Abstract: This article analyzes the affective politics of rage and resilience in the novel For Today I Am
a Boy (2014) by Kim Fu. The novel explores the dis-identification (Muñoz 1999) of gender identity
through the protagonist, focusing on the rage, sadness, fear, and secrecy that function as the glue
holding the body together, but that also work to constrain the process of self-identification. The novel
is not the celebration of self-realization, nor is it the lamentation of a traumatized protagonist. Instead,
the narrative pays attention to the various ways in which non-binary, or non-normative gender identities
are marginalized, and to how the celebratory patina of ?transgressive exceptionalism? (Halberstam
2005) applies only to those whose gender identities work to ?redo? rather than ?undo? gender (Butler
2004) systems that, for those who do not fit within the mandates, are subjected to violent economies
of exclusion which are made manifest in Fu?s novel. Central to this area of inquiry is the way in which
the ?negative affects? (Love 2007) that circulate within the novel demonstrate a resistance to the ?happy
affects? (Ahmed 2011) prescribed by the promise of transnormativity. This article posits that Fu?s novel
represents a potential transgender subjectivity that derives its resilience from its vulnerability as an
unrecognizable social other.
Fuente: CLCWeb, 2019, 21(1), 4
Fecha de publicación: 01/03/2019
Nº de páginas: 8
Tipo de publicación: Artículo de Revista
DOI: 10.7771/1481-4374.3369
ISSN: 1481-4374
Proyecto español: FFI2010-17282
Url de la publicación: https://doi.org/