Thesis Advisor: Hypatia Vourloumis 

Thesis: A Fantastic Body after the End of the World when the Body has no End

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. 

Author Lou Lou Sainsbury