Kennard, J (2021) The Theory of 'Queer Temporality' in The Picture of Dorian Gray and A Phantom Lover

Queer time," according to Jack Halberstam, "is a term for those specific modes of temporality that emerge…once one leaves the temporal frames of bourgeois reproduction and family, longevity, risk/safety, and inheritance."1

Queerness, then, for Halberstam and for the purposes of this essay, is the rejection of heteronormative institutions, sexuality, and conventions.2

It is important to acknowledge, however, that queer temporality is a diverse critical field, with many scholars presenting theories which "have questioned, reframed, and reimagined how we enact our relations to the past and the future,"4 collectively offering "heterogenous possibilities for queer timin

[!PDF|] The-Theory-of-‘Queer-Temporality-in-The-Picture-of-Dorian-Gray-and-A-Phantom-Lover, p.1

In resisting heteronormative institutions of family and prioritising of the future, Halberstam maintains, queer temporality capitalises on the opportunities available in "the here, the present, the now."3

heteronormative time is driven by "the institutions of family, heterosexuality, and reproduction"6 and prioritises stability and futurity: "In Western cultures…we create longevity as the most desirable future" and "applaud the pursuit of long life."

[!PDF|] The-Theory-of-‘Queer-Temporality-in-The-Picture-of-Dorian-Gray-and-A-Phantom-Lover, p.3

For Halberstam, queer temporality "expands the potential of the moment and…squeezes new possibilities out of the time at hand."

[!PDF|] The-Theory-of-‘Queer-Temporality-in-The-Picture-of-Dorian-Gray-and-A-Phantom-Lover, p.3

queer temporality outlined by Ben Davies and Jana Funke, to whom any temporality which opposes the heteronormative linear drive forwards is queer: "To be temporally backwards, to delay or defer the future, to expand or dilate the moment – all of these practices can be understood as resistances against a time that marches forward and connects past, present and future in a straight line."

I believe that, as well as embodying Halberstam's view of temporality, the novel also aligns to an extent with that of Davies and Funke, to whom heteronormative and queer temporalities are not binary oppositions: "It is possible…to experience both reproductive and non-reproductive temporal orders, synchronically or sequentially."