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Forschungsprojekt

Ungendering the Real: The Trans * Politics of Monsters in Brazilian Medicine, Literature, and Visual Culture

Dr. Janek Scholz (Universität zu Köln)

Dr. Carlos Halaburda (University of Toronto)

Ungendering the Real examines how the notion of the monster operated in medical and cultural texts to perpetuate and yet simultaneously resist coercive systems of sexual discipline and gender regulation. By studying a series of scientific and cultural sources, from psychiatry, criminology, and endocrinology to trans* memoirs, poetry, and graphic narratives, this research explores the multiple somatic and aesthetic constructions of the trans* subject. The project traces an ample genealogy that identifies a radical shift in perspectives of transness. Whereas in the twentieth century, the monster was a marker of pathology, contemporary trans* literature and visuality reimagine the meanings of monstrosity and trans* embodiment through a post-humanist lens. Based on an aesthetic reappropriation of ‘monstrosity,’ used as a leitmotif of body modification, twentieth-first century trans* cultural interventions refuse what we call in this investigation ‘cis-hetero realism.’ This critical perspective shows the interdependency of factuality and fictionality in medical and aesthetic representations of the experience of transitioning, either through cosmetic techniques, hormone replacement therapy, or surgery. Revealing these bio-aesthetic procedures of ‘monstering’ and ‘re- monstering’ will offer new methodologies to show the cultural trajectory of transness within the current scholarship on minority populations. 

Carlos Halaburda

Vita

Carlos G. Halaburda is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Victoria College, University of Toronto. His areas of interest include medical humanities, comparative literature, and queer theory. He was a fellow at the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut of Berlin, the Sexualities Project at Northwestern, and the Buffet Institute for Global Affairs. He has published work on the intersections of Latin American eugenics, fin-de-siècle queer literature, and dramatic arts in edited volumes and international journals. His research was awarded the Carlos Monsiváis LASA award (2022) and the Asociación Canadiense de Hispanistas prize (2022). His first book, Erotic Villains: Melodrama and the Twilight of Reproduction in Belle Époque Latin America, is in preparation. 

Forschungsschwerpunkt
  • Modern Latin American Literature and Culture
  • Critical Theory & World Literature
  • Nineteenth Century Studies
  • LGBTQ+ Theory
  • Postcolonial Thought  
  • Digital & Medical Humanities 
Publikationen (Auswahl)

Articles

“No matarás: los mandatos éticos del rostro en Soldados de Salamina (2001) y La sombra de Heidegger (2005).” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, vol. 45, no. 2. Forthcoming Fall 2022.

“Necrotopografías de la carne: poéticas anales y desvíos reproductivos de la psiquiatría finisecular.” El lugar sin límites. Revista de Estudios y Políticas de Género. Universidad Nacional Tres de Febrero, no 6, abril, 2022, pp. 123-140.

“Lunfardos: Queerness, Social Prophylaxis, and the Futures of Reproduction in Fin-de-Siècle Argentine Dramaturgy.” Latin American Theatre Review, vol. 54, no. 2, 2021, pp. 119-43.  (Awarded LASA Best article. Awarded ACH Best article, 2022).

“Governmental Fictions: The Naturalist Novel and the Making of Population in Fin- de-Siècle Brazil.” Taller de letras. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, vol. 66, no. 1, 2020, pp. 167-183.

Book Chapters

“Turn-of-the-Century Buenos Aires, a Capital of Queer Spectacles.” Literary Capitals in the Long Nineteenth Century: Spaces beyond the Centers. Eds. Arunima Bhattacharya, Richard Hibbitt, and Laura Scuriatti. Palgrave Macmillan. Forthcoming October 2022.

“El Sahara del Plata: el orientalismo orillero en Luxuria (1936) de Otto Miguel Cione.” With Daniel Balderston. Introduction to the re-edition of Luxuria: la vida nocturna de Buenos Aires. Universidad Nacional de La Plata, 2022.

“Tomás Michelena, atrevimientos y desagravios del fin de siglo. With Nathalie Bouzaglo. Débora: Novela original de Tomás Michelena. 1884.  Himpar, 2020.  Published.

“Reading Lessons with Primo Levi: The Survivor of the Gray Zone.” Essays on Witnessing Auschwitz. Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 2017.

Edited Books

Luxuria: la vida nocturna de Buenos Aires (1936) (Uruguay) by Otto Miguel Cione. Critical re-edition. With Daniel Balderston. Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2022.

Débora. Novela original (1884) (Venezuela) Critical re-edition. With Nathalie Bouzaglo. Bogotá, Colombia: Himpar, 2020.

2020  Michelena, Tomás. Débora. Novela original. 1884 (Venezuela). Critical re-edition. Co- authored with Nathalie Bouzaglo. Bogotá, Colombia: Himpar. Published.  

Translations    

2020  Braga-Pinto, César. “El sapo homosexual de Nestor Vítor.” Translated from the  Portuguese into Spanish by Carlos G. Halaburda. Taller de letras. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, vol. 66, no. 1, 2020, pp. 159-165. Published.

Auerbach Lecture

Lectosexuality: Pornorealism as Assisted Reproductive Technology in Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Kontakt

Dr. Carlos G Halaburda
Luso-Hispanische Studien & Kritische Theorie
Department of Spanish & Portuguese
University of Toronto 

Erich Auerbach Institute for Advanced Studies
Aufenthalt: 15.10.–31.12.2022
E-Mail: c.halaburda(at)utoronto(dot)ca