“Going Beyond” Textually Translating the Changing of the Subject

Abstract

This article counter-narrates the centrality of texts in reconstructing resistances to the haunting presence of hegemonic masculinity and sexuality in boyhood and adolescence. Through our textual interactions we, two gay-identified men, growing up in different countries and continents recount how our reading encounters provided an Other location in and among the quotidian narratives of normalcy in which a queer hermeneutic emerged. In this article, we suggest reading critically necessitates reading intertextually in order to interrogate the macro/ micro connections and is a practice in which the wider social, political, cultural, and historic contexts frame the reading event. Reading critically, we suggest focuses on issues of power, transformation and signifies how textual interpretations allow for alternative visions of self to co-exist.