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+ Published: Fri 25 June 0202
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+ By Filipa Calado
+
+In queerness .
+
+ My past two posts have been clarifying the concept of "untouchable"
+and how it functions in relation to queerness. "Untouchable" denotes a
+state of suspended knowledge (about queer subjectivity and
+experience) that allows me to then turn to feeling and affect as
+epistemological methods.
+ - First, I worked out a definition of "untouchable" as the raw
+ data about queer subjectivity and experience that cannot be
+ quantified. (later in the chapter, I will explain that in order
+ to engage (or “interface”) with this data, we need abstraction
+ and formalization.
+ - Then, I looked for analogies of the "untouchable" in other
+ fields (history and science) that display the impulse to verify,
+ correct, or recover. In literary studies, this impulse for
+ satisfaction is observed in “paranoid” or “suspicious” reading
+ practices, which attempt to find "hidden meaning" in texts in a
+ way that constrains inquiry.
+
These past two weeks, I've been working on the introduction, because
+it occurs to me that I need a solid definition of queerness before
+moving on to describe how queerness is untouchable. So I defined the
+core condition of queerness being "the desire for touching," a
+desire that is ultimately frustrated, deferred, or eluded (analogous
+to Jose Munoz's concept of queer horizon, the state of being "not yet
+here"). Being queer is, at its core, a desire for connection---with
+oneself or with others---that is continually thwarted by the
+oppression, categories, and heteronormativity of dominant culture.
+
The "desire for touching," without being able to fully touch, as the
+definition of queerness, is also where the digital and queer
+intersect. Digital media creates the illusion that we have access to
+data, to information, but all we have access to is a formalized
+relationship to that data. We encounter the digital object through
+mediation, through an interface, mice, GUIs, keyboards, etc. It is the
+same with queernes, which we can only engage within formalized or
+opaque structures---the formal experiments of queer writers.
+
I'm trying to begin the chapter with this meditation on the
+intersection of the digital and queerness. Right now, I'm doing so by
+providing a few close readings, right at the start, which define
+queerness as a thwarted desire for touching. In the example I've
+chosen, by Jordy Rosenberg's Confessions of the Fox , I use an
+evocative quote that characterizes sexual desire not on touch, but how
+precluding touch activates other sensations that are more physical,
+more intense, than touch. Then I jump to a hypertext novella, These
+Waves of Girls by Caitlin Fisher, and discuss how the narrative pull
+of clicking through the text enacts a desire for closure or
+understanding that is never fully satisfied.
+
It occurs to me now that I need to go a little more into the Waves
+example, include a bit of media archaeology, the formal and forensic
+(Matt Kirschenbaum) levels of materiality, and a bit about how
+hypertext works, to fully round out this point. I'm drawing a parallel
+between what Rosenberg is doing with refusing touch and what Fisher is
+doing by frustrating touch. They are both searching for alternative
+modes of connections, modes that active a fuller sensorium.
+
So the introduction might be structured thus:
+ - an opening statement on how touch relates to queerness and the
+ digital
+ - a definition of queerness as deferred desire for touching
+ - introducing two case studies that demonstrate how queerness engages
+ this idea of deffered touch in text and digital media.
+
After this introduction, which is only meant to pique interest and
+ set ideas into motion, I will move on to exploring the "untouchable"
+ state of queerness in depth.
+