Thesis Advisor: Hypatia Vourloumis 

July 2021

Abstract

How could we approach sensuality and desire moving towards an ecological project of trans* liberation? How would this change the ways we speak about living beings in both human and more-than-human worlds? A Fantastic Body explores trans* approaches to desire and sensuality, crossing through a creative communion with the world, mapping enchanted provocations for open and ecologically-minded representations of human and more-than-human bodies. Informed by ways in which trans* bodies challenge colonial and capitalist forms of origin, materiality, naturalism, species and sexuality; I explore the possibilities and limitations of transing* after the end of the world when the body has no end. Detailing trans* as a verb and its possible expansions, I build and unbuild upon a trans/sensual/matrix* of communion and communication against domination and extractivist thought. In this sensual crossing of matter and mattering, A Fantastic Body focuses on the sonic & textual body, sexuality, transfeminist* fluidity, (im)possibility, the imaginary and the fantastic, as troubled sites of desire and potential representations towards trans* liberation. A Fantastic Body takes a personal and experimental approach to perfom its own trans* remapping, building a web across queer, postcolonial and new materialist theory, ecosexuality, spirituality, pop music, feminist and continental philosophy, poetry and science fiction. Winding through open provocations, intersecting academic text, auto-fiction and poetry, I experiment in articulating intra-active relationality and communication. Writing a transfeminine* sociality of difference and relationality, I question what possibilities, limitations and languages emerge if the body had no end and no origin.