Eyes wide with it: Sex, surprise, and gender transformation in literary fiction
Lead Research Organisation:
Manchester Metropolitan University
Department Name: English
Abstract
This critical-creative thesis aims to address the question, How do we write sex better? It comprises two components:
1. A critical enquiry exploring how sexual activity is depicted in contemporary Anglophone literary fiction written by living writers, set in the present day. The focus will be on sex writing embedded within mainstream fiction - as opposed to fiction marketed as erotica - and centre around writers Miranda July, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Eimear McBride, and Maggie Nelson, whose work interacts with this enquiry.
2. A novel entitled Eyes Wide With It, which will attempt to integrate "better" sex writing - as explored and articulated in my critical enquiry - within an original work of literary fiction that subverts thematic norms around sex (as unpacked below), and experiments with linguistic formal play by blending poetry and prose. In Summer 2012 in Hackney, three young women, an environmental activist and her disabled mother, and a male teenage elective mute, find their lives colliding as an MI5 surveillance mission takes place in their street. Through these characters and events, I will creatively explore the ways alcohol and drugs, disability, race, and gender impact sexual behaviours. I will attempt 'gender transformation' by depicting sexualised bodies in ways that challenge the unequal power dynamics underlying intersectional inequalities, for example, through linguistic choices, narrative voice, and characterisation. My approach will draw on the experience I gained writing my debut novel Let Me Be Like Water Melville House, UK & US, 2018).
1. A critical enquiry exploring how sexual activity is depicted in contemporary Anglophone literary fiction written by living writers, set in the present day. The focus will be on sex writing embedded within mainstream fiction - as opposed to fiction marketed as erotica - and centre around writers Miranda July, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Eimear McBride, and Maggie Nelson, whose work interacts with this enquiry.
2. A novel entitled Eyes Wide With It, which will attempt to integrate "better" sex writing - as explored and articulated in my critical enquiry - within an original work of literary fiction that subverts thematic norms around sex (as unpacked below), and experiments with linguistic formal play by blending poetry and prose. In Summer 2012 in Hackney, three young women, an environmental activist and her disabled mother, and a male teenage elective mute, find their lives colliding as an MI5 surveillance mission takes place in their street. Through these characters and events, I will creatively explore the ways alcohol and drugs, disability, race, and gender impact sexual behaviours. I will attempt 'gender transformation' by depicting sexualised bodies in ways that challenge the unequal power dynamics underlying intersectional inequalities, for example, through linguistic choices, narrative voice, and characterisation. My approach will draw on the experience I gained writing my debut novel Let Me Be Like Water Melville House, UK & US, 2018).
People |
ORCID iD |
| Sarah Perry (Student) |