“I Am Not My Bodies:” Transgender Identity and Embodiment in Nina Arsenault’s The Silicone Diaries

Authors

  • Zaren Healey White Memorial University of Newfoundland

Keywords:

Transgender, embodiment, gender representations, body modification, autobiography

Abstract

This article examines transgender embodiment through analysis of Canadian transgender performance artist Nina Arsenault and her autobiographical play The Silicone Diaries (2012b). I discuss Arsenault’s life writing, plays, and self-portraiture to explore how her pursuit of an exaggerated ideal of beauty simultaneously subverts essentialist notions of what it means to be a woman.

This paper was awarded the second prize in the Women’s and Gender Studies et Recherches Féministes (WGSRF) Graduate Essay Prize competition in 2014.

Résumé
Cet article examine l’intégration transgenre au moyen de l’analyse de l’artiste de performance canadienne transgenre Nina Arsenault et de sa pièce autobiographique The Silicone Diaries (2012b). Je parle de la vie, de l’écriture, des pièces et de l’autoportrait d’Arsenault pour explorer comment sa poursuite d’un idéal exagéré de la beauté subvertit simultanément les notions essentialistes de ce que signifie être une femme.

Cet article a remporté le deuxième Prix de l’essai (cycles supérieurs) de l’association Women’s and Gender Studies et Recherches Féministes (EGFRF) en 2014.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biography

Zaren Healey White, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Zaren Healey White completed a Master of Gender Studies at Memorial University (2016), having previously earned a Master of Arts in English at McGill University. Zaren’s work has been published in Theatre Research in Canada (2013) and At The Edge (2012). She is employed as a Communications Coordinator at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

References

Arsenault, Nina. 2012a. “A Manifesto of Living Self-portraiture (Identity, Transformation, and Performance).” Canadian Theatre Review 150: 64-69.

___. The Silicone Diaries. 2012b. In TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable Body of Work, edited by Judith Rudakoff, 205-222. Bristol, UK and Chicago, IL: Intellect.

Brand, Peg Zeglin. 2013. “ORLAN Revisited: Disembodied Virtual Hybrid Beauty.” Beauty Unlimited, edited by Peg Zeglin Brand, 306-340. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York, NY: Routledge.

Cárdenas, Micha. 2012. “Introduction.” In The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities, edited by Zach Blas and Wolfgang Schirmacher. New York, NY: Atropos Press.

Davis, Kathy. 1997. “‘My Body is My Art’: Cosmetic Surgery as Feminist Utopia.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 4: 233-37.

Halferty, J. Paul. 2012. “Unreal Beauty: Identification and Embodiment in Nina Arsenault’s ‘Self-Portraits.’” In TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable Body of Work, edited by Judith Rudakoff, 27-42. Bristol, UK and Chicago, IL: Intellect.

Handley, Jen. 2010. “Preview: I Was Barbie.” Mondo, August 6. http://mondomagazine.net/ 2010/preview-i-was-barbie/.

Haraway, Donna. 2006. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” In The Transgender Studies Reader, edited by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle, 103-118. New York, NY: Routledge.

Newton, Alistair. 2012. “The Artist as Complication.” In TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable Body of Work, edited by Judith Rudakoff, 111-16. Bristol, UK and Chicago, IL: Intellect.

Prosser, Jay. 1998. Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Rogers, Mary F. 1999. Barbie Culture. London, UK: SAGE.

Rudakoff, Judith, ed. 2012. TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable Body of Work. Bristol, UK and Chicago, IL: Intellect.

Serano, Julia. 2007. Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Berkeley, CA: Seal.

Stone, Sandy. 2006. “The Empire Strikes Back: a Post-Transsexual Manifesto.” In The Transgender Studies Reader, edited by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle, 221-232. New York, NY: Routledge.

Stryker, Susan. 2006a. “(De)Subjugated Knowledges: An Introduction to Transgender Studies.” In The Transgender Studies Reader, edited by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle, 1-17. New York, NY: Routledge.

___. 2006b. “My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage.” In The Transgender Studies Reader, edited by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle, 244-256. New York, NY: Routledge.

Thomas, Colin. 2012. “The Silicone Diaries Reveals Nina Arsenault’s Quest for Plastic Beauty.” Georgia Straight.com, February 8. www.straight.com/arts/silicone-diaries-reveals-nina-arsenaults-quest-plastic-beauty.

Downloads

Published

2016-10-28

Issue

Vol. 37 No. 2 (2) (2016): Belaboured Introductions

Section

37.2 - Open

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

2. Authors are aware that articles published in Atlantis are indexed and made available through various scholarly and professional search tools, including but not limited to Erudit.

3. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

4. Authors are permitted and encouraged to preprint their work, that is, post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process. This can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Read more on preprints here.