Using Freeman’s ‘Time Binds’ and queer contemporary literary texts such as Vuong’s ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Torres’ ‘We the Animals’ this cluster uncovers the correlation between queer temporalities and time binds in contemporary queer literary texts, offering insights into the processes of self-actualization. The aforementioned novels and other works of queer autobiographical fiction explore queer time by navigating both external and internal social achievements. This perspective, framed by queer temporalities and time binds, aids in understanding development and actualization of sex and gender within a societal context.
Freeman argues that chrononormativity was established to organize time in a way that situates human bodies to yield the most productivity. With the introduction of Industrialization came the desire to live comfortably; a negative lens surrounding queerness meant that to be queer did not correlate with living comfortably, therefore causing it to be looked down upon and avoided by many in society. The essays in this cluster use contemporary novels to expand upon Freeman’s assertion that being queer was, and still is not, validated by established timelines.
Based on Freeman’s history of the establishment of such normative timelines, these essays provide a critical analysis of time and its binding temporality in literature and illustrate how these narratives deconstruct and re-imagine both queer and heteronormative experiences manifested through the family, relationships, society and self-actualization. The essays in this cluster also seek to explore the linear and nonlinear measure of time as it unfolds the realities of queer temporalities to reveal not only the transformation of the protagonists but also their familial and social constructs and worlds.
The novels we discuss follow nonlinear narrative patterns, mirroring the ways in which queer people experience time. The essays therefore examine the relationship between the disjointed structures of the novels and nonlinear queer time. In this regard, hopefully readers are able to see the characters’, and by extension many queer peoples’ struggles to display and be proud of their identities in a world that does not allow room and/or time for them to be validated.
Within our cluster, each essay explores the nature of time binds as an avenue to master and experience queer identity. Each essay take painstaking care to explore the development of gender and sexuality through time binds as both a theoretical framework and a practical application in everyday life. Our essays focus on the novels On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and We the Animals each of which explore the developmental states of childhood and puberty, focusing on time binds as a way to help these children discover themselves as they navigate the world and social relationships.