title: Reading "Rights of Desire" and "Rights of Opacity" in J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace.
abstract: This article argues that the novel Disgrace points toward a politics of illegiblity and opacity that aligns more readily with anti-identitarian queer theory instead of rights- and recognition-based human rights discourses. Through an extended consideration of the relation between national allegory, history, and legibility, I argue that the novel sustains two interpretations of the category of lesbian-first, the national allegorical reading that erases her rights of lesbian desire in the transmission of racialized and sexual historical debts and second, Lucy's refusal of legibility as a lesbian in the national narrative and legal structures.
authors: Department of English, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
authors: Alyssa Stalsberg
authors: AS
authors: Canelli
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D003906:Developing Countries; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D018452:Homosexuality, Female / Q000523:psychology*; D006806:Human Rights / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008093:Literature, Modern; D008297:Male; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011822:Race Relations; D011902:Rape / Q000523:psychology; D017406:Sexual Harassment / Q000523:psychology; D013019:South Africa; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*