One-T(w)o-Many: Neobaroque Articulations of Nomadic Identity

This chapter explains how categorical identities are decentered and rearticulated as trans-identity by means of neobaroque mechanisms of representation. To this effect, we will apply concepts from the theories of Neobaroque, semiotics, and gender-queer studies to illustrate how transgressive characters-subjects, in their literary and artistic depiction, destabilize normative categories of identity and facilitate the perception of “transentity” as embodiment of transitive selfhood. Conceptual devices from these theories will help to explain how the use of transgressive modes of representation associated with neobaroque stylistic techniques (that include exuberantly ornate, parodic, metadiscursive, and experimental narrative and visual forms) achieve the destabilization of identity and the figuration of an alternative—nomadic—mode of personal and cultural becoming. The deconstructive techniques of the Neobaroque are further explained with semiotics—specifically applying Peirce’s mobile triadic sign—to demonstrate the fracturing and opening of meaning conveyed by the neobaroque sign/artistic work. The transgressions involved in neobaroque figuration of meaning pave the way to articulating the nomadic transitivity of the trans-self using concepts generated by poststructuralism, queer, Chicana, feminist, and border theories. These concepts include “devenir” or “subject-as-becoming” (Deleuze and Parnet; Deleuze and Guattari), “trans*” (Halberstam), borderland identity (Ruiz-Aho) in its forms of transvestism (Sarduy; Garber), androgyny (Echavarren), and queerness (Jagose). They situate the “nomadic subject” (Braidotti) in transitional “spaces of in-between” (Santiago) in its transit through “points of passage” (Perlongher) to ultimately experience the transformative effects of “nepantlism” (Anzaldúa; Moraga; Vivancos). In this chapter, we articulate these and other concepts related to metamorphosis introduced in Chap. 2 and apply them to the examples of transgression analyzed in Chap. 3 , with the ultimate aim of demonstrating the viability of a transitive selfhood embodied in the nomadic trans-self. The chapter ends with an assessment of the socio-political implications of Neobaroque art and literature in the hybrid space of Transmerica.