Precious, Round, Shimmering Words: Atmospheres and Resonances in Non-Binary Creative Writing
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64966/rl.1845Keywords:
Creative writing, atmospheres, pathic aesthetics, non-binary identities, recognitionAbstract
This article explores how creative writing can accommodate non-binary gender experiences that exceed the normative intelligibility of language. Drawing on a free six-session workshop held in Viña del Mar (Chile) in 2024, it proposes an atmospheric reading of four texts produced by non-binary participants. Methodologically, the approach fosters a pathic experience, attending to the felt body and to the affective resonances that emerge in the encounter between text, author, and reader. The workshop was conceived as an artistic counter-device, prioritizing production and sensitive listening over the extraction of “data.” Theoretically, the work engages with studies on atmospheres and with recognition theory, shifting the focus from conceptual translation toward forms of atmospheric recognition that enable meaning without demanding semantic closure. The analysis highlights an affective polyphony that manifests as resonances rather than definitions. It argues that literature, by operating at the margins of linguistic normativity, creates niches of presence where the unintelligible becomes both sensible and shareable, offering an ethical, political, and aesthetic pathway for the recognition of non-binary identities, as well as a methodological criterion for qualitative research oriented towards affectivity.
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