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    STUDIA PHILOLOGIA - Issue no. 4 / 2016  
         
  Article:   SEXUALITY, VIOLENCE AND THE HOMOSEXUAL-HOMOPHOB MOMENT IN MIRCEA CĂRTĂRESCUS TRAVESTIE / SEXUALITÄT, GEWALT UND DAS HOMOSEXUELL-HOMOPHOBE MOMENT IN MIRCEA CĂRTĂRESCUS TRAVESTIE.

Authors:  VERENA MERMER. 		 
       
         
  Abstract:  Sexuality, Violence and the Homosexual-Homophob Moment in Mircea Cărtărescus Travestie. The following article deals with the theme of male homosexuality in Mircea Cătărescu’s novel Travestie. The key scene in which the juvenile narrator is molested by another boy is discussed in depth. It can be cross-read with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s scholarly piece Epistemology of the Closet. The closet and the door are two symbols that occur in the narrator’s dreams and link the traumatic experience of harassment with the childhood memory of being dressed as a girl by his mother and being suddenly deprived of the skirts and dolls. Given the lack of ability to name the double abuse that took place, the narrator’s reflexion leads to homophobic utterances. Nevertheless the novel also problematizes heterosexual relationships, especially for their negative impact onto intellectual performance. Another aspect is the setting of the story and its references to past epochs, e.g. architecture, and their sexual discourse. The junction of the homosexual’s death in the real world and the narrator’s homicidal fantasies can be linked to Sedgwick’s theoretical discussion of ‚gay genocide‘.

Keywords: Mircea Cărtărescu, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Michel Foucault, Queer Studies, Homosexuality, Homophobia, Homosexual Panic, Romanian Literature, Sexuality, Symbols.
 
         
     
         
         
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