Aztlán Potentialities: Queer Male Chicanx Affect and Temporalities

Author

Ethan Trejo, Chapman UniversityFollow

Date of Award

5-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Ian Barnard

Second Advisor

Justine Van Meter

Third Advisor

Joanna Levin

Abstract

While there has been much critical attention paid to Aztlán, the mythical/historical Chicanx homeland, there is still work to be done in combatting the entrenched heteronormativity of Aztlán and of chicanidad more broadly. This thesis, born from my own identity as a queer Chicanx male, considers the potentialities of queer male Chicanx affect and temporalities, offering an affective turn as a resistance model to the heteronormativity that plagues the queer male Chicanx. The first chapter establishes a critical intervention in the field by putting Cherríe Moraga’s dream of a “Queer Aztlán” in conversation with the queer futurity framework that José Esteban Muñoz theorizes in Cruising Utopia. In considering Aztlán as a queer futurity, I theorize a model of affective potentiality that offers a hopeful working towards, a politic to strive for that can help us arrive at a queer-inclusive chicanidad. The following chapters consider the temporal and affective performances that arise through working towards such a politic. In analyzing Gil Cuadros’ City of God (Chapter 2) and Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Chapter 3), I specifically look at the affective and temporal models offered by these cultural productions. Notably, these cultural productions specifically address queer Chicanxs who are cisgender and male, so the potentialities observed in these texts are molded by this specific identity intersection. In the epilogue, I consider the personal need for a model that dismantles the continuous identarian negotiation often forced upon the queer of color. In examining such models of affective resistance, we can find a futurity to work toward. We may not arrive at this utopianism, this queer Aztlán, but we can certainly continue to try.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Trejo, Ethan. Aztlán Potentialities: Queer Male Chicanx Affect and Temporalities. 2021. Chapman University, MA Thesis.Chapman University Digital Commons, https://doi.org/10.36837/chapman.000249