Excursions Journal https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions <p style="text-align: justify;">Excursions is a peer-reviewed online and print journal, based at the University of Sussex and designed to showcase high quality, innovative postgraduate research that emphasizes and promotes the permeable nature of academic disciplines. The journal is published annually, each year with a different theme that attracts contributions from various academic fields, both at Sussex and beyond. The journal has been run by doctoral students for 10 years, and within that time it has developed a range of interdisciplinary collaborations with academics and practitioners from various universities and institutions.</p> en-US excursions-journal@sussex.ac.uk (Excursions Journal) Library.Systems@sussex.ac.uk (Adam Harwood) Thu, 20 Apr 2023 08:32:45 +0000 OJS 3.2.1.1 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 Foreword: Exploring the Meaning of Outside/rs https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/374 <p>Outside/rs 2022 was a postgraduate conference held on 2nd and 3rd April 2022 at the University of Brighton. The conference aimed to build a common understanding of the challenges in accounting for what we called Outsider experiences and positions, as they relate to gender, sex and sexualities. We invited criticisms, definitions and explorations of what Outside/rs might mean in relation to queerness, transness and beyond. This Excursions Special Issue showcases selected papers from this conference to continue the conversations we began at Outside/rs 2022.</p> Ashley Reilly-Thornton, Joe Jukes, Marielle O'Neill, Mélanie Salvi Copyright (c) 2023 Ashley Reilly-Thornton, Joe Jukes, Marielle O'Neill, Mélanie Salvi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/374 Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 "How Did We Get Here?" Etiology and Erasure in Trans History https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/375 <p>This article provides an overview of trans historiography, whose dominant form is etiological, searching for origin of contemporary categories of trans gender. Performing my own etiology of this historiographic tendency, I show the ways that it mirrors historic treatments of trans subjects, in privileging categories of&nbsp; body and identity over the lived realities of people and their communities. This academic fixation only repeats the historic and contemporary erasure that&nbsp; characterises transgender people’s everyday, and reduces the conceptual possibilities for trans thought and life.&nbsp;</p> Tomara Garrod Copyright (c) 2023 Tomara Garrod https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/375 Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 "Lesbian with the attributes of a man: Is a trans history of male masochism possible? https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/376 <p>This article is an attempt at presenting a case for thinking about male masochism—from its conceptual inception in late 19th century sexology, to its contemporary framing as a sexual practice falling under the umbrella of BDSM—as having close historical connections with the history of transness, and trans femininity in particular. In order to do so, I provide an overview of the way that the idea of male masochism as femininely gendered has been variously posited, contested, and disavowed across 130 years of masochism’s discursive history. Finally, I argue for the necessity of histories of trans femininity to accept speculative approaches as a valid way of thinking about the possibilities of trans history, and ask what political ends have been served by the “cisisfication” of masochism and practices of sexual submissiveness, which is rendering them culturally legible as having nothing to do with their practitioners’ gender.&nbsp;</p> Jay Szpilka Copyright (c) 2023 Jay Szpilka https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/376 Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Queering the Fens: an exploration of land, supernatural, folklore and queer reproduction as art making https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/377 <p>This essay refers to a body of work and research that considers the connections and intersections of the supernatural and Queerness. The project began with an exploration of ghost stories and their connection to repressed sexuality and identity, mediumship and its relationship to transgression of gender. This revealed notions of supernatural Queer male birth and how making art can embody this. A specific personal geographic location: the Lincolnshire Fens became important in its: liminality, landscape, wealth of folklore and connection to Queerness, politics, and the queer body’s relationship to the land. Working&nbsp; in a transdisciplinary manner I have produced charged and evocative time based media, using methods of creation related to mediumship and the&nbsp; supernatural. Particularly: performance, sculpture and drawing, woven into video installations. I have proposed speculative queer futures that challenge&nbsp; hegemony, examine queer identity and celebrate the downright weird.&nbsp;</p> James Chantry Copyright (c) 2023 James Chantry https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/377 Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 The Outsider’s Space In-Between: Renegotiating Monstrosity in Contemporary Transgender Short Fiction https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/378 <p>The image of trans monstrosity has been firmly anchored in mainstream North American popular culture, most notably through films such as Psycho, Dressed to Kill, and The Silence of the Lambs. This cultural vilification has had catastrophic effects on trans communities, stoking violence especially against trans-feminine people, promoting discrimination, and severely affecting trans people’s self-images. By analysing two contemporary short stories, Julian K. Jarboe’s I&nbsp; Am A Beautiful Bug! and A.K. Blue’s God Empress Susanna, this paper examines different approaches to the monster trope from trans perspectives and&nbsp; investigates the entanglements between trans identity, monstrosity, and disability.&nbsp;</p> Steph Berens Copyright (c) 2023 Steph Berens https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/378 Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 An Essay in Conversation: Queer and Queering in the Prison https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/379 <p>This essay is a conversation between two doctoral students interested in themes of queer and queering in the prison. We cover issues ranging from LGBTQ+&nbsp; social exclusion to the housing of trans prisoners within the gendered prison service, all while negotiating our different backgrounds and experiences of the topics. The essay delves into the idea of “change” and the complexities of challenging the prison system, whether that is the old Victorian buildings, the institutionalisation of staff members, or existing prisoners. We reflect upon these challenges from our unique individual viewpoints within academia and as a&nbsp; practitioner psychologist. We introduce proposals for our own individual research projects which both aim to gain a greater understanding of the experiences&nbsp; of queer prisoners within the prison service, expanding upon the previous work conducted mostly within the USA but also more recently within UK prisons.&nbsp;</p> Kayleigh Charlton, Sally Evans Copyright (c) 2023 Kayleigh Charlton, Sally Evans https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/379 Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Cosmic Dancers, Cosmetic Shells: Exploring the Queer Potential of London’s Blitz in the Early Thatcher Era https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/380 <p>This paper concentrates on the ways in which masculinity and male (homo)sexuality were challenged, depicted, and expressed within the New Romantic subculture of Margaret Thatcher’s first term (1979-1983). Centring on the subculture’s nucleus, the Blitz nightclub in London’s Covent Garden, which served as&nbsp; a safe space in which its clientele could explore their identities away from the prevailing Conservative ideology of the time, I examine the work of prominent figures who prompted reflections on attitudes towards mainstream gay visibility and the shift in representations of queerness within popular culture in Thatcher’s Britain. Considering the legacy of punk’s contradictory attitudes towards non-heterosexual identities and its ‘do-it-yourself’ ethos with questions of&nbsp; class, this paper questions the intersections of and tensions between identity and consumption under Thatcher. Tracking the rise of the young, arts-oriented&nbsp; demographic of the Blitz and those who facilitated the subculture’s move from outside, to inside of the mainstream popular music scene, namely Steve Strange of Visage and Boy George, I offer a queer reading of their output that illustrates the subversive subculture’s ability to bring non-heterosexual masculinities into mainstream popular music in early 1980s Britain, concurrently demonstrating that assessments of the subculture as being only&nbsp; aesthetically-oriented are too reductive.&nbsp;</p> Chloë Edwards Copyright (c) 2023 Chloë Edwards https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/380 Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Care and Loyalty in the Closet: A review of scholarship on sexual identity disclosure in queer South Asian women https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/381 <p>This paper highlights a gap in scholarship on personal and family relationships of British queer South Asian women and queer women of colour. It enables fields of study within queer theory, family sociology and intimate relationships to move beyond Western normative frames when looking at queer individuals&nbsp; and their relationships. Existing research on queer people of colour is limited and, where present, rarely focuses on diasporic British queer South Asian&nbsp; women. This paper looks at the diasporic context and highlights why the South Asian family unit should not be categorised as homophobic. It looks at how notions of ‘coming out’ and ‘the closet’ are Westernised and Eurocentric. It also looks at the use of ‘the closet’ as a shield emanating from a place of care for the family and self. This paper also presents queer women of colour as individuals who are moving beyond a binary of being queer and ostracised from family or&nbsp; as pretending to be straight to remain in their family, asking if this can also be the case for queer South Asians. Finally, throughout this paper, the discussion&nbsp; touches on the concept of ‘chosen families’ and how it may apply to queer South Asian women.&nbsp;</p> Pooja Marwaha Copyright (c) 2023 Pooja Marwaha https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/381 Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Multilingualism in Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater and Zahra Patterson’s Chronology https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/382 <p>Multilingualism is one of marginalised authors’ strategies to express their stories and identities when writing in what bell hooks labelled ‘the oppressor’s language’. It allows them to navigate language imbued with contradictions: the language that connects and provides terminology for some marginalised&nbsp; identities while being infused with various oppressive regimes. This article discusses the forms and roles of multilingualism in two queer life-writing texts:&nbsp; written in English and interwoven with African influences, Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater (2018c) is an autobiographical novel; Zahra Patterson’s Chronology&nbsp; (2018) is an experimental autobiographical essay. The scope and the forms of multilingualism differ: in Chronology, a significant part of the text is written in&nbsp; Sesotho; in Freshwater, the passages in Igbo are comparably scarce. Emezi, however, also adopts a non-Western register in the English passages as another&nbsp; strategy of postcolonial writing ‘in character’. The article argues that while the concrete strategies vary, the authors employ multilingualism for similar political&nbsp; and aesthetic purposes: they utilise it to challenge the presumed universality of the Western conceptualisations of identity, gender, and sexuality, to express&nbsp; hybridity and heterogeneity of the narrated identities, and for its potential to create intimacy in the language.&nbsp;</p> Karolína Zlámalová Copyright (c) 2023 Karolína Zlámalová https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/382 Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Sex Workers: The Outside/r’s Outsider https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/383 <p>Brit Schulte posits that the sex working person is confronted by ever-increasing demand as well as proportionately increasing criminalization and persecution.&nbsp; They also see the sex working person as representative of queer and trans*-- truly, of outsider subjectivity. The tension produced by these coextensive&nbsp; increases creates the conditions that compel an outsider (sex worker) to fight for an end to stigma and marginalization. This necessary struggle that they&nbsp; outline takes place in broader movement spaces, grassroots collectives, smaller mutual aid networks, and between fellow workers. Their essay highlights&nbsp; experiences within the above categories of queer and trans* sex worker-led community organizing, specifically drawing upon full-service sex worker-run&nbsp; mutual aid networks, harm reduction formations, tech-centred activism, and fetish provider-led collectives. Through personal and broader movement analysis, Schulte links sex workers' political fights to the broader struggle for labour justice under capitalism, locating sex worker organizing in our contemporary&nbsp; moment in a rich tradition of hustle and survival.&nbsp;</p> Brit Erin Schulte Copyright (c) 2023 Brit Erin Schulte https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/383 Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Queering the Schizophrenic Body: Re-orientated nerves https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/384 <p>In this paper I explore how some insights about queer embodiment can be applied to the subtleties of psychotic experience, introducing a recovery-oriented&nbsp; dialogue between a queer-phenomenological and phenomenological-psychiatric approach. More specifically, I show how some concepts from Sara Ahmed can&nbsp; complement the ipseity-disturbance model, with which Louis Sass and his colleagues have re-introduced phenomenological psychiatry to mainstream&nbsp; schizophrenia research.</p> Phyla Kupferschmidt Copyright (c) 2023 Phyla Kupferschmidt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/384 Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 A Black Queer Phenomenology of Space in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/385 <p>In Giovanni’s Room (1956), James Baldwin emphasises the Black queer space of architecture, particularly of lines, walls, and wallpaper. In particular, by using&nbsp; walls to highlight the existence of the poché, or in-between architectural pocket space, Baldwin generates an inside/outside space that facilitates a slippage&nbsp; and reclamation of subjectivity for his queer characters.<br>Throughout this novel, the characters seek shelter and are described as houses and walls themselves even as they are un-housed in spaces which, from an apartment building to the human body, are always permeable and temporary. Each wall of Baldwin’s novel is, like Black space and queer space, a site of tension and entanglement. These walls are complicated by Giovanni’s violent efforts to expand the architectural and symbolic space of his room. He takes a&nbsp;<br>hammer to the walls not to escape into another apartment on the other side of the walls but, rather, to open the poché between walls.<br>The poché is a liminal and undefined inside/outside space (even on architectural blueprints, when/if it appears). Baldwin’s use of the poché in this novel&nbsp; disrupts white and (hetero)normative expectations of space and classification, makes visible hidden histories, resists stability, and promotes inclusive&nbsp; assemblages.&nbsp;</p> Lucien Darjeun Meadows Copyright (c) 2023 Lucien Darjeun Meadows https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/385 Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000