Contents

Introduction: Situating Negative Aesthetics

1Apocalyptic Feminism: Negative Aesthetics in Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto

2Kathy Acker’s Fatal Strategies

3“The Remnant Is the Whole”: History, Trauma, and the Politics of Absence in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee

4Horrors of Power: Abjection and the “Monstrous-​Masculine” in Chantal Chawaf’s Redemption

5Suspending Gender: The Politics of Indeterminacy in Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body

6Becoming-​Girl/​Becoming-​Fly/​Becoming-​Imperceptible: Gothic Posthumanism in Lynda Barry’s Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel

Conclusion: From SCUM to Cruddy and Beyond

Bibliography

Index