis of an activism-triggered resignification of intersex.
Cover Intersex Narratives -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1 Contextualization: Intersex at the Intersection of Medicalization, Human Rights Issues, and Ethical Debates -- 1.2 Positioning of the Study in North American Intersex Studies -- 1.3 Primary Corpus and Structure of the Study -- 2. Approaching Intersex: Conceptual and Theoretical Framework -- 2.1 Concepts and Terminology -- 2.2 Intersex as a Contested Category -- 2.3 The In/Visibility of Intersex: Visualization Practices, the Medical Gaze, and the Biopolitical Regulation of Intersex Bodies -- 2.4 The Dilemma of Intelligibility and Strategies of Survival: Intersex between 'Normalization' and Resistance -- 3. The Intersex Movement of the 1990s: Speaking Out Against Medical and Narrative Violence -- 3.1 The Paradigm Shift from Medical Narratives to Narrating Personal Experience -- 3.2 Fragmented Bodies, Fragmented Realities: First-Person Narratives of Intersex Lives, 1994-2002 -- 3.2.1 'Normalizing' Intersex Bodies: The Medico-Cultural Erasure of Intersex and the Renegotiation of 'Loathsome Options' of Recognition -- 3.2.2 Medical Gaze vs. Visual Self-Invention: The Performativity of Genitals and the Construction of Sexuality -- 3.2.3 Making Up for the Absence: Redefining Sexual Pleasure and the Challenging of Heteronormative Ideas of Gender and Sexuality -- 3.2.4 Intersex in the Eyes of Lovers: Overcoming Sexual Trauma and the Eroticizing of the Intersex Body -- 3.2.5 "Sharing Our Stories, Our Lives, Our Anger": Ideas of Community and the Collective Rearticulation of Intersex -- 4. Challenging Dominant Narratives From Within: Autobiography as a Critical Reflection on the Paradigm Shift in Intersex Narratives -- 4.1 Coming Out as Intersex - and What Next? Intersex Autobiographical Writing against the Limits of Representation.
This book explores representations of intersex - intersex persons, intersex communities, and intersex as a cultural concept and knowledge category - in contemporary North American literature and popular culture. The study turns its attention to the significant paradigm shift in the narratives on intersex that occurred within early 1990s intersex activism in response to biopolitical regulations of intersex bodies.Focusing on the emergence of recent autobiographical stories and cultural productions like novels and TV series centering around intersex, Viola Amato provides a first systematic analysis of an activism-triggered resignification of intersex.
This book explores representations of intersex – intersex persons, intersex communities, and intersex as a cultural concept and knowledge category – in contemporary North American literature and popular culture. The study turns its attention to the significant paradigm shift in the narratives on intersex that occurred within early 1990s intersex activism in response to biopolitical regulations of intersex bodies. Focusing on the emergence of recent autobiographical stories and cultural productions like novels and TV series centering around intersex, Viola Amato provides a first systematic analysis of an activism-triggered resignification of intersex.
This book explores representations of intersex - intersex persons, intersex communities, and intersex as a cultural concept and knowledge category - in contemporary North American literature and popular culture. The study turns its attention to the significant paradigm shift in the narratives on intersex that occurred within early 1990s intersex activism in response to biopolitical regulations of intersex bodies. Focusing on the emergence of recent autobiographical stories and cultural productions like novels and TV series centering around intersex, the author provides a first systematic analysis of an activism-triggered resignification of intersex.
