Touch Me, I’m Sick: Hysterical Intimacies | Sick Theories by Margeaux Feldman A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Margeaux Feldman 2021 ! Touch Me, I’m Sick: Hysterical Intimacies | Sick Theories Margeaux Feldman Doctorate of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto 2021 Abstract This dissertation develops what I call a “sick theories” approach to the long history of labeling girls, women, and femmes – and their desires – as hysterical, sick, pathological, and in need of a cure. My approach builds on the insight that repressed trauma can lead to chronic illness, which was discovered in the early twentieth century with the emergence of the figure of the hysteric: a girl or woman experiencing inexplicable symptoms, from a persistent cough to full body seizures. Drawing on recent work in trauma studies, I offer a new lens to disability studies by reclaiming the figure of the hysteric, who has been largely neglected in this field. By examining a range of literary and cultural texts, I trace new connections between those who are living with trauma, chronic illness, and pathologized desire, and develop a language for imagining new forms of community and care, which I call “hysterical intimacies.” Each chapter builds on my sick theories approach, outlined in Chapter One, to analyze a different sick girl. Chapter Two looks at Jesmyn Ward’s novel Salvage the Bones to challenge the state’s narrative that the pregnant Black teen is part of an epidemic and reveal new dimensions of state sponsored anti-Black violence. In recognizing teen pregnancy as endemic new modes of community care, that cross species lines, open up. Chapter Three focuses on Marie Calloway’s what purpose did i serve in your life and Catherine Fatima’s Sludge Utopia, which ii depict what I call “ugly sex” – sex that both repulses you and gets you off. In embracing this ambivalence, these women refuse to have their desires pathologized. Chapter Four compares archival photographs of hysterics with Instagram selfies by authors Esmé Weijun Wang and Porochista Khakpour to demonstrate how chronically ill women reimagine communal forms of care that reject the neoliberal valorization of the individual. Ultimately, this dissertation shows how trauma and sickness enable new forms of relationality and community. These “hysterical intimacies” make it possible to show up in a world full of systemic violence with all of our trauma and sickness and imagine better worlds to come. iii Land Acknowledgment The majority of this dissertation was written on Treaty 13 land, the traditional and ongoing territory of the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, the Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Toronto/ Tkaronto is part of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and various allied nations to peaceably share the land. The dish represents the Great Lakes and the spoon represents our commitment to sharing resources. It is no mistake that it’s a spoon, rather than a knife or fork, as a spoon cannot be as easily weaponized. Settler colonialism brought with it many weapons, including an investment in pathologization. In my dissertation, I seek to name some of the stakes of the continued investment in pathologization, and the impacts it has on girls, women, and femmes. But I do not talk about how pathologization impacts Indigenous communities, who experience trauma and sickness at disproportionately higher rates than settlers. The intersections of trauma, sexuality, and state- sanctioned violence, and their impact on Indigenous communities, must be named. I’m thinking of Joyce Echaquan, a 37-year-old Canadian Indigenous woman, and mother of seven, who died on September 28, 2020 after being ignored by doctors and nurses at a hospital in Quebec. Echaquan started a Facebook livestream, capturing nurses accusing her of being on drugs and telling her that she was would be better off dead. Echaquan’s death makes it all too evident that medicalized racism, with its investment in pathologization, is alive and well. It is our job, as settlers on this land, to challenge the ways in which this history continues to be upheld today. iv Acknowledgments I could not have produced this dissertation without all of the intimacies I have fostered over the years. Long before I had the concept of hysterical intimacies, I was practicing these queer, crip forms of relationality with my two dearest friends, Natalie and Variya. Through our intimacies, I realized that I could show up with all of my trauma, and, much later, my sickness, and still be loved and cared for. For that I’m endlessly grateful. To my PhD besties, Cristina and Katherine, thank you for encouraging me to be true to myself and my research no matter what, and for reading many drafts of the chapters here – and those that didn’t make it in. Thank you to my queer writing group pals, who said yes when I asked to form a little care web where we’d meet each week, share our goals and our frustrations, and then silently work together over Zoom: Lex, Morgan, Jess, and Tyler. Seeing your faces on the screen each week made these revisions possible. To my partner David, who affirmed me when I needed to step away from this project and who celebrated me when I stepped back in. It’s not easy to cohabitate with someone in the throes of finishing their dissertation. Thank you for feeding me, nourishing me, and holding me as I cried and wondered if I’d see this through to completion. And to my partner Jaime, who I met through the world of Instagram, for showing me just how much intimacy can be built and fostered online, in the midst of a global pandemic. You bring such soft hysterical queer crip magic into my life. Building a garden with you is such a gift. Thank you to my committee, who guided me towards creating a dissertation that is so much more meaningful than I’d imagined possible: my supervisor, Dana Seitler, who was with me the whole way through and who stepped in to take over supervision as this project was nearing completion; to Denise Cruz, who asked to remain a part of this project even after heading to NYC to take a position at Columbia; and to Naomi Morgenstern for enthusiastically joining us much, much later in the game. I’ve spent a lot of my time in academia feeling like a weirdo – but each step of the way, you celebrated me and this interdisciplinary, autotheoretical project. And to Alison Kafer, my external reviewer, and Andrea Charise, my internal reviewer: thank you for engaging with my work and seeing me in my writing. Your feedback has been invaluable. v And finally, this project wouldn’t be what it is without my hype squad of humans on Instagram. You made me believe that academic work could mean something to those outside of academia’s walls. You let me show up, in all of my messiness as the chronically ill, trauma BB that I am. Through your support, I saw just how radical it is to foster intimacy and community on the internet. Thank you for providing me with examples of the kinds of care that strangers can foster with one another. It is truly life-changing and life-sustaining. vi For Ida Bauer, Louise Augustine Gleizes, and all of the other hysterics of the past. And to all of the sick babes and trauma BBs now and to come. Together, we can build something so much more beautiful than what we’ve been given. vii Table of Contents Introduction: Touch Me, I’m Sick 1 • On Sickness 1 • Another Sick Girl; or, a Note on Methodology 5 • A Map Through Sickness and Trauma 9 • A Note on Taking Care 13 • A Final Thought 13 Chapter 1: Hysterical Intimacies | Sick Theories 18 • Dora: The Original Sick Girl 18 • Hysterical Intimacies 23 • Sick Theories 29 • Towards a Radical Politics of Care 36 Chapter 2: Pregnant, Hysterical, Sick: The Teen Pregnancy Endemic 52 • In the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic 52 • The Endemic of Sick Mothers 57 • National Narratives 63 • Sick Mothers; Hysterical Intimacies 70 • Webs of Care 81 Chapter 3: Ambivalent Desires: Ugly Sex & the Intimacy to Come 96 • Ambivalent Confessions 96 • Feminist Sex & the Problem of Ambivalence 101 • Ugly Sex & Anti-Hystericalism 105 I. The Marie Calloway Problem 111 II. Getting Off on the Sludge 120 • Intimacy to Come 125 Chapter 4: Hysteria’s Ghosts: Chronic Illness & Collective Care 135 • A Scene from the Sick Bed 135 • Invisible Illness & #HospitalGlam 138 • Sick Girls, Hysterical Women 147 • Sick Women, Blood Sisters 154 Coda: Soft Future | Future Templates; or, Femme4Femme Intimacy as an Act of 179 World Building Works Consulted 192 Copyright Acknowledgments 221 viii List of Figures Fig. 1 Margeaux Feldman, “Sick Girl Selfie.” 137 Fig. 2 Karolyn Gehrig, “What is #HospitalGlam?” 140 Fig. 3 Karolyn Gehrig, “I continue to practice #HospitalGlam.” 147 Fig. 4 Désiré Magloire Bourneville and Paul Regnard, Plate XXIV. Hystéro-Èpilepsie: Contracture, 1878, collotypes with letterpress captions. 147 Fig. 5 Karolyn Gehrig, “#HospitalGlam: Healthcare is a luxury good.” 148 Fig. 6 Désiré Magloire Bourneville and Paul Regnard, Plate XXIV. Attitudes Passionelles: Hallecinations De L’Ouie, 1878, collotypes with letterpress captions. 148 Fig. 7 Esmé Weijun Wang, “Today I was flattened by fatigue and pain again.” 169 Fig. 8 Esmé Weijun Wang, “My apologies for the deluge of IV-room selfies.” 170 ix 1 Introduction Touch Me, I’m Sick On Sickness On April 3, 2019, Lena Dunham, the star and creator of the HBO television series Girls, shared a photo of her new tattoo on Instagram.