Once upon a time, there was a story that began...

Welcome to the beginning of our journey! This blog is a space for students enrolled in ENG 6283 at Texas Woman's University in the spring of 2019. This iteration of Studies in Critical Theory focuses on narrative theory. We will examine narrative as a way of constructing and communicating knowledge, a mode of organizing and evaluating experiences, and a research tool for empirical study as well as textual and discourse analysis.

The views expressed here belong solely to the author of each individual post, and do not reflect the view of the instructor, Texas Woman's University, or the state of Texas.

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Queer Time is Filled With Sewing and Dying

“Everyone I knew was dead, dying, or caring for someone who was dying. Our friends died, we made new friends, they died, we made new friends, and they died, and it just went on and on.” - AIDS Activist Cleve Jones There's this idea that queer folx don't experience time the same way as straight, cis people. In her article " Queer Time: The Alternative to 'Adulting, '"queer novelist and scholar Sarah Jaffe suggested that "Queer lives follow their own temporal logic." As a queer person, I'd have to agree. We've never been given the opportunity to live time like the majority. How could we when we had to spend so much time sewing quilt squares because we weren't allowed to have funerals? We spent so much time stitching and stitching and stitching our friends' names, our lovers' names, our colleagues' names, and even our own names' into pieces of fabrics. In 1985, queer activist Cleve Jones came up with ...

No Calling, No Problem

I have no calling in a world where we all wonder what we're meant to do, who we're supposed to be. My mom called me the other day to tell me one of my childhood friends would be moving to my hometown soon because her husband had accepted a job with the Baptist church next door to her Methodist church. I don’t know why she thinks I give a shit about small town gossip or any news that concerns the church seeing as how she’s very aware of how I feel about organized religion. Nevertheless, she has nothing else to tell me because her world is much smaller than mine. “He used to be an airplane pilot,” she says. “Then why is he going to be a youth minister? How will they survive? Where will the money come from?” I ask, appalled. I know from my instagram that his wife is a stay-at-home mom of three. “It doesn’t matter, they’ll figure it out,” she brushes it off. “He has a calling to work for the Lord.” A calling. A goddamn calling. Half of my life, I waited for some fucking ca...

"You don't look like your dad!" Tales of Legal Adoption

"You don't look like your dad. You must be the spitting image of your mother!" or "Your brothers look just like your dad! I bet you take after your momma." I heard these statements a lot growing up. And it's true. I don't look like my dad. And for a while, I didn't really look like my mom. I do now, but that isn't the point. You see, my dad adopted me when I was around six or seven years old. He had been a part of my life, for, well, all of it. When my mother and biological father (sometimes I refer to him as my sperm donor, because I think it's funny, but his name is Chris), got divorced, my dad, Kenny, married my mom resulting in a blended family of me, who was biologically my mom's, and my two brothers, who were biologically his. Suddenly I went from being the only child to being the middle child in a family dynamic that takes a lot of explaining to do. They say divorce and the things I supposedly went through in my early childhood...

ENG 6283: Narrative Theory

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