Shimmering Images

Eliza Steinbock is Professor and Chair of Transgender Studies, Art and Cultural Activism in the Department of Literature and Art, Maastricht University.

Preface. Call Me They vii Acknowledgments xi Introduction. Disjunction and Conjunction: Thinking Trans through the Cinematic 1 1. Shimmering Phantasmagoria: Trans/Cinema/Aesthetics in an Age of Technological Reproducibility 26 2. Shimmering Sex: Docu-Porn's Trans-Sexualities, Confession Culture, and Suturing Practices 61 3. Shimmering Multiplicity: Trans*Forms in Dandy Dust and I.K.U. from Dada to Data to D@D@ 107 Conclusion. An Ensemble of Shimmers 145 Notes 157 Bibliography 199 Index 219

"The greatest achievement of Shimmering Images is Steinbock's contestation of the status of the 'visible,' and of the attendant concepts expressed in the hegemonic Enlightenment insistence that to see something is to know it: 'visuality,' 'recognition,' 'knowledge,' and 'objectivity.'. . . . Steinbock leaves the reader with new tools for examining trans embodiment with(in) cinema." - Elizabeth Berman (Feral Feminisms) "Shimmering Images is often exquisitely poetic, evoking Roland Barthes's work as it describes the author's passionate investigation of media, mediation, and embodiment.... Steinbock's concept of shimmering images expresses how we thrill to certain mediated moments not in spite of, but because of, who we are and who we are becoming-in dialogue with the media that we encounter, that we seek out, and that shimmers in our lives." - Nicole Morse (Critical Inquiry) "Whether you are a cinephile, transgender studies scholar, or simply curious, Shimmering Images comes highly recommended to readers from a wide array of backgrounds." - Eva Theunissen (Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies) "Shimmering Images contains a rich and topical cultural analysis extending across time and across genres that is underpinned by a commitment to interdisciplinary research that will undoubtedly be of value for scholars and students in film studies, transgender studies, feminist theory, cultural studies, and queer theory." - Lieke Hettinga (Screen Bodies) "Offering insight into how systemic cruelty is mediated by culturally determined epistemes, Shimmering Images provides a practical framework for how we can interface with these systems, as trans people and trans-lovers, in potentially resistant or subversive ways." - Isaac Preiss (TSQ) "Tracing a history of trans cinema, Steinbock pays special attention to the cutting, suturing, editing, and projecting of desire. The concept of the shimmer is elusive and evasive, just as trans-inter-queer ontologies are notoriously difficult to pin down and define in any concrete, definite way. Steinbock provides a method of understanding these ontologies which embrace this promiscuity, and which allows for meaningful analyses and understandings in trans and queer studies." - Eli Anderson (Feminist Formations)