“[R]eality, which during Dickens’s time seemed fairly stable, has broken loose from its old historical base, and the Age of Anxiety is truly more than a poetic conceit. Closed societies are now the flimsiest of illusions, for all the outsiders are demanding in.” (Ellison, 1986, p. 272)
The longer I have put off figuring out how to begin this project, the more it has come to feel like the project I should take on for myself. As Ralph Ellison wrote in his 1957 essay “Society, Morality, and the Novel” (revised and republished in his 1986 collection Going to the Territory), America, and the age of globalization more broadly, seems like it has become unmoored from any sort of identifiable base of understanding as to what it “is.” This is just as clear in the violence of the MAGA-panicked (mostly White) Boomer striving for the simplicity of values of the mid-1900s as it is for the imposter syndrome-riddled liberally-minded Queer millennial who feels at best ignored and at worst actively targeted.
As with any piece of exploratory writing, The Worst Century is first and foremost a personal project. As a Queer Southern American who came of age in the time of Queer as Folk; 9/11; the rise of the teen soap opera and the reality tv show; Hurricane Katrina; social media; and the election of Barack Obama, I have long felt overwhelmed by what it means to live at the intersections of my identity markers: How is one Liberal in the South? How is one Queer in the Bible Belt? How is one Southern while being liberally Queer in America? And how is one American in the world? (Caveat: I am first and foremost White in America and in the world, which comes with presumed and actual markers of self-actualization and privilege that cannot be ignored or go unaddressed as I have this conversation.)
Normally when I confront these questions, I turn to art as a means of escape from their consideration. (In fact, that is what I have done for over a month now since the conversations that sparked this project idea.) Instead, what I would like to do with those of you who will take the journey with me is to use art to answer those questions.
In my next post, I will outline the big undertaking that will be the crux of this project, but this will be a space of art generation and art criticism, personal reflection, and a common space for you all, whom I consider to be my social sphere. Besides Ellison’s thoughts, I have also read or am reading Italo Calvino, Jane Smiley, and Philip Roth, and I already have a lot of thoughts percolating.
At least from the outset, this space is a way for me to process thoughts, so it is not the kind of formalized, well-versed space of critique that I would want to require payment for folks to access. (TL;DR: No paywall on posts.) However, I am a poor little teacher, so I welcome subscription as a means of showing your support for me on a more personal level. If that holds interest to you, consider subscribing below for $5/month or $50/year:
Share with me below what art defines “America” for you or the way you think about your personhood experience within your space and time:
Until next time, this has been a dispatch from The Worst Century.
(Quick P.S.: If you are getting this thinking, I didn’t sign up for a newsletter called The Worst Century, this is a rebrand/relaunch of the Substack formerly known as Tasteish from @criticalgayze.)