Date of Award
Spring 2023
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School
Humanities
Committee Chair
Olivia Clare Friedman
Committee Chair School
Humanities
Committee Member 2
Joshua Bernstein
Committee Member 2 School
Humanities
Committee Member 3
Luis Iglesias
Committee Member 3 School
Humanities
Committee Member 4
Charles Sumner
Committee Member 4 School
Humanities
Abstract
SOFT GOODBYES THROUGH BROKEN VEILS meshes taboo content with innovative form in a series of linked stories that explores what it means to be a queer artist from the working-class South. As such, it calls to mind the speculative queerness of Carmen Maria Machado’s My Body and Other Parties, the formal innovation of Kim Fu’s Lesser-Known Monsters of the Twenty-First Century, and the raw sexual authenticity of Bryan Washington’s Lot. In the West Texas desert, a young, gay artist navigates relationships while creating art that comes to life through a tear in the veil that separates the living from the dead. What the artist creates becomes real in linked short stories, including those of a lesbian combat veteran dependent on her emotional support chupacabra in the Tennessee countryside, a nonbinary Georgia teen navigating the criminal justice system, and a polyamorous woman coming to terms with her mermaid ancestry on the banks of the river where she grew up.
Copyright
Clayton Bradshaw, 2023
Recommended Citation
Bradshaw, Clayton, "Soft Goodbyes Through Broken Veils" (2023). Dissertations. 2091.
https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/2091