Published: 2024-11-13

“Hurry-hurry to Vermont!”: Joe Brainard’s Rural Refuge

Wojciech Drąg Logo ORCID
Section: biografie - świadectwa - konteksty
https://doi.org/10.31261/errgo.16301

Abstract

This article considers the many important functions of Joe Brainard’s summer retreat in rural Vermont: as a haven from city life, as an opportunity to spend time with his long-term partner Kenward Elmslie and their mutual artist friends and as a space to fully devote himself to work. Brainard’s representation of his summers in Calais, Vermont, is examined in the context of Scott Herring’s postulate of queer anti-urbanism and of the concepts of queer pastoralism, the homosexual Arcadia and rural idyll. The article argues that Brainard ultimately embraced both the urban and the rural instead of privileging either of them. The analysis draws mainly on Brainard’s autobiographical writings and on Ron Padgett’s Joe: A Memoir of Joe Brainard.

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Drąg, W. (2024). “Hurry-hurry to Vermont!”: Joe Brainard’s Rural Refuge. Er(r)go. Theory - Literature - Culture, (49), 137–153. https://doi.org/10.31261/errgo.16301

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No. 49 (2024)
Published: 2024-12-30


ISSN: 1508-6305
eISSN: 2544-3186
Ikona DOI 10.31261/errgo

Publisher
University of Silesia Press | Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego i Wydawnictwo Naukowe "Śląsk"

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