Re-imagining Trans': A Baradian close reading of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

Abstract: In this thesis Baradian theory is applied to a close reading of the novel Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl. The aim of the thesis is to examine how the novel can be read as a re-imagining of trans' becoming. The close reading of the novel is guided by an examination of the relationship between Paul’s affects and his corporal transformations, as well as an examination of two memory sequences. Through the analysis normative assumptions of an essentially confined fixed sex/gender binary is undone. Moreover trans' becoming is understood as an intra-action of material-discursive and affective processes. Memories are examined as spacetimes that constantly reconfigure who we are and what we become through the act of re-membering. In conclusion trans' becoming can be re-imagined as process, in which corporality, discourse, and affect equally come to matter, as they are inseparable intra-acting entities. Freeing trans' becoming from fixed notions of linear and binary sex/gender transitions, has the potential to envision a queer spacetime in which the material-discursive and affective properties of the body and mind are not separated or limited by an essentialist binary sex/gender system or cisheterosexist norms that assume a specific location of sex/gendered embodiment.