Alexis Kapczynski will be presenting her research:
Storied Trauma: The Violent Chronotopic Laminations of Queer Survivor Narratives.
Abstract: My work takes up space at the intersections of physical violence, identity-based-narrative violence, and public perceptions of violence by, and against, queer women. Attending to the converging nexus (where these intersections overlap ) as a site of disruption and becoming, offers insight into the chronotopic lamination of intersectional literate identities and their discursive practices. This project uncovers the rhetorical layers violating queer survivor self-storying. It’s invested in critically considering sociopolitical dimensions of trauma and recognition. More specifically, my research explores the ways in which popular public discourse communities violently impose dominant normative standards upon the circulation, reception, and reframing of embodied queer trauma and its material rhetoric. A significant portion of this work is dedicated to examining how such violence rematerializes in various forms of narrative engagement.
Bio: Lex’s research emerges from an embodied rhetorical space and a deep commitment to multidimensional activism that: includes intersectional awareness/analysis; refuses rigid, biologically determined binaries of gender; uses a variety of forms, including narrative and testimony; disidentifies with mainstream rhetoric; exhibits goals that are dialogic and transactional rather than monologic and reactional; attends to marginalized audiences who may or may not have the power to address or resolve the problem at hand; uses vernacular and experiences shared with marginalized audiences; redesigns of rhetorical appeals, to include logos based on dialogue and understanding, ethos rooted in experiences, and pathos aligned with emotion; uses alternative delivery systems; redefines her own identity; remains unruly in form and content; asserts the right to speak and challenges power dynamics; tells the truth about her own experiences; writes the body; redefines what counts as evidence; works at the intersection of theory and practice; exhibits feminist resilience.