Queer Aesthetics in Select Sites of Rural and Urban Bengal

Abstract

The dissertation titled Queer Aesthetics in Select Sites of Rural and Urban Bengal: newlineContemporary Issues and Challenges, has explored the alternative , unsanctioned and newline stigmatised desires of the sexual minorities as examined through the cultural lens of newlineCinema and film documentaries, performative lens of theatre and dance and visual lens of newlinefashion as practiced and performed in the cultural location of rural and urban Bengal. These newlineinfinite and versatile desires as expressed through the liberatory medium of art and aesthetics newlinehave attempted to depict the hidden exclusionary politics and the hegemonic power structure newlinethat operate to perpetuate the self-proclaimed superior status of compulsory newlineheterosexuality , functioning as an organising principle. Queer Aesthetic Practices under the newlinerubric of Queer Cultural Study aim at restructuring the constructed notions and dominant newlineideologies governing gender and sexuality identity in particular and knowledge production in newlinegeneral. These personal narratives of stigma, pain, ecstasy, celebration, fear and courage have newlineunabashedly counterbalanced fluidity against status quo , evolution against fixation , newlinetransgressive against established natural and dynamic against static . newline