University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Storied trauma: the violent chronotopic laminations of queer survivor narratives

Kapczynski, Alexandria Nicole

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130017

Description

Title
Storied trauma: the violent chronotopic laminations of queer survivor narratives
Author(s)
Kapczynski, Alexandria Nicole
Issue Date
2025-06-30
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Prior, Paul A
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Prior, Paul A
Committee Member(s)
  • Murison, Justine S
  • Rhodes, Jacqueline
  • Russell, Lindsay R
Department of Study
English
Discipline
English
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • Literate Identity
  • Queer Literacy
  • Queer Survivorship
  • Queer Trauma
  • Intersectional Literacy
  • Feminist Rhetoric
  • Queer Storytelling
  • Critical Autobiography
  • Queer Rhetoric and Composition
  • Writing Across Media
  • Queer Writing Studies
Abstract
This dissertation is a critical autobiography interanimating a queer feminist rhetorical/cultural analysis and critique in which I “de- and un- and re- compose” (Rhodes & Alexander, 2015) queer survivorship as a legible layer of literate identity. I attend to the blurring intersections of physical violence, identity-based-narrative violence, and public perceptions of violence against queer trauma survivors as discursive sites of disruption/becoming across time and space (Prior & Shipka, 2003). More specifically, I examine representative narratives of survivors who do not fit within culturally perpetuated rape myths and scripts (Hesford, 1999)— e.g., myself, Emma Sulkowicz, Melissa Etheridge. In doing so, I extend the project of queer rhetorics and composition by complicating understandings of dominant sexual assault discourse to account for the previously “unspeakable violations” (Girshick, 2002) of woman-on-woman sexual assault. A significant portion of this work is dedicated to examining how such violence rematerializes in various forms of narrative engagement upon circulation, reception, and participation. This work challenges normative categorizations separating personal, pedagogical, and scholarly lived-realities, positioning queer storying potential within multimodal composition across genre, medium, and discipline.
Graduation Semester
2025-08
Type of Resource
Thesis
Handle URL
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130017
Copyright and License Information
Alexandria Nicole Kapczynski, 2025

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Graduate Theses and Dissertations at Illinois