Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This essay critically reflects upon a performative autoethnography presented at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry in 2014; it also constitutes a continuation of a previous performative autoethnography presented at ICQI 2012, “Unseating the Myth of a Girl and Her Horse, Now That's True Grit.” In writing and performing this essay through the method of the textualizing body, as well as critically reflecting upon it here and now post performance, I find the process of embodiment offered through performance pushes me into a different understanding about the complexities concerning the cultural problematics brought about by “beauties, barmaids, and ballbusters” of the (old) West. The performative-I process revealed a simultaneous rejection and recuperation of these stock characters, revealing a futurity of gender possibilities though utopian performatives.

Keywords

performative-I utopian performative performance gender Westerns

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bammer

(1991). Partial visions: Feminism and utopianism in the 1970s. New York, NY: Routledge.

Barad

(2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning London, England: Duke University Press.

Bezzerides

A. I.

, & Edelman

L. F.

(Creators). (1965–1969). The big valley [Television series], Los Angeles, CA: Twentieth Century Fox.

Butler

(1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. New York, NY: Routledge.

Coen

, & Coen

(2010). True grit [Motion picture]. United States: Paramount Pictures.

Dolan

(2005). Utopia in performance: Finding hope at the theater. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Du Bois

W. E. B.

(1903). The souls of black folk: Essays and sketches. Chicago, IL: A. C. McLurg.

Goltz

D. B.

, & Perez

(2012). Borders without bodies: Affect, proximity, and Utopian imaginaries through “Lines in the Sand.” In DeChaine

D. R.

(Ed.), Border rhetorics: Citizenship and identity on the US-Mexico frontier (pp. 163–180). Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

Ham

(2012, March 16). Famous speech Friday: Annie Oakley's libel cases [Web log post]. The Eloquent Woman. Retrieved from http://eloquentwoman.blogspot.com/2012/03/famous-speech-friday-annie-oakleys.html

10.

Muñoz

J. E.

(2006). Stages: Queers, punks, and the Utopian performative. In Madison

D. S.

, & Hamera

(Eds.), The Sage handbook of performance studies (pp. 9–20). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

11.

Pollock

(2007). The performative “I”. Critical Studies↔Critical Methodologies, 7, 239–255. doi:10.1177/1532708606288649

12.

Raimi

(1995). The quick and the dead [Motion picture]. United States: TriStar Pictures.

13.

Spry

(2011). Body, paper, stage: Writing and performing autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

14.

Spry

(2012). Unseating the myth of a girl and her horse: Now that's True Grit. Critical Studies↔Critical Methodologies, 12, 482–484. doi:10.1177/1532708612457632

15.

Warren

C. M.

(Creator). (1955–1975). Gunsmoke [Television series], Los Angeles, CA: CBS Productions.

Beauties,Barmaids,and Ballbusters

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References