Temporal Drag in Eduardo Mendicutti's Yo no tengo la culpa de haber nacido tan sexy

Abstract

This article examines Eduardo Mendicutti’s novel Yo no tengo la culpa de haber nacido tan sexy (1997) in the light of Elizabeth Freeman’s concept of temporal drag. It discusses how Mendicutti’s novel assembles outdated archives from Catholic mysticism and Spanish cultural memory, in which anachronisms dislocate the plot’s temporal coherence. Drawing on the novel’s camp aesthetics, this article analyses the ways in which the text conveys mystical experiences in terms of queer chronotopes. It also draws on Sara Ahmed’s criticism to examine how temporal drag generates queer dislocations which deviate from normative orientations. This essay proposes that temporal drag articulates subjectivities that exceed time’s normative coherence and suggests alternatives to the damages of hegemonic history.

Keywords

• Eduardo Mendicutti
• Temporal Drag
• Camp
• Queer Chronotopes
• Disorientation
• Temporalities