Syn-theses, Or, The Mechanics Of Oppression In Western Literary Criticism

Syn-theses describes the ways in which academics engage in and reinforce lines of oppression against queers and women. By analyzing the work of Gertrude Stein, alongside readings of paintings, Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous, and various myths of woman, this work modifies previous understandings of queer identity and liberation. Rather than support the body of critical work discussing queers and women, this work instead reflects upon how scholarship itself frequently forces queers to oppress themselves by refusing to meet and acknowledge the queer on their own terms. The brunt of the project fixates on the ways heterosexual readings of texts by queer writers simply do not function successfully to reveal or represent the identity of the queer writer present. Until the techniques suggested in this document are deployed, heterosexuality will remain dominant.